Tag: Disaster Aftermath

Disaster Aftermath, Quicklink, Renting

14 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: RENTING AFTER HARVEY “What if a rental tenant brings to the attention of a landlord that the sheetrock and flooring need to be replaced in order for the home to be habitable. Then, the landlord agrees and ends the lease, deems the costs associated with repair to be uneconomical and tears down the house. The family living there has no place to go as every rental property in the same price strata has been leased. What then? This is not a rhetorical question. I have TWO close friends with young children in this situation. Landlord wants to tear down the homes because repairs too costly. Both families have money to pay rent, but canâ€™t find a home to rent. Advice is welcome.” [Nice Neighbor, commenting on A Flood of Eviction Notices; Meyerland, Before and After; Here Come the Mosquitoes] Illustration: Lulu

Comments, Disaster Aftermath, Hurricane Harvey, Renting

Development Patterns

09/11/17 3:00pm

How About We Don’t Sell People Homes in Areas That Keep Flooding, and Other Crazy Ideas for Houstonians To Discuss Amongst Themselves

Disaster Aftermath, Flooding, Hazards

25 Comments

The headline suggestion in a 6-page policy paper published last week under the banner of Rice University’s Baker Institute comes in item 2 of a helpfully numbered list of 15 things Houston might want to do or think about to make future never-seen-this-before flooding events a little less catastrophic: Author Jim Blackburn, an environmental attorney, pioneering Houston-area naturalist, and longtime let’s-not-flood advocate, proposes a “fair but extensive home buyout and removal program” targeted at homes that have been flooded 3 or more times since Tropical Storm Allison in 2001: “It is unlikely we can develop strategies to protect them from severe rainfall events that are much more frequent than labels such as ‘100-year’ or even ‘500-year’ rainfall events suggest,’ he writes.

Among the less radical proposals put forward in his list is the suggestion to map and categorize the Houston region by its propensity to flood: “safe” areas that didn’t flood — and should therefore become “the backbone of the Houston of Tomorrow” — “transitional” areas (only “single-event” flooding); and “buyout” areas — which can be targeted for parks and “future green infrastructure.”

Other ideasÂ and issues from the paper that Blackburn hopes will “initiate a conversation”Â are summarized here:

The City That Floods

Development Patterns, Disaster Aftermath, Flooding, Hazards, Hurricane Harvey

09/11/17 10:45am

Why You Might Want To Think Twice Before Even Applying for an SBA Loan After Harvey

Disaster Aftermath, Government Agencies, Hurricane Harvey

Quicklink

1 Comment

WHY YOU MIGHT WANT TO THINK TWICE BEFORE EVEN APPLYING FOR AN SBA LOAN AFTER HARVEY As lines begin to form at the 3 new disaster recovery centers opened today at the Katy Mills Mall, Greenspoint Mall, and Baytown Community Center, people seeking assistance from FEMA or the Small Business Administration after their homes or businesses were damaged by the storm may want to know about a little HUD rule passed in 2011. Intended to prevent victims from receiving assistance for the same disaster from 2 separate agencies (which had cost the government $1 billion after Hurricane Katrina and the Midwest floods a few years later), the rule ended up going a little further than that: “Every dollar for which disaster victims are approved for an SBA loan is a dollar less they can receive from a federal grant,” reports Danny Vinik in Politico. “In other words, if a victim who is eligible for $120,000 in assistance is offered a $90,000 SBA loan, she can only receive grants worth $30,000â€”no matter if she accepts or declines the loan.” Complicating the issue for some: low-interest-rate SBA Disaster Loans can provide funds within a few weeks; any outright grants from FEMA would take much longer. [Houston Chronicle; Politico] Photo of ATM at Katy Mills Mall:Â Cindy D.

Bayous and Waterways

09/08/17 5:00pm

What the Harvey Flooding Did to Buffalo Bayou Park

Disaster Aftermath, Flooding, Montrose, Parks, Quicklink

9 Comments

WHAT THE HARVEY FLOODING DID TO BUFFALO BAYOU PARK “Please know that Buffalo Bayou Park was designed to flood, although we did not anticipate three historic flooding events in 1-1/2 years,” Buffalo Bayou Partnership president Anne Olson remarks drily in an email update this afternoon. So what’s the damage? “The bottom two thirds of the park are still under water, and we expect that they will remain so for several more weeks as water is released from the Addicks and Barker reservoirs. Due to these circumstances, it is difficult for our staff to assess the impact the flowing water has had on the footpaths and landscape in these areas. We do know that the Johnny Steele Dog Park, which is still submerged, will be closed for two or three months.” Water and sediment that flooded the Buffalo Bayou Cistern is still draining, slowly, but the electrical system installed when the long-hidden underground space was made available for tours and art installations appears to be working. The Wortham Fountain and the trail lighting system have been damaged, Olson reports. The Bayou City Adventures kayak kiosk at Lost Lake ~~and the Bike Barn at Sabine St.~~ has been shut down for the remainder of the year at least; areas east of the Sabine St. bridge are mostly still underwater. But Olson reports landscaped areas in the upper areas of the park, where trails have already reopened, survived with only a small amount of damage: “We are extremely fortunate that the Lost Lake and Wortham Insurance Visitor Centers did not take on water. Both facilities are open and the Kitchen at The Dunlavy is operating with normal hours. Food trucks also are back in the entry court at Sabine Street from Thursday-Sunday.” Update: The Bike Barn at Sabine St. has resumed normal hours as of September 9. [Buffalo Bayou Partnership] Photo: Adam Brackman.

77007, Buffalo Bayou Park, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, Disaster Aftermath, Flooding, Hazards, Montrose, Parks

Apartments

09/08/17 11:15am

It’s Generator Day at the Still-Dark Hogg Palace Lofts

Disaster Aftermath, Downtown, Hazards

3 Comments

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 toÂ 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, thenÂ “made it under the street through vaults or conduits or whatever into the basement of the Hogg where it shorted out the electrical equipment.”

Harvey Outages

77002, Apartments, Disaster Aftermath, Downtown, Hazards, Hurricane Harvey, Lofts

09/07/17 11:15am

Here’s HAR’s New Temporary Harvey Housing Listings Site

Disaster Aftermath, HAR, Online Resources

Online Resources

1 Comment

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.

Harvey Temporary Housing [HAR]
Urgent Accommodations [Airbnb]

Weekly Rates

09/06/17 1:45pm

Houston’s New High-Water Mark

Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing

8 Comments

HOUSTON’S NEW HIGH-WATER MARK It took a journey to the moonÂ 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 aÂ 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 . . .Â 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 identityÂ to emerge from the floodwaters — one that incorporates a more honest recognition of the city’s fundamental ongoingÂ battle with drainage? A message of perseverance provides great cover. [Cactus Music] Logo: Chad Ehlingerm

Disaster Aftermath, Names, Real Estate Marketing

09/06/17 9:30am

Harvey Now Ready To Hit Galleria Theater a Week Later Than Expected

Galleria, Quicklink, Uptown

No Comments

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 groupÂ 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]Â Photo of George Theater:Â A.D. Players

77056, Disaster Aftermath, Galleria, Hurricane Harvey, Theaters

Comments

09/05/17 5:15pm

Comment of the Day: The Great Resettlement

Disaster Aftermath, Flooding, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing

11 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE GREAT RESETTLEMENT “I suspect youâ€™ll start seeing ‘Didnâ€™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). Itâ€™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

Comments, Disaster Aftermath, Flooding, Real Estate Marketing

Buying and Selling

09/05/17 4:45pm

Comment of the Day Runner-Up: Trust, but Verify

Comments, Disaster Aftermath, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing

7 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: TRUST, BUT VERIFY “My home didnâ€™t flood, though a few blocks away, others did. I wonder if we could get a â€˜Certificate of Nonfloodingâ€™ or some such official thing. I always laugh when I see a home listing with the words â€˜Never flooded, per owner.â€™ Yeah, right!” [Gisgo, commenting on Metro Back in Service; Public Health Threats; A 12-Step Program for Houstonâ€™s Flooding Problem] Illustration: Lulu

Buying and Selling, Comments, Disaster Aftermath, Flooding, Hurricane Harvey, Real Estate Marketing

09/05/17 4:15pm

A Few Brief Scenes from the Meyergrove Apartments Rescue

Hazards, Meyerland, Public Safety

2 Comments

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:

Harvey Ops

77096, Disaster Aftermath, Hazards, Hurricane Harvey, Meyerland, Public Safety, Rescues

Ayrshire

09/05/17 11:30am

A Flooded Ayrshire House’s Parade of Visitors, in 4 Videos

Disaster Aftermath, Flooding

No Comments

After Harvey hit, 2 and a half ft. of water coursed through the Adams family’s single-story home off Stella Link just north of Brays Bayou. In the video above, Tony Adams gives a tour of what was left after a dozen volunteers from Redemption Church on Timberside Dr. spent 4 hours last Thursday clearing it out and depositing the family’s ruined possessions by the curb.

Then on Sunday, more visitors came by:

Clean Break

77025, Ayrshire, Disaster Aftermath, Flooding, Hurricane Harvey, Mucking

09/04/17 2:00pm

At Home on South Braeswood After Harvey, Drying Out the Soggy Family Pics

Meyerland

4 Comments

Here’s an inside view of the aftermath and cleanup inside the Pool family’s 1964 Meyerland Mod on the south bank of Brays Bayou near S. Rice Ave. — from the point of view of the owners’ son-in-law, October Popular Mechanics coverboy Casey Neistat. Includes a few signature Neistat drone shots of recovering areas (he only arrived on Thursday), a view of damage in Friendswood, and a focus on the cleanup work of Team Rubicon.

Video: Casey Neistat

Meyerland Goes YouTube

77096, Disaster Aftermath, Hurricane Harvey, Meyerland, Videos

09/04/17 10:45am

Our Place Never Flooded