It’s literally a perfect storm of many variables.
Harvey dumped over 20 trillion gallons
of water onto southeast Texas and Louisiana.
So much rain fell in the Houston area that the National
Weather Service had to add two new colors to
its palette – to double the maximum rainfall from
"greater than 15 inches" to over 30 inches.
All that water came from the Gulf of Mexico,
which saw high surface temperatures this summer.
The warm air and water supercharged Harvey on its way to land.
And then instead of continuing inland like most
hurricanes, Harvey sat on the coast for days,
officially making landfall three separate times.
Experts say the growth of Houston’s metropolitan area
may be a far larger influence on
the storm’s effects than climate change.
The city used to be wetlands and prairie,
naturally equipped to absorb water.
But today that flat terrain is covered by impermeable
surfaces that shunt water into drains and reservoirs.
Excess floodwater chokes the city’s sprawling bayou
network, its drainage systems and two huge federally owned reservoirs.
The city's history of flooding goes back even further.
Tragic floods in 1929 and 1935 led to the creation of
the Harris County flood agency, and to
the building of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs.
With millions of people living in Houston today,
rapid growth has only compounded the problem.
Local officials have largely snubbed stricter building
regulations and allowed developers to pave over
prairie lands crucial for proper drainage.
Take all that together, and these storms that
we thought of as once in a lifetime seem likely
to happen more often, particularly in the Gulf.
