How do you prepare for disaster? Sometimes you need it to hit you where you live – once, or even twice – before you acknowledge it's time for change.
The impact of Harvey on Houston has been a devastating lesson for that city. And yet, while the scale of the storm is exceptional, major flood events have always been part of Houston's history. The problem isn't knowledge. It's memory – the understanding that disaster is going to return.
Harvey, which has killed at least 37 as of Thursday, and displaced 1.8 million people, is far from the first time that Houston has been walloped by the weather. The city sits along a bayou, which has always been flood-prone; there were 16 such events in the city's first 100 years. Particularly destructive storms in 1929 and 1935 spurred the creation of a county flood-control district, and eventually two reservoirs far outside the city limits.
And yet as the city has sprawled over the past half-century, this fact of life has been forgotten. The city appointed a "flood czar," Stephen Costello, for the first time just last year. A major new flood-protection system across the region was suggested in the wake of Hurricane Ike back in 2008, but is still being studied. This week, the Associated Press reported that many households and other properties have given up flood insurance in the past few years.
This despite frequent and brutal reminders of the area's vulnerability; while above sea level, it is still low-lying and often hard hit by extreme weather events. Scientists argue that climate change is making extreme weather events more common and less predictable. In Houston, major storms in 2015 and 2016 each killed eight people, and they caused a total of more than $1-billion (U.S.) in damage. A local academic said this year that a catastrophic hurricane event was inevitable: "It's not if, it's when."
So why the amnesia, the apparent willingness to ignore the storm clouds?
Real estate prices have a lot to do with it. Houston is the sprawl capital of the United States, with a city population of 2.3 million and a fast-growing metro area of 6.4 million. The region covers more than 4,000 square kilometres. It's famous for its limited regulation and (in the city) lack of zoning. People flock there because it's booming and cheap. And it's cheap partly because local governments ignore the need to brace for storms.
The area's soils do not drain well; and the wetlands and prairie that had helped absorb stormwater have been largely built up. Subdivisions come almost to the edges of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs. More than 7,000 housing units have been built in the 100-year flood plain since 2010, according to an analysis from ProPublica.
Suburban development, allowed by lax regulation, has contributed to the effects of Harvey – and certainly worsens the effects of ordinary storms. Development replaces permeable earth with impermeable buildings and paving, diverting water into roads and storm sewers.
The images of whitecaps on Interstate 10 brought this home. But as I watched the disaster unfold this week, I kept thinking of a conversation I'd had with Alec Hay, a civil engineer who is principal of the firm Southern Harbour and teaches at the University of Toronto's Centre for Resilience of Critical Infrastructure.
We were speaking earlier this summer about the aftermath of the 2013 Calgary floods, and about how that event is already being forgotten. That city, like Houston, has built housing on flood plains and is continuing to do so.
"After all, Hurricane Sandy is going from people's minds now," he said. "Hurricane Katrina" – back in 2005 – "has been forgotten."
Human nature, Prof. Hay suggested, makes it difficult to prepare "in the constant, unsexy, steady way that we need to do," he said. "There's a tendency to want to believe that it can just be dealt with by somebody else, that it can just be ignored."
And that works. Until the clouds gather again.
Alex Bozikovic