Tag: Texas

Trump visited Texas and just HAD to talk about crowd size

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"What a crowd, what a turnout."
Image: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

After all these months it’s still unclear whether or not Donald Trump knows he’s not on reality television.

Since his inauguration the man has made his obsession with ratings and crowd size very clear, and on Tuesday when he visited Texas for a briefing on Tropical Storm Harvey relief efforts, he just couldn’t help himself from celebrating the really great press that came out of the storm.

SEE ALSO: Hey, everyone, please shut up about Melania Trump’s shoes

During the trip to Corpus Christi, where Harvey made landfall, and Austin, Texas, Donald had two face palm-worthy moments that left the world questioning why on Earth he’s treating a natural disaster like an episode of reality television.

One came when he stood atop a platform outside and marveled at the crowd before him. “What a crowd, what a turnout,” Trump said into a microphone.

Naturally, people saw the president taking time out from his speech on the storm to admire the crowd of people who came to hear him speak as problematic.

According to a White House pool report, reporters on-site “heard no mention of the dead, dying or displaced Texans and no expression of sympathy for them. The message was services are coming and Texans will be OK.”

Earlier during the same trip, Trump also thanked FEMA administrator Brock Long for his service, saying he “has really become very famous on television over the last couple of days.”

Excuse us? Uh, yeah congrats to this FEMA administrator for getting some on-air time during a devastating and unprecedented storm that’s displaced huge numbers of people. He’s probably really jazzed to have gotten this fame, even though it came at a tragic cost, right? Nope.

Twitter users agreed that Trump’s fame and crowd turnout comments were completely inappropriate, especially given the negative circumstances surrounding his visit.

But with members of Trump’s administrations filing in and out of the White House as though they’re passing through a revolving door, it certainly isn’t the first time people have drawn the reality television show comparison to his presidency.

In fact, during Trump’s joint press conference with President of Finland Sauli Niinistö on Monday, he made a similarly controversial comment about ratings. When asked why he decided to pardon Arpaio during the early hours of Hurricane Harvey — reportedly even before signing a major disaster declaration for the state of Texas — Trump said he figured with the timing the ratings would be much higher than normal.

What will happen on next week’s episode of Trump’s White House? Who knows, but the ratings will obviously be tremendous.

WATCH: Rescue efforts are underway in Houston

Read more: http://mashable.com/

‘We don’t have anything’: landlords demand rent on flooded Houston homes

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Displaced families say they are struggling to pay rent on damaged dwellings, as an acute housing crisis grips south-east Texas after Hurricane Harvey

Rocio Fuentes weighed up the cost of getting some new sofas for her new apartment in Pasadena, Texas, and decided the family budget could just about stretch to it. Just one month after moving in, Hurricane Harvey swept through and the Fuenteses were left not only with the ruined furniture but also an ongoing rental demand for a dwelling they had to flee.

At first we didnt think it would be that bad, but then the water came through the wall and up through the carpet, Fuentes said. Once we saw the water wasnt going to stop, we left.

Fuentes, her husband Jaime and their five children, ages ranging from seven months to 14 years, were plucked from the floodwaters by her mother, who arrived in a truck. They are now crammed into her sisters apartment and with no insurance have little idea where they will live next. Jaime is unable to earn money because his construction job has been paused due to the flooding.

But while everything has changed for this family, they are still expected to pay for their abandoned home.

Our landlords say we have to pay rent and late fees and every day it is going up, Fuentes said. We are paying rent for somewhere we cant live in. They said you arent the only ones in this situation, but what are we supposed to do? We dont have any money. We dont have anything.

Submerged
Submerged houses in Houston after tropical storm Harvey. Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters

An acute housing crisis is starting to grip thousands of other families in south-east Texas as the floodwaters ebb away, with a death toll put at 60 on Monday. More than 180,000 houses in the Houston area have been badly damaged, with only a fraction of occupants owning any flood insurance. And under Texas law, rent must still be paid on damaged dwellings, unless they are deemed completely uninhabitable.

A spokeswoman for the city of Houstons housing department said city officials are aware these problems exist but said that state law deals with the situation. She said the city was still assessing the total number of people in need of housing assistance.

Under the Texas property code, if a rental premises is totally unusable due to an external disaster then either the landlord or tenant can terminate the lease through written notice. But if the property is partially unusable because of a disaster, a tenant may only get a reduction in rent determined by a county or district court.

There are a lot of property owners who arent conscious of what has gone on; they are being rude and kicking people out, said Isela Bezada, an unemployed woman who lived with 10 family members in a Houston house until her landlord took her to court to evict her after the hurricane hit.

Bezada, like Fuentes, has had almost every area of her life touched by the flood. Her relatives, who work in home renovations, have little opportunity to bring in money until the full gutting of sodden houses piles of torn up carpet, broken chairs and childrens toys have become a common adornment to the front of Houston homes and she worries about other family members stranded in Port Arthur by a flooded highway.

There are people who have been hit really badly by these floods, Bezada said. We are all human beings. We all deserve help.

A sense of maudlin uncertainty hangs over many people who now depend on shelters and food distribution centers where once they had a stable home life. At the St Juan Diego Catholic Church in Pasadena, hundreds of people rifle through huge piles of donated clothing while tamales and pupusas are cooked outside for the hungry crowd. A sign inside the donation center, in Spanish, informs families they can only take one package of bottled water each.

Quick Guide

Tropical storm Harvey and climate change

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Is there a link between the storm and climate change?

Almost certainly, according to astatementissued by the World Meteorological Organization on Tuesday. Climate change means that when we do have an event like Harvey, the rainfall amounts are likely to be higher than they would have been otherwise, the UN organisations spokeswoman Clare Nullis told a conference. Nobody is arguing that climate change caused the storm, but it is likely to have made it much worse.

How did it make it worse?

Warmer seas evaporate more quickly. Warmer air holds more water vapour. So, as temperatures rise around the world, the skies store more moisture and dump it more intensely. The US National Weather Service has had to introduce a new colour on its graphs to deal with the volume of precipitation. Harvey surpassed the previous US record for rainfall from a tropical system, as 49.2 inches was recorded at Marys Creek at Winding Road in Southeast Houston, at 9.20am on Tuesday.

Is this speculation or science?

There is a proven link known as theClausius-Clapeyron equation that shows that for every half a degree celsius in warming, there is about a 3% increase in atmospheric moisture content. This was a factor in Texas. The surface temperature in the Gulf of Mexico is currently more than half a degree celsius higher than the recent late summer average, which is in turn more than half a degree higher than 30 years ago,accordingtoMichael Mannof Penn State University. As a result there was more potential for a deluge.

Are there other links between Harvey and climate change?

Yes, the storm surge was greater because sea levels have risen 20cm as a result of more than 100 years of human-related global warming. This has melted glaciers and thermally expanded the volume of seawater.

Thank you for your feedback.

Trucks, bringing donations of baby food, salads, blankets and other assortments, pull up at the center several times a day, stocked by well wishers as far away as Ohio. Volunteers report that more and more displaced people are showing up, more than a week after Hurricane Harvey hit, as they struggle to deal with their new circumstances.

A lot of the people here have lost everything, said Ernest Paredes, an organizer of the center. I dont know what the city is doing but there is a concern that people living in apartments are still being charged and that needs to be looked into. If they are getting help, they shouldnt be charged.

Evacuees
Evacuees of the powerful storm are taking shelter across the city, including here at the George R Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

More than half a million people have applied for Fema help, with $33.6m already approved for housing assistance, which includes rent subsidies. Nearly 15,000 survivors have been put up by Fema in hotels and motels. A contractor has been asked by Fema to produce at least 4,500 pre-fabricated houses for displaced families.

But further help is needed, as Houston mayor Sylvester Turner stressed on Sunday, when he was asked on NBC what his priority areas were. Housing, housing, housing, Turner replied. The mayor has asked Donald Trump for more federal help to help repair homes but even that expanded initiative would only cover 35,000 dwellings.

With such demands on Fema help, there are inevitable frustrations over delays over assistance that may stretch for weeks or even longer. Erica Hall, who lived next to the Brays bayou in west Houston until the waterway swelled into her first floor apartment, has been ensconced on camp beds in a Red Cross-run shelter for the past week with her three children, all aged under four.

Confronted by knee-high sewage, Hall took her children onto the roof of a nearby car port, where they were plucked by the US coast guard, which dangled a basket on a rope for the family to climb into. Hall had never been in any sort of aircraft before.

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A west Houston neighborhood underwater. Photograph: Tannen Maury/EPA

Ive never experienced being in an airplane or helicopter so I was terrified, I just closed my eyes, she said. The kids werent scared, they just said ooh look at the water!

With no flood insurance, Hall is now depending on Fema. She may be in the shelter another week while she waits, maybe longer.

I know theres a lot of other people affected besides me and my family but I just wish the process could move a little faster so we can get on with our lives, she said.

It really doesnt matter where I go, as long as its stable. But maybe not on the first floor. The second floor, somewhere off the ground, would be good.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

Texas companies penalized in less than 3% of illegal air pollution cases report

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Figure underscores need for federal oversight as the Trump administration seeks to slash the Environmental Protection Agencys budget and roll back rules

Texas companies involved in illegal air pollution releases were penalized by the state in fewer than 3% of all cases,according to a new report.

The figure underscores the need for strong federal oversight in a period when the Trump administration is seeking to slash the Environmental Protection Agencys budget and roll back rules, said Ilan Levin, associate director of the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP).

Lax enforcement at the state level is a real problem at a time when EPA is being gutted, he said.

The report, Breakdowns in Enforcement, was released on Friday by the EIP and Environment Texas. The advocacy groups analysis of state records found that over Texas imposed penalties for 588 out of 24,839 malfunction and maintenance events reported by companies from 2011 to 2016. The incidents caused the emission of over 500m pounds of pollutants and total fines amounted to $13.5m.

In 2016 there were 3,720 unauthorised pollution events but only 20 times did the state regulator, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), impose a penalty, the report found.

Texas is the USs leading oil and gas producer, making it a template for others. Other states follow Texas when it comes to environmental regulation, Levin said. But environmentalists have long complained that the Republican-dominated state government is too soft on an industry that is vital to the states economy but a major source of pollution.

The State of Texas claims primary responsibility for enforcing antipollution laws, but itself rarely takes action against companies for allowing dangerous amounts of soot, sulfur dioxide, benzene and other pollutants to escape from plants during what industry calls upset events, the report says. It adds that the pattern of modest, infrequent, fines discourages companies from investing in upgrades and repairs to their facilities.

The worst region for unauthorised air pollution releases during malfunction and maintenance events last year was Midland, the hub of Permian Basin activity, with Houston, home to one of the worlds largest petrochemical complexes, second. A TCEQ spokesman declined to comment on the report because the agency has not yet seen it.

The analysis also claims that many polluters, such as oil and gas wells, are escaping regulators attention by wrongly asserting that they emit under 25 tons of sulfur dioxide and volatile organic compounds each year, a tally entitling them to a permit exemption under state and federal law.

Allegations of slack controls in Texas come as Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency and an advocate for states rights and limited regulation, has tried to undo, delay or block more than 30 environmental rules in his first four months in the job, the New York Times reported.

Still, environmental advocates have enjoyed some victories. This week a federal appeals court stopped Pruitts agency from imposing a stay on the implementation of a rule requiring oil and gas companies to report and fix methane leaks.

Last April a federal judge in Houston fined ExxonMobil $20m for emitting 10m pounds of unauthorised air pollutants over eight years at a plant near the city.

Harris County, which includes Houston, is suing a refinery owned by Petrobras, the Brazilian state-run energy company, alleging pollution violations.

But Texas government has passed laws in recent years that make it harder for local authorities to assert control and pursue cases in court. In one example, after the city of Denton, near Dallas, prohibited fracking, the state moved swiftly in 2015 to ban the ban.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us