Rain continues to fall in Houston, Texas, a city which may see up to 50 inches of precipitation over a span of five days thanks to the aftereffects of Hurricane Harvey. Unfortunately, the continued flooding has been exacerbated due to some decades-long, head-in-the-sand urban planning, the history of which is detailed in this comprehensive ProPublica piece. (Spoiler: it turns out paving over natural flood zones with asphalt and concrete, as well as replacing the comprehensive root systems of switchgrass with the comparatively shallow root systems of suburban lawns, gives water few places to go.)
As devastating as current conditions must be to homeowners who built in the surprisingly quick to deliver "500-Year Flood Plain," Houston's drier future isn't looking great, either. Thanks to the Trump Administration's widespread anti-immigration policy, there's likely to be a significant shortage of construction workers to rebuild the U.S.' fourth largest city after flood waters recede, at least according to this Slate article.
As the article notes, "America’s construction labor force has undergone a sea change in the past decade. When the housing bust came, hundreds of thousands of roofers and other skilled and unskilled tradespeople were laid off. Because the recovery was remarkably slow, many went on to find work in different industries. Many construction workers had come to the United States (legally and illegally) from Mexico and Central America to work in the boom years, and in the bust years some of them went home. Others were deported. And in recent years, the flow of new potential workers has slowed down significantly. The result: As the U.S. housing and construction recovery has chugged on, it has become more difficult to hire construction workers. In June there were some 225,000 open construction jobs in the U.S., up 31 percent from June 2016."
4 Comments
While so many American businesses were generous during Harvey, one business, Gensler, the worlds largest architectural firm ($1.4 billion), asked the public for $75,000 to benefit ONLY their employees though a GoFundMe campaign. Corporate Pandhandling during a disaster? Inappropriate and shameful. These were not charitable contributions, they were, according to the IRS "gifts." Gensler needs gifts from the public to support their employees? Why?
Business believes in People-helping-Texans. Gensler believes in People-helping-Gensler.
https://issuu.com/solutione...
There is a giant pool of cheap labor just south of the border and no wall as of yet ... although I suspect Mexico may soon build one to keep Americans out.
Rebuilding a flood-prone area is an exercise in idiocy. Yee-haw!
Agreed, I had the same conversation with a professor of mine when the tsunami struck Japan on 3/11/11. We were both flabbergasted that the public's reaction to such a disaster was to rebuild in-place. Are you kidding? You don't have to be a rocket surgeon to know that the areas most affected by flooding were places that will obviously flood again. West Houston is basically a backwater for the swamps, and reservoirs that inundated them. Those were there before people built on that land, so who's to blame really? We shouldn't be talking about re-building here, we should be talking about re-thinking the way Houston is populated (density).
Japan is different in a number of ways not the least of which is a highly prepared civil infrastructure that routinely practices with for these kind of events. What struck me about the tsunami videos was that they are mostly taken from high ground after the evacuation and before the waves come rolling in. In Houston most of the vidoes are of people neck-deep in water.
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