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  1. #1

    Hurricane Harvey

    Stat of the Day: Hurricane Harvey is expected to drop 20 TRILLION gallons of water on Texas.


    Wow.jpg


    That's roughly equivalent to picking up Galveston Bay, turning it over, and dumping it out -- 25 times.

    Or slightly over half of Lake Tahoe.

    Or 15% of Lake Erie.

    If you poured water at a rate of one gallon per second, it would take 633,761 years, nine months, two days, seven hours, three minutes, and 20 seconds to pour out that volume.

    Harvey will do it in seven days.


    Wow 2.jpg
    Last edited by Tom B.; 08-27-2017 at 12:53 PM.
    "I swear Roy must redeem extra timeouts at McDonald's the day after the game for free hamburgers." --Posted on InsideCarolina, 2/18/2015

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Vermont
    speaking of hurricans and Galveston, one of the best reads you'll ever find regarding meteorology and hurricanes is Erik Larson's epic Isacc's Storm. Amazing tale, and true.
    What did those stupid Cubans know about some silly storm heading towards Texas? 10,000 dead people later, the answer was apparent.

  3. #3
    One more bit of math:

    For Harvey to dump 20 trillion gallons of water on Texas in seven days, that means it will be dumping water at an average rate of over 33 million gallons per second.
    "I swear Roy must redeem extra timeouts at McDonald's the day after the game for free hamburgers." --Posted on InsideCarolina, 2/18/2015

  4. #4
    One more statistic, showing the scale of this thing in terms of the number of people affected.

    Estimated population of the greater New Orleans metro area in 2005, when Katrina hit: 1.4 million.

    Estimated population of the greater Houston metro area today: 6.9 million.
    "I swear Roy must redeem extra timeouts at McDonald's the day after the game for free hamburgers." --Posted on InsideCarolina, 2/18/2015

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Northwest NC
    You hear words like unprecedented a lot when these types of storms hit but this time it's actually warranted. It's heartbreaking knowing how many people and families will suffer so much because of this. I'm actually surprised there hasn't been a greater loss of life but I fear it's just a matter of time.

    Please pray if you are so inclined and if you can give to the Red Cross or another organization that will be giving aid please do.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Wilmington, NC
    Good stuff TomB. Those numbers are mind boggling. The word catastrophic keeps coming to mind.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Tom B. View Post
    Stat of the Day: Hurricane Harvey is expected to drop 20 TRILLION gallons of water on Texas.
    10 trillion gallons is the size of Lake Mead and enough to cover the state of CT in water 10 feet deep.

    Houston is a lot like Greenville, SC. If it gets enough rain, it floods. End of story. just a bunch of flat and no where for the water to go. This is why my family ALWAYS lives on top of a hill. If we fllood, it will be because Lake Wheeler is like 150 ft above flood stage...in which case, everyone else has bigger problems.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    And for those of us on the Southern Atlantic coastal plain: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/wea...169678457.html

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Northwest NC
    Dear Lord it's still raining in Houston right now. I've never seen anything like this, I guess no one has.

    Just a reminder you can text Harvey to 90999 to give $10.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Tom B. View Post
    One more statistic, showing the scale of this thing in terms of the number of people affected.

    Estimated population of the greater New Orleans metro area in 2005, when Katrina hit: 1.4 million.

    Estimated population of the greater Houston metro area today: 6.9 million.
    And, many are the same people.

  11. #11
    Dev11's Avatar
    Dev11 is offline Commissioner of Statistics, DBR Podcast
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Boston
    Relating to college basketball, UH head coach Kevin Sampson is organizing what seems like a huge effort for colleges to send apparel for those in need. Check out his tweet and responses in his timeline:

    https://twitter.com/CoachSampsonUH/s...800688644?s=09

    Nice to see that @dukembb responded and is sending some gear that way.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Columbus, Ohio
    If you're looking for more specific ways to support various efforts in Houston, please follow this Texas Monthly link.

  13. #13
    More numbers:


    For a solid week, Harvey dumped an average of about 52 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water on Texas every second.

    I remember when Hurricane Hugo hit Charleston, SC (my hometown) in September of 1989 (my senior year in high school). It caused about $7 billion in damage in the U.S., which was a record at the time. That's a little over $13.7 billion in 2017 dollars.

    Hurricane Andrew obliterated Hugo's record in 1992, causing $26.5 billion in damage ($46 billion in 2017 dollars).

    Katrina (2005) is the current record holder, at $108 billion ($134.6 billion in 2017 dollars).

    Early estimates for Harvey are at least $180 billion, and that's probably conservative. If my math is right, Harvey will be the first natural disaster in U.S. history with direct costs that exceed 1% of the U.S. GDP. (Note that I'm talking about discrete-event disasters here, not long-duration disasters like the 1927 Mississippi River flood, the Dust Bowl, or the 1993 Mississippi/Missouri Rivers floods.)

    And that's just property loss -- it doesn't include ripple-effect losses from disruption to the economy, environmental damage (remediation costs, diminution in property values), etc.
    "I swear Roy must redeem extra timeouts at McDonald's the day after the game for free hamburgers." --Posted on InsideCarolina, 2/18/2015

  14. #14
    Excellent piece on CBS Sunday Morning about well-meaning donations after natural disasters, and how they frequently are misguided or misused. They showed piles of unusable clothing on the beach after the tsunami - winter coats, high heeled shoes, etc. They explained how much it cost to send pallets of clean water overseas versus the Red Cross taking water filters to disaster areas.

    The moral was to donate money rather than items, and to donate to well-vetted organizations that can most efficiently use the funds. Please keep this in mind as we all help Houston recover.

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