To think that Houston will be sorted alot quicker than New Orleans was(nt)?

[PyongyangKipperbang]

Because Houston is full of rich high tax paying people and New Orleans was full of poor people who can safely be ignored?

Pretty sure Houston is full of poor people too, it being an American megacity

Their income might not matter but their colour and voting preferences might. They are very strong Trump voters so we shall see.

britbat23 You're right of course, but as MrsTP says, in Houston there are many residents who are the right colour, the right class and vote the right way. They tend to be better off and demand better treatment. The residents of New Orleans tended to be poor and black and wouldnt vote Republican so can be safely ignored.

Plus oil of course...

The community wealth will effect things, as will the general competence of the local government. American government isn't as centralised as in the UK. Most of what happens will be down to state and local government. This had a huge effect on Katrina. Federal aid, particularly things involving aid by the military, must be requested and facilitated by the state. The federal government doesn't have the automatic right to send troops into civilian areas.

What the federal government does won't be down to the voting proclivities of Houston. Differences in federal response will be down to lessons learnt from Katrina or differences in the government, itself. It's been years since Katrina and the agencies will be staffed by different people, now. I suspect everything is understaffed because Trump has been gutting "big government".

I'm in houston right now, water a foot from my front door, spent most of the weekend in the cupboard under the stairs, and it's a desperate situation. Like NOLA, we have relatively wealthy people and desperately poor people. Unlike NOLA, we are a huge city, 2200 square miles, bigger than greater London with 7 million inhabitants. NOLA has less than 400 000.

The scale is so different, you can't really compare the two.

I'm Texas right now, sitting in a closet due to a Tornado warning.

Disaster management and recovery is very little to do with the Federal government it's within State control.

It's all state and county agencies organising search and rescue, first responders, monitoring flooding and setting up evacuation centre.

The fact that these people are Republicans have nothing to do with the relief effort.

Saying that Texas is full of rich people is a statement entirely lacking in any kind of knowledge of the affected area at all.

Bradley I hope you stay safe and dry tonight.

Absolutely Cavender. I'm in West u, some neighbors flooded but we're OK for now, will see what the night brings. How about you? Stay safe.

Apparently 23% of houston residents are in poverty, compared to 24% of NOLA residents.....

We're north of the city.

Flooding started to make itself felt here today as the creeks and bayous have burst their banks. The nearest creek to us has risen 16 feet today.

We're lucky to live on a hill so our neighbourhood should be safe but I think we'll likely be cut off for a few days.

I'm sorry to hear the water is so close to you, you won't get much sleep tonight Take care, I'll be thinking of you.

Thanks. My dh has stacked bags of topsoil outside the front door as sandbags and duck taped the inside, worse thing is waking up the DCs to hide in the closet during tornado warnings!

We are the lucky ones, some desperately sad stories out there.

Houston/Harris County voted for Hillary.

As someone who is currently living in Houston and who is scared of what the next few days, weeks months will bring, I find your OP in bad taste.

I agree, very poor taste. The first responders and volunteers currently risking their lives to rescue people from roofs and attics don't care who people voted for or how much money they have.

Bradley yes we brought the kids in with us last night in order to whip them into the closet as needed.

We also hid in our wardrobe twice today with the DC during a tornado warning and this is the third night of them sleeping with us in our ground floor bedroom instead of their upstairs one.

How are you this morning Bradley?

Morning Cavender and Yves waves>

Seems better this morning, can see the sidewalk and some of the road but its raining again. Dh says Houston is due a second hit, friends near the reservoirs are on voluntary evacuation which seems worse than staying put.

How are you both?

So glad your house stayed dry. We're fine and the water in our garden receeded slightly overnight.

Give the local reports I think we're probably a little island at the moment. We'll try and get out for a look if we can safely later.

Stay safe.

I'm pleased a few posters with actual first hand knowledge of the situation could reply as opposed to letting the OP's goadiness stand unchallenged.

The anti-Trump thread is still going. It's great as all the predicable messages are contained and easier to avoid.

I've been watching Fox News' continuous coverage. I am very impressed with the relief efforts. It is well- organised, targeted, empathetic, etc.

This is so different from a typical hurricane in that it is sitting over the region for days, dumping more and more rain.

I remember the big Nola hurricane happening around the same time as a major earthquake in Pakistan. One community were helpless, sitting in their own excrement, waiting for someone else to sort everything out. The other lived their lives in tents, keeping everything scrupulously clean and free of disease while being totally grateful for outside aid.

It was like something out of Mad Max in New orleans when they went for shelter in the sports arena

Do you even understand the makeup and geography of both those cities? I'm from Houston. I was just there visiting my family. My folks are stuck on a cruise ship in the Gulf and have been since Sat. because the Port of Galveston is closed till later today (they diverted to NOLA to take on fuel, water and food) and even if open, there's nowhere for the nearly 3000 passengers to go except the overwhelmed island because some many of the freeways are under water, no telling if the causeway open, does anyone know? Their car is in some car park there. Or maybe not. Their house is probably gone - it's in an area where, well, bar a miracle it's gone, it's right near Meyerland, which is a wash now. My sister is in League City having moved everything upstairs because the water is rising and rising. My cousin and her partner are in teh fucking convention center having waited all day for a rescue and that's only because the neighbour in the apartment upstairs told them to get up there - their ground floor flat is completely flooded and my cousin is an amputee (lower left leg) and insulin-dependent diabetic. She was right across the street from the bayou off N. Braeswood Blvd. Tehre were people on their roofs waving cloth at the Red Cross helicopters having to be wenched off their own roofs.

There's no way to tell even what the total damage will be because it's still fucking raining! The peak flood hasn't even happened yet.

No one's in a position to hang round making political judgements and speculation about what will eventually happen to the over 6m people in that area because people are having to be rescued left and right.

The upshot is that city is a colossal mess, this is a disaster happening right now, not a political speculation.

Could it not also be because the federal and state governments have learned from the cluster-fuck that was Katrina? We are not required to make the same mistakes over and over again- even if sometimes we choose to.

Yes so lucky to have Trump in charge. What will he do? Tweet about it?

Well it bloody well should be sorted quicker, lessons should have been learnt.

I don't get the idea that Houston should be deliberately left in a mess, in order to make some kind of point that they are being treated equally to the people of New Orleans.