PARK PLACE APARTMENT FIBERFEST Workers from Inland Environments will be taking “extra precautions” with the demolition of 4 apartment buildings at the corner of Park Place and Telephone Rd., the mayor’s office promises. There’s plenty of asbestos to go around in the Park Place Apartments at 7410 Park Place Blvd., but the buildings, which have been sitting vacant for 20 years, aren’t considered structurally sound enough for the asbestos to be removed. A bankruptcy filing by the owner last week delayed the city-ordered demolition, but it’s now scheduled to begin at 9 this morning. Update, 2:10 pm: Now there’s video! And the dust is flying. [Mayor’s Office; previously on Swamplot]
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Tag: Hazards
Just how big is the South Grand at Pecan Grove apartment complex in Richmond? Well, moving from one side of the complex to the other can cost you just south of $8 grand — and maybe a little hospitalization. Tentra Allen’s moving adventure last weekend began after she responded to a little Craigslist ad and signed a little contract with the moving company that showed up:
. . . Before unloading things, Andy said Allen had to pay the bill: $7,684. That included 35 units of shrink wrap for $2,800 and a “long walk†that cost $4,300.
Allen said Andy whipped out the contract, which said all previous verbal agreements were null and void and laid out a menagerie of outrageous charges in the fine print.
“If you don’t pay, we’re taking everything to Maine,†he threatened.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN HOUSTON WAS RIGGED “The Astrodome is ~1 mile north of the old Pierce Junction Oil Field. Most of the area is industrial, but there are homes along the perimeter of the field where Glenn McCarthy, who later built the Shamrock Hotel, made his first millions. Here’s a link to a 1956 TIME magazine article about the field and issues regarding growth of Houston versus industrial development. If anyone reads the article, I believe the dump it refers to is now a golf course. There are methane candy canes all around it. This is to say nothing of the Humble area. If anyone can find any old aerial photos of Humble online, let me know. I’ve seen them in the past and would like to do an overlay of current use versus prior use.” [J Wilson, commenting on House Shopping in the Chemical Discount Zones: Finding Houston’s Less-Toxic Neighborhoods]
Playing around with a super-fun online tool that lets you superimpose the blobbish outline of the 2500-sq.-mile (and growing!) Gulf of Mexico oil slick from the Deepwater Horizon offshore-rig disaster onto various cities, Houstonist editor Marc Brubaker tries it on Houston — for size.
“It’s almost creepy how the slick follows I-10 out to Beaumont,” he comments. Of course, Brubaker should have nudged the oily blob a bit more to the east. Sure, he might have lost a few of those shiny exploration-company offices that have fled to the western stretches of Katy that way, but you’d be picking up lots of fun storage tanks and chug-chugging industrial plants at the northern reaches of Galveston Bay, and you’d get better coverage of Texas City, too.
Oh — but the outline is only up to date as of May 6th? Maybe we’ve got full coverage by now, then!
- Slicky Situation: The Deepwater Horizon Spill’s Actual Size [Houstonist]
- How big is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill? [Paul Rademacher]
Image: Houstonist
So what was the cause of all the hullabaloo over at Fire Station 16 at the corner of Richmond and Dunlavy that caused fire department officials to close it down for a few days earlier this month? A source told Swamplot on April 2nd that the building likely had foundation problems and was close to collapsing. Here’s what firefighters spotted:
HOUSTON’S DAY OF DESTRUCTION IS LESS THAN 2 MONTHS AWAY Grab your front-end loaders and join the fun! From Mayor Parker’s Wednesday State of the City address: “As part of my desire to make our neighborhoods safer, I am declaring Demolition Day in Houston. 200 abandoned, dangerous buildings and crack houses located across this city will come down on this day, targeted for May 22nd. This would not be possible without the help of the Houston Contractors Association, which is donating the demolition services for this effort. It’s a win-win-win: good for neighborhoods, good for public safety and good for public health.” [Mayor’s Office, via Swamplot commenter Matt]
BREAKING FIRE STATION NEWS The upper floor of the fire station at the corner of Richmond and Dunlavy in Montrose buckled today and the building is close to collapsing, a source with second-hand knowledge of the situation tells Swamplot. Problems with the foundation of the 1979 structure were reportedly complicated by the removal of a building column some time in the past. An engine, ladder, 2 ambulances, and an EMS supervisor are being relocated to nearby facilities and the station will be “closed indefinitely,” reports the source. Station 16 covers the greater Montrose area, roughly from Kirby to Spur 527 and from Bissonnet to West Dallas. [Swamplot inbox]
THE ALLEN PARKWAY SPEED TRAP 
“Traffic accidents increased 47 percent and injuries 154 percent on Allen Parkway last year even as the number of motorists ticketed for speeding continued a lengthy and significant decline on the near-downtown roadway, according to police and municipal court records. . . .
Houston police, who were unaware of the drop in speeding tickets until asked by the Houston Chronicle and were at a loss to explain them, said they will begin a weeklong study today of motorists’ speeds on Allen Parkway. If high rates of speeding are detected, an enforcement blitz with radar units will begin, said Capt. Carl Driskell, who heads HPD’s traffic enforcement division.” [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Flickr user Lee Ann L.
AT HOME WITH THE WILDLIFE IN WATERBROOK WEST A relaxing, light-suburban lifestyle with plentiful opportunities for hunting and re-landscaping — who says you can’t have it all in Fort Bend County? “Within the past five [months], Missouri City began a program to attempt to decrease the number of hogs in the Waterbrook West community after hearing complaints from several residents. The city authorized two independent contractors to work in the area to trap in the neighborhood and the surrounding property, and other properties as access is granted. So far, 60 hogs have been caught and removed. Unfortunately, the animals breed so quickly those 60 will likely soon be replaced with 60 more. According to Michael Weiss, a State Game Warden with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Law Enforcement Division, the hogs have two or three litters per year, and the babies are ready to breed at around one year. . . . The animals are considered ‘exotic’ and not a native game animal in Texas, so they can be hunted year-round and there is no limit to the number hunters can kill. Weiss said the feral hogs are intelligent enough that once one or two are caught in a trap, others tend to leave that area. He also said that although the hogs are generally afraid of people, if cornered they can be aggressive – especially a cornered sow with her litter. When Weiss started his career 25 years ago, he said he only saw the problem in certain areas of the state. Now, he said, there isn’t a county in Texas that doesn’t have the wild pigs roaming around and creating a nuisance. ‘When people go and do landscaping, the hogs love to come tear it up and search for food,’ said Weiss. ‘I don’t know what the solution is. There’s not one, really.’†[Fort Bend Now]
And now, from Swamplot’s “tips” line, a reader’s brief personal testimonial for the Houston Service Helpline:
Seems like the folks who read your blog are motivated and want the best for the city (whatever that means to them). You can call 3-1-1 or (713) 837-0311 or my preference is the “web intake form” – clunky, but thorough. They send you e-mail with incident #, so you can call a representative and follow up. There are drop-down menus to request the type of service you want.
I’ve used the Houston 3-1-1 system a couple of dozen times to report:
- Stray pit bull
- Potholes (city is VERY responsive – normally fixed within 1 or 2 weeks, sometimes a day or two) They forward pothole/right-of-way concerns about freeways and frontage roads to TX-DOT, I think. For example, I called in several potholes on stretch of 59 frontage road near Lakewood. Within 10 days there were temporary asphalt patches (in concrete roadway). Within 3 weeks these had been cut out and replaced with concrete patches!
- Streetlights burnt out (very quick) or always on (not as quick) – I believe they forward these requests to Reliant or Centerpoint – all you need is the 6-digit # on the side of the pole
- Faded/worn off lane stripes and intersection markings @ westpark and weslyan – repainted within 6 weeks
- Broken water main under street – slow fix
- Replace speed limit sign that had fallen down – took 2-3 tries
HAZARDS OF THE WEST LOOP Except for a memorable afternoon of standstill traffic — and the maybe 1,500 gallons of gasoline that made their way through storm sewers to Galveston Bay — no major disaster resulted from that tanker spill 2 Fridays ago on Bellaire Blvd. below the West Loop. That’s better than the last time: “[L]ongtime residents of the area remember an incident in May 1976 when a truck carrying anhydrous ammonia slammed into a bridge railing on the connector from the West Loop to the southbound Southwest Freeway and fell onto the freeway below. Of those within 1,000 feet of the spill, six people died, 78 suffered serious injuries and 100 more were treated for their exposure. That tragedy played out only about a mile from the site of Friday’s accident. Thirty-four years after that terrible day, nothing has changed. The poorly engineered West Loop, as it approaches the 59, is one of the worst sites for accidents in the U.S. — yet it is also designated pathway for some of the most hazardous cargo in the world. More is transported on the vulnerable tracks that run through southwest Houston, divide West University and Bellaire, skirt along Afton Oaks, River Oaks and Memorial Park.” [West University Examiner]
THE LINGERING SOUNDS OF SELLING BY THE FREEWAY 
Almost a week after the daylong feeder road-side furniture sale they held on the abandoned grounds of the former Landmark Chevrolet next to I-45 North near the West Gulfbank exit, wacdesignstudio designers and guerrilla marketers Scott Cartwright and Jenny Lynn Weitz-Amaré Cartwright were still feeling the effects: “We were there for nine hours, thankfully it was cloudy… but the sound pollution really affected one of us to the point that even today our head and bodies still hurt… can you imagine how hard of a job road workers have when building or fixing the streets?” [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot]
LUXURY APARTMENT OPENINGS Eight years into it, Leon Hale still isn’t entirely accustomed to his fancy just-inside-the-West Loop highrise apartment: “I mean in all the other places I’ve lived I washed the windows myself, if they ever got washed. And I admit I’ve never gotten used to having doors opened for me. I’ve always been pretty well able to open doors for myself. But door-opening is the custom here, and who knows? Someday I might get so feeble I’ll need such help. That’s not one of my goals, though. In other ways life here is a lot the same as in several apartments I’ve lived in. Little things happen that usually don’t happen in free-standing homes. For instance, the apartment just below us is being renovated, and the other day somebody was drilling a hole in the ceiling down there. He drilled too far and punched a hole in our kitchen floor, right up through the tile, in front of the dishwasher.” [Houston Chronicle]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WE’RE FROM THE TEXAS MEDICAL CENTER AND WE’RE HERE TO HELP “Given all the refineries, industrial plants, chemical plants, railroads, stagnant swamps and cesspools, traffic pollution, and the like that plague this hellhole of a town, it is a freaking wonder that Houston doesn’t lead the nation in cancer cases.” [Random Poster, commenting on Today’s Odor in Baytown Is Brought to You by ExxonMobil]
TODAY’S ODOR IN BAYTOWN IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY EXXONMOBIL The most recent smell, of rotten eggs, has been claimed by the folks at ExxonMobil’s Baytown Refinery. Fortunately, local news outlet Reuters UK is on the story, filing one of the few reports on the incident, which we quote here in full: “Exxon Mobil said Wednesday there was an operational issue at its 562,500 barrel-per-day refinery in Baytown, Texas but gave no details as to the scope and units involved. ‘I can tell you there was no impact to production,’ said Kevin Allexon, a spokesman for the company.” [Reuters UK]