Going up along Rawley St. just east of Gregg St. in the Fifth Ward: A row of five 3-story freestanding concrete-block townhomes from a company called Castro Novum. The photos were taken earlier this week — after Harvey storms had cleared out of the area. The homes are 2 blocks north of Lyons Ave. and back up to Union Pacific’s Terminal Subdivision freight-rail line. This one is furthest along:
Today Swamplot is brought to you by Houston’s own Central Bank. Thanks for being a Sponsor of the Day!
Central Bank has 4 (central) Houston branches available to meet your business or personal needs: in Midtown, the Heights, West Houston, and Post Oak Place.
Central Bank believes that change is essential to its success; the company actively pursues the latest in service, technology, and products. Central Bank aims to know its customers personally and to be their primary business and personal financial resource. The bank’s staff values relationships and strives to be available when you need them.
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Today’s the day a 48-ft.-long trailer-mounted 1MW Aggreko generator is expected to park on the Louisiana St. side of the Hogg Palace Lofts, a Randall Davis Companies rep tells residents. The goal: Power restored in all 79 units by the end of the day. But generator power won’t be going to elevators, corridors, or the building’s retail tenants (which include the Pad Thai restaurant on Louisiana). Those areas will have to wait until replacement electrical equipment arrives and is installed to restore permanent power in the building. References to a series of so-far-unsuccessful efforts to repair existing equipment are included in a series of emails sent to residents by the building’s management over the last 2 weeks.
The 8-story building at the corner of Louisiana and Preston has been without power since around 8 am on August 27th. “What we as tenants have been able to piece together is sub-level parking levels of the Lyric Center and the new Lyric Center garage became flooded as the bayou took a short cut down Prairie and took a left on Louisiana,” a tenant tells Swamplot. Water coursed into those parking garages down entrance ramps, then “made it under the street through vaults or conduits or whatever into the basement of the Hogg where it shorted out the electrical equipment.”
The Galveston District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has made public a set of interactive maps — normally used by emergency personnel — that show which areas along the length of Buffalo Bayou are predicted to remain under water or emerge from it as officials continue to release water from the Addicks and Barker reservoirs upstream. Individual interactive map panels cover each day from September 5th through the 16th, but as of this date all rely on data developed on Tuesday, when the maps were created.
The embedded version above mimics the view from a mobile browser; you can zoom in to view the projected water line on any street. To switch days, click on one side or the other of the panel at the bottom of the frame — or choose the date directly from the menu that appears after you click on the icon in the top left corner.
To view the map in its own browser window, click here.
SOMETHING POWERFUL IN THE CROSBY AIR 
This vivid description is included in the original petition of a lawsuit filed today against Arkema, operators of the chemical plant off the Beaumont Hwy. in Crosby — by 7 first responders injured after incidents there last week: “In the early morning hours of August 31, 2017, the first of several explosions occurred as a result of the abandoned chemicals heating up and igniting. Although the explosions had occurred, no one from Arkema alerted the first responders who were manning the perimeter of the arbitrary mandatory evacuation area. Immediately upon being exposed to the fumes from the explosion. and one by one. the police officers and first responders began to fall ill in the middle of the road. Calls for medics were made, but still no one from Arkema warned of the toxic fumes in the air. Emergency medical personnel arrived on scene. and even before exiting their vehicle, they became overcome by the fumes as well. The scene was nothing less than chaos. Police officers were doubled over vomiting, unable to breathe. Medical personnel, in their attempts to provide assistance to the officers became overwhelmed and they too began to vomit and gasp for air. Some of the police officers. unable to abandon their vehicles due to their weapons being present, jumped in their vehicles and drove themselves to the nearest hospital. The other officers and medical personnel were all placed in an ambulance, and were driven to the hospital.†[Houston Chronicle; International Business Times] Still image of smoke from fire after Thursday’s explosion: abc13
WHERE ARE HOUSTON’S FLOODWATER-READY HOMES? 
A reader asks: “Is there not a single architect in Houston who has envisioned a flood resistant home? Polished concrete floors with large area rugs instead of wood or wall-to-wall carpet? Waterproof material (instead of drywall) three or four feet up from the slab; removable of course so you can remove the wet insulation after the next flood? How much more do cabinets cost if they are made from marine grade plywood? Surely there’s a business case for a house that you can basically hose off and re-decorate after a flood, right?” Illustration: Popular Mechanics
The Houston Association of Realtors’ promised Harvey temporary housing mini-site went live yesterday. Unlike HAR’s main site of MLS listings, the new Harvey site allows anyone to post available properties — or at least to attempt to do so; each one must be approved before it is posted.
The association with Hurricane Harvey relief efforts provides a charitable aura to the site, but that may or may not be reflected in the by-the-week rental listings that show up: There’s no requirement that rents on listed properties be reduced — or not elevated over expected levels. You can sign up to post a property here. They can go up for a week at a time or for up to 90 days.
We’ve embedded a portion of the site above so you can get a quick sense of the locations and pricing of the listings that have populated it already, but the main site is more functional — it includes a sidebar you can use to filter results or show detail on individual properties.
Prior to Harvey’s arrival, Airbnb suggested to property owners that they might want to offer their homes as shelters to those fleeing the storm at little or no cost. The company waived its service fees for the homes, and provided a section of its website to list them.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: COULD WE BORROW BRAYS BAYOU RIGHT AFTER YOUR NEXT FLOOD, PLEASE? 
“. . . An undergound aqueduct probably won’t resolve the situation. However, this storm has made it pretty clear that having both Barker AND Addicks draining 100 percent into Buffalo Bayou may not be ideal. An addition channel that would allow USACE to divert some of the Barker outflow to Brays Bayou would allow for some flexibility.
While Brays DID flood during Harvey, the water receded very quickly, with the water back within its banks and falling quickly while Buffalo Bayou was still rising.” [Angostura, commenting on Clearing Out the Mold; Houston’s Drinking Water Close Call; The Floodeds and the Flooded-Nots] Photo of construction at Addicks and Barker Dams: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers [license]
HOUSTON’S NEW HIGH-WATER MARK 
It took a journey to the moon for Houston to become Space City, an NBA championship for it to become Clutch City, thousands of years of storm drainage for it to become the Bayou City, its emergence as a lower-cost alternative to New York, LA, and Chicago to become Discount City, an American League pennant run for it to become Crush City, a clever marketing campaign that plays on the city’s famous sprawl and lack of zoning laws for it to become The City with No Limits, and a Hollywood movie for Houston to become the preferred invocation preceding any declaration that “We’ve Got a Problem.” Now, amid the fluid aftermath of Harvey and the resulting flood of worldwide media coverage for the city’s latest historic high-water event, is Houston set to become known as . . . That City That Floods? “This ‘Houston Hang In There’ logo designed by Chad Ehlinger has become the go-to symbol uniting the city of Houston during this trying time,” reads a note posted last week to the Facebook page of Cactus Music, promoting the sale of T-shirts emblazoned with the mark, with proceeds promised to JJ Watt’s Houston Flood Relief Fund. (Hats with a similar charitable promise are available now too.) Like all great logos, Ehlinger’s badge of hope accommodates alternate readings: Is that a hand raising high the city’s initial in a defiant gesture of pride? Or someone hanging on for dear life as the floodwaters rise? If so, do we imagine the next step: a one-handed pull-up, lifting ourselves out of our predicament and into a drier future? What would it take for a new civic identity to emerge from the floodwaters — one that incorporates a more honest recognition of the city’s fundamental ongoing battle with drainage? A message of perseverance provides great cover. [Cactus Music] Logo: Chad Ehlingerm
Sponsoring Swamplot today: Axelrad Beer Garden, announcing A Week of Love, starting tonight!
A Week of Love is 8 days of Hurricane Harvey relief benefit concerts at Axelrad. Artists include Kermit Ruffins, Gio Chamba, French Kids, Miears, Velveteen Echo, JVS & The Bootleggers, George West, Handsomebeast, Mojave Red, Birthday Club, Squincy Jones, Dayta, Steph Cooksey, Pitter Patter, Nikkhoo, JERK, La Real Academia, Brother Boyer, Parker Luis Can’t Lose, The Tomes, DJ Jaycee, Let Me Remember, Lucas Maximilian, Fox Parlor, Crimson Criminal, and more. (The full schedule is posted here.)
All proceeds will go to the Greater Houston Community Foundation Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund, Friends for Life, the Cajun Army, BakerRipley, Open House Houston, and others in need — via Axelrad’s Youcaring Hurricane Harvey campaign.
Axelrad is donating 100 percent of profits for the week and matching dollar for dollar (up to $5,000) all funds raised through this campaign.
Axelrad Beer Garden is at 1517 Alabama St. in Midtown, next to Luigi’s Pizzeria and Retrospect Coffee, inside the Axelrad building.
Poster by Mobsolete.
What’s your company doing for Houston? Let Swamplot readers know — by becoming a Sponsor of the Day.
HARVEY NOW READY TO HIT GALLERIA THEATER A WEEK LATER THAN EXPECTED 
Opening night for Mary Chase’s 1945 Pulitzer Prize–winning play Harvey at the Jeannette and L.M. George Theater is now set for September 15th — just a week after its originally scheduled opening date was preempted by a downgraded Hurricane bearing the same name. The A.D. Players‘ brand-new playhouse at 5420 Westheimer, just west of the Galleria, did not flood and suffered only “minor leaks” from the storm, but in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Harvey the theater-ministry group announced a decision to postpone its season-opening production, which stars an invisible rabbit named Harvey. New executive director Jake Speck says some new “arts-access and fundraising initiatives” will be announced soon. [A.D. Players; American Theatre; previously on Swamplot] Photo of George Theater: A.D. Players
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE GREAT RESETTLEMENT 
“I suspect you’ll start seeing ‘Didn’t flood in Harvey’ as a selling point in future real estate listings, which will drive up the land values, and drive the poor out to the flooded areas (which is par for the course). It’s no wonder that happened, though. Many of the oldest neighborhoods in Houston are also predominately minority. And the oldest neighborhoods (read, first settled) are the highest points in Houston. After all, who is going to settle in a lowland when the ‘highlands’ are still available?” [Chris C., commenting on Our Place Never Flooded] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: TRUST, BUT VERIFY 
“My home didn’t flood, though a few blocks away, others did. I wonder if we could get a ‘Certificate of Nonflooding’ or some such official thing. I always laugh when I see a home listing with the words ‘Never flooded, per owner.’ Yeah, right!” [Gisgo, commenting on Metro Back in Service; Public Health Threats; A 12-Step Program for Houston’s Flooding Problem] Illustration: Lulu
By late afternoon on Sunday, August 27th, there were 2 ways out of several of the 3-story buildings at the Meyergrove Apartments at 4605 N. Braeswood — which back up to Brays Bayou in the southwest corner of the 610 Loop. There was rescue by boat (above) — from which you’d arrive to safety on a dry portion of the freeway:
WANT TO JOIN SWAMPLOT’S VIRTUAL NEWSROOM? Are you a talented writer or journalist interested in helping out with Swamplot’s continuing coverage of Hurricane Harvey’s aftermath in Houston — and all that comes next? Swamplot has begun opening its editorial backchannel to a limited number of qualified reporters and interns interested in identifying, researching, and developing stories for the site. If you’re motivated to participate, please send us an email with the subject line “Newsroom help” and tell us why. Also tell us your editorial superpowers, your current availability and work situation, and include links to any relevant clips. If you’re not a journalist but want to help out, please send your photos, videos, and tips directly to the Swamplot tip line.
