Oh, Ye Flinty-Eyed Bankers

It’s still too early to talk about how to re-build America’s fourth largest city. When we do get started, the debate will probably go on for several years.

That’s what happened in New Jersey and on Long Island and in the New England towns hit by Hurricane Sandy. Zoning codes were changed, infrastructure standards were tightened up, and even some building codes were strengthened so that new roofs and windows could withstand higher winds.

But there are a couple of problems that will have to be dealt with before that happens in Texas. Some have been overstated, others have been understated. Some are not even being talked about at all.

What should be getting our attention, of course, is the need to shelter 10,000 or 15,000 or 30,000 people for a year or two. I doubt if Houston has that much vacant housing on hand.

I saw what happened on Long Island, in a little town called Riverhead, when a storm came and a small pond overflowed and the runoff from hundreds of acres  of farms in the area created a flood that flowed downhill and left a dozen or so homes on Horton Avenue with flooded basements, ruined cars in the driveways and a major pollution problem.

A few people left to move in with relatives. Others stayed in the part of their home that was undamaged and dealt with black mold and contaminated private wells in the best way they could. Eventually, the  most-damaged homes were condemned and the people moved away, and the street was rebuilt. It took years and millions of dollars in FEMA money. Just for a dozen houses.

Somewhere along the way, people began to recall that,  back in the 1930’s, the neighborhood had a name. It was called “The Bottoms” because back then it flooded regularly. Then, there was a long dry spell and people build houses on the once-swampy land.

Does anyone know how much of Houston has been covered up with asphalt and concrete in the past 30 years, or how much of its housing and businesses were constructed on land that is within a flood plain? Look it up. And, while you’re doing it, look at the city’s building codes and its zoning code.

Which you can’t do. The city does not have a zoning code, although there are a lot of local rules that act in the same way a zoning code would, more or less. When the hurricane hit, we saw the “less” part in action.

Now, most of the damaged homes in Houston were not covered by flood insurance, at least according to all the media reports. And, as far as I know, there are no code changes being considered if the property owners can get a new mortgage and decide to rebuild. Heck, it’s their money and their right.

That’s where the flinty-eyed bankers come in. Governments deal with financing in one way, private citizens in quite another. Cities and states can issue bonds for public works projects, and can go to a bank that holds 50 or 100 million dollars in municipal funds in low-interest accounts and say, as the President would: “Let’s make a deal for a loan.”

Well, there are some differences with Mr. Trump. Let’s just say George Bush could have done that with a bank that does business in the United States and leave it at that.

The point here is that if you own a flooded or damaged or destroyed home, you don’t have much of an asset. And not to make a joke, but your existing mortgage has to be paid off, too. You are literally and figuratively under water.

Now, the City of Houston has to make some big decisions. So does the state of Texas. Things like what structures should be rebuilt and where to put them, and what new provisions have to be made so that the replacements won’t flood out and repeat the current tragedy.

Build new waterways, new dams, and elevate all the buildings? It’s tougher to solve the problems in Houston than it was in New Jersey, because you don’t just have to strengthen the shoreline. You have to protect the whole, flat as a pancake 627 square mile city from the rain. 

Then there’s the question of how much rainfall do you have to protect the city from. Is Hurricane Harvey a once in a thousand year storm, or are other storms - maybe not as big, but pretty close in size - going to be coming a lot more often. Could the climate be changing?

There are some ways to try to evaluate the answer to that question, but lots of Republicans in the current Congress either do not  believe the climate is changing, that burning oil and coal have anything to do with it, or that future plans for storm protection measures should include factoring in rising sea levels caused by an increase in global warming.

Now, no one can say for sure that the warmer waters of the Gulf of Mexico fed Harvey and that other weather patterns changed by global warming resulted in the storm sitting in one place for days and days. But, the mood among those Republicans seems to be simple - it never happened before and it may never happen again, so don’t plan for it.

Except, of course, it has. Harvey is the third 500-year flood to hit the Houston area in the past three years. That means a storm expected to hit the area once every 500 years has come to the area three times in three years.

Well, maybe Congress will just see the light and give up plans to build the wall on the Mexican border. Instead, they can use that money to build a big, beautiful red umbrella - a really big one - to cover the 627 square miles of Houston. There would even be room on it for a really big message. One full of hope and optimism.

I suggest “Make America Waterproof Again.”