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SE Texas: Hurricane/TS Harvey is here. And still here. Check local alerts & stay safe

Patrons at the library I work at in Austin are all freaking out about gas shortages. Is gas expected to dry up at pumps? Or are people here in 512 being alarmist? Pumps in a 5 mile radius either have a line of cars 40 deep, or are completely out.

EDIT: Oh shit. Just read the rest of the thread.
 
Funny story that. Dallas had a great public transportation back in the 1940s 1950s until it was decided that the way of the future is going to be through the freedom of automobiles. So they ripped up pretty much all the trolley tracks/light rail they ripped up All the old buses and what not and started building highways because that was the way the future. That and Colonies on the moon

The story of pretty much every American city unfortunately. We're 50 years behind where we should be up here in Seattle, partly because they tore up 95 percent of the existing infrastructure in the 50s and partly because voters in the 70s voted down a mass transit bill because "they didn't want people moving to Seattle." Well people did move here and now we have to build the system at 10 times the price while dealing with crippling gridlock 10 hours a day. At least our bus infrastructure is actually pretty good.
 

Zoe

Member
Patrons at the library I work at in Austin are all freaking out about gas shortages. Is gas expected to dry up at pumps? Or are people here in 512 being alarmist? Pumps in a 5 mile radius either have a line of cars 40 deep, or are completely out.

EDIT: Oh shit. Just read the rest of the thread.

Yeah, the Sam's near our house (Lakeline) has really bad lines. Price was 1.97 a week ago, now 2.15.
 

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
We won't run out of gas but you'll see stations run out periodically and prices will increase. Not sure about the peak but I'm guessing 3 to 4 dollars. As refineries that took minor damage restore output and prices will go down but some were severely damaged so well probably see a 30 cent permanent increase for a year or 2.
 
The story of pretty much every American city unfortunately. We're 50 years behind where we should be up here in Seattle, partly because they tore up 95 percent of the existing infrastructure in the 50s and partly because voters in the 70s voted down a mass transit bill because "they didn't want people moving to Seattle." Well people did move here and now we have to build the system at 10 times the price while dealing with crippling gridlock 10 hours a day. At least our bus infrastructure is actually pretty good.

I remember a story, probably apocryphal, about a city planner/engineer who very early on (like 1940s) suggested that Seattle buy enough land for an 8-lane highway to accommodate for long-term population growth and they got laughed out of office because nobody thought Seattle could possibly grow that much.
 
This the main Harvey thread?

One of the bands passed through Alabama and a tornado came really close to the city I work in. Literally a stone's throw west. Wew.
 

Tovarisc

Member
du8dQzR.png

https://twitter.com/PennStateIFC/status/902970410404372480
 

Zeke

Member
My sister called to tell me about the ridiculous gas lines going on around town. People are losing their minds, hopefully u can top off my tank tonight when i get out. :/
 

geomon

Member
My sister called to tell me about the ridiculous gas lines going on around town. People are losing their minds, hopefully u can top off my tank tonight when i get out. :/
People always freak out when they hear shit like gas shortages happening. Wouldn't be surprised to see some people filling up gas cans and shit to try to sell it.
 

fenners

Member
North Austin/Round Rock's gas stations were empty. Got some at the local station to our neighbourhood. Lines, but everything was friendly & moving. Was on fumes at the station - I'd been planning to fill up tonight anyway before all this craziness.

Worth noting that our neighbourhood FB group had freaked out about that station having nothing but unleaded earlier in the day. They had all but diesel in stock in the evening. Who knows what's going on.
 

Mobius 1

Member
This is a prelude to climate change crisis. I hope people are taking note of how fragile the threads of our society are, and that it won't take much to unravel it all.

Just think about another storm of similar magnitude in tue next couple of years. Or next year. Or even this season.
 

Zeke

Member
Apparently there isn't an actual shortage people are just dumb and bum rushing gas stations because of rumors of a shortage. This is from local news station KSAT. Railroad Commisson chairman and Commissioner Sitton also saying the same thing. God damn morons causing traffic jams.
 

jmdajr

Member
Apparently there isn't an actual shortage people are just dumb and bum rushing gas stations because of rumors of a shortage. This is from local news station KSAT. Railroad Commisson chairman and Commissioner Sitton also saying the same thing. God damn morons causing traffic jams.
Figures
 
They're really good? My co-worker and I were just talking about them today, and we were both kind of wary cause they seemed like a gas station restaurant.

I've had Marco's down in Florida, and they are pretty damn good. I would rather have them over all the other pizza places.
 

Mokoi

Banned
I live about 3-4 miles north of the city line in north-central SA and the two gas stations by my house were all sold out. The Exxon had a huge line for the diesel pump which was the only one still going.

Really glad I filled up both of my vehicles in the last 2 days.

Got off work late and damm everywhere is sold out from the southside to downtown SA. Never seen something like this before.
 

naib

Member
Was wondering what the lines for has were about. Then GF texted me to fill up.
I'm usually the one listening the the news but it's been a spotify kinda day.

Found a station with one nice orderly entrance and managed to fill up.
The rest on the way home were empty. Sold out.
 

geomon

Member
Current situation for the water pump for my city(Beaumont). No time frame on when they can enter it to fix it



PIctures taken about 2-3 years ago of what's inside

Flooded in

All of those pumps will have to be broken down and cleaned or replaced. All of the control boxes (assuming they're submerged) will need to be replaced completely. What a nightmare.
 
All of those pumps will have to be broken down and cleaned or replaced. All of the control boxes (assuming they're submerged) will need to be replaced completely. What a nightmare.

My poor town will probably be without water for over a month+ :(. If by Wednesday or Thursday they say Irma is coming...I'm going my ass to Dallas ._.
 
So Muslims are opening doors for the victims

For Ashraf, who is the chairwoman of a committee for the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, that involved helping turn at least five area mosques into shelters. As the storm hit and the flooding ensued, the mosques have been providing cots and food to displaced people who may have otherwise never stepped foot inside.

“That’s the beautiful thing to see,” Ashraf told HuffPost. “A lot of people in [the group’s] leadership ― myself included ― have homes completely flooded but are still trying to organize to help the community. Some of our volunteers still set up shop on the second story of their flooded house.”

“If people were here, they’d realize there were safety issues,” Osteen said Wednesday. “We were just being precautious, but the main thing is the city didn’t ask us to become a shelter then.”
 
I remember a story, probably apocryphal, about a city planner/engineer who very early on suggested that Seattle buy enough land for an 8-lane highway to accommodate for long-term population growth and they got laughed out of office because nobody thought Seattle could possibly grow that much.

They literally cannot expand the highway going through downtown because it's surrounded by buildings. The only way our traffic problems are going to be solved is if we make a massive investment into expanded our mass transit system, which we are starting to do. We just passed a huge bill last fall to expand our light rail system and add a bunch of BRT. They're going to be adding ~100 miles of light rail over the next 20 years, but surprise surprise, the republicans in the state are already trying to kneecap the expansion in any way that they can.
 
I don't see much of anything on the map? Are the green areas you can zoom in suppose to be affected areas?
It takes zooming in a lot to see the massively wide areas around Houston that are covered with water, and this is only one part of the area! It looks so normal that it's hard to believe how many neighborhoods are involved. This is focused on the area around those two reservoirs, specifically, and I'm sure they'll keep adding more in the coming days.

Random trivia: Google Earth first exploded in popularity right after Katrina in 2005 where they had multiple high-res image sets of NOLA you could compare. Digital aerial imagery for commercial use has been a thing for longer than that of course, but this was the first instances of quickly handing out a huge amount of it to the general public. It was just a geeky app to mess around with that no one had heard of before then.
 

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
Apparently there isn't an actual shortage people are just dumb and bum rushing gas stations because of rumors of a shortage. This is from local news station KSAT. Railroad Commisson chairman and Commissioner Sitton also saying the same thing. God damn morons causing traffic jams.

There is a shortage. Some 16 major refineries including the largest in the US are offline. A pipeline from Houston to New Jersey that supplies 40% of the gas in the Eastern US is offline because there's nothing to send. People are probably overreacting but it is factual that refined gas production from Texas is greatly reduced.

Pretty much everything from Corpus and port A to Louisiana was hit hard. That's where the bulk of the refineries are, not Padre island.
 
They literally cannot expand the highway going through downtown because it's surrounded by buildings. The only way our traffic problems are going to be solved is if we make a massive investment into expanded our mass transit system, which we are starting to do. We just passed a huge bill last fall to expand our light rail system and add a bunch of BRT. They're going to be adding ~100 miles of light rail over the next 20 years, but surprise surprise, the republicans in the state are already trying to kneecap the expansion in any way that they can.

Sorry i didn't specify, the way the story was told to me was that this was back in the 1940s or something like that, not recent or present day.
 

Roge_NES

Member
So during the storm my friends car got flooded and then towed, does anyone know what number to contact to find out where towed cars are taken to? I tried using the Findmytowedcar site but it doesn't give a lot of information and is at the same time stacking a lot of fees.

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This made me :jnc
I'm only asking for the purpose of understanding. While this was an unpredictable storm that we didn't fully realize it's potential of until 2 days out. Would it have made sense or been possible to at least evacuate the resident in Houston that lived in floodplains and other areas that are susceptible to flooding? Again, only asking because we knew over a week out that a major(as in greater than just a severe thunderstorm) storm was hitting the area. Also from my understanding, flooding has become increasingly often in Houston. Surely there would have been data to at least try evacuating small communities that were near waterways and rivers? It's a lot easier to sit back from an armchair and cast quick judgements. Hindsight is 20/20 and I'm sure the mayor and staff made the best educated and thought out decision.


However, for the sake of learning from the future. I think this meme turns people's arguments into strawman. Don't think people are suggesting evacuating the city of Houston in 48 hours. I think people were wondering about areas along water ways and flood plains that even under the best case scenarios for Harvey would've still flooded.
 

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
I'm only asking for the purpose of understanding. While this was an unpredictable storm that we didn't fully realize it's potential of until 2 days out. Would it have made sense or been possible to at least evacuate the resident in Houston that lived in floodplains and other areas that are susceptible to flooding? Again, only asking because we knew over a week out that a major(as in greater than just a severe thunderstorm) storm was hitting the area. Also from my understanding, flooding has become increasingly often in Houston. Surely there would have been data to at least try evacuating small communities that were near waterways and rivers? It's a lot easier to sit back from an armchair and cast quick judgements. Hindsight is 20/20 and I'm sure the mayor and staff made the best educated and thought out decision.


However, for the sake of learning from the future. I think this meme turns people's arguments into strawman. Don't think people are suggesting evacuating the city of Houston in 48 hours. I think people were wondering about areas along water ways and flood plains that even under the best case scenarios for Harvey would've still flooded.
it wasn't certain at all that it was going to hit houston and actually the storm itself didnt, it was the constant rain bands that did. I mean they could have called for an evacuation of some known areas. But im hearing about people that have lived in areas for 40-60 years and never flooding and they flooded this time. It was simply an unprecedented amount of rain.
 

this_guy

Member
I'm only asking for the purpose of understanding. While this was an unpredictable storm that we didn't fully realize it's potential of until 2 days out. Would it have made sense or been possible to at least evacuate the resident in Houston that lived in floodplains and other areas that are susceptible to flooding? Again, only asking because we knew over a week out that a major(as in greater than just a severe thunderstorm) storm was hitting the area. Also from my understanding, flooding has become increasingly often in Houston. Surely there would have been data to at least try evacuating small communities that were near waterways and rivers? It's a lot easier to sit back from an armchair and cast quick judgements. Hindsight is 20/20 and I'm sure the mayor and staff made the best educated and thought out decision.


However, for the sake of learning from the future. I think this meme turns people's arguments into strawman. Don't think people are suggesting evacuating the city of Houston in 48 hours. I think people were wondering about areas along water ways and flood plains that even under the best case scenarios for Harvey would've still flooded.

The problem is parts of Houston received 50+ inches of rain in about 3 days. Any where that receives that much rain will flood. The entire southeast portion of Texas (not just Houston, or Harris County and surrounding counties) was under flood advisory as Harvey was approaching.

Rita showed you can't do mass evacuations. That was 12 years ago and the Houston metro area has grown much bigger since then (population AND land size). If people did try to evacuate people would be stuck on the roads where the majority of the flooding occurred. Not only that there would be massive gas shortages as everyone fills up to get out.

Parts of Houston started flooding Sunday and Monday. Wednesday and Thursday to the east of Houston, Beaumont and Port Arthur started flooding. That's a huge stretch of land to selectively order evacuations.
 
Orange checking in again. Today was bright and approaching 90. Water fell enough to get out and look around, the whole of Orange proper seems to be under water. Saw rescue boats tearing around. It's really, really bad. There are huge swaths of power lines down. Water is out for the whole area between here and Beaumont, apparently every station has flooded or is out of power.

Did see a few national guard trucks though.
 

Zyae

Member
The problem is parts of Houston received 50+ inches of rain in about 3 days. Any where that receives that much rain will flood. The entire southeast portion of Texas (not just Houston, or Harris County and surrounding counties) was under flood advisory as Harvey was approaching.

Rita showed you can't do mass evacuations. That was 12 years ago and the Houston metro area has grown much bigger since then (population AND land size). If people did try to evacuate people would be stuck on the roads where the majority of the flooding occurred. Not only that there would be massive gas shortages as everyone fills up to get out.

Parts of Houston started flooding Sunday and Monday. Wednesday and Thursday to the east of Houston, Beaumont and Port Arthur started flooding. That's a huge stretch of land to selectively order evacuations.

To expand on this; Houston is the 4th biggest city in the country and 5th biggest metro area.
 

jmdajr

Member
Hey man you still all good? Have smokey and vyer posted recently?
We were lucky. The street never flooded, and I had direct access to an unflooded HEB.

Still worst week ever with all the tornados by us and watching our city drowned to hell by the gods.

I know people so many miles apart and yet during the storm it didn't feel that way. We were all suffering together at the same time.

I think smokey is fine last time he posted.
 

Zeke

Member
Jesus fucking Christ assholes are blocking intersections waiting in line for gas. I don't understand why the police aren't out there directing traffic and keeping these morons from blocking intersections. Multiple gas stations on my way home were completely out.
 

jmdajr

Member
Jesus fucking Christ assholes are blocking intersections waiting in line for gas. I don't understand why the police aren't out there directing traffic and keeping these morons from blocking intersections. Multiple gas stations on my way home were completely out.
People need to chill out.

Oh well. Ya'll better get some car pools going.
 

MogCakes

Member
Jesus fucking Christ assholes are blocking intersections waiting in line for gas. I don't understand why the police aren't out there directing traffic and keeping these morons from blocking intersections. Multiple gas stations on my way home were completely out.

I said fuck it and just went home. Not worth the hysteria.
 

Zeke

Member
My wife might not have enough gas to get to work and back tomorrow. Going to have to switch cars in the morning since I work a lot closer to our place then she does. I go in ass early tomorrow so hopefully I can find a spot to fill up.
 
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