Before Harvey

Fri, August 25, 2017

It was the calm before the storm and I decided to take a lap around Buffalo Bayou. I didn’t really plan to document the storm. I didn’t even know about it until Wednesday and had no idea what to expect. We’ve already had three storms in the past two years that caused major flooding, no way we could get another, right?

During the evening, we all watched Harvey grow in strength and slam Rockport and the Corpus Christi area as a Category 4 hurricane. I followed Jeff Piotrowski‘s live stream and man it was scary.

After Round One of Harvey

We got a lot of rain overnight and it seemed like everything was over in our area. Looking at the radar, it was just the first rainband from Harvey and the gap to the next was a couple hours.
Sat, August 26, 2017

I took advantage of this and attempted another bike ride around Buffalo, no luck. I had to take a bunch of detours. It was impressive to see how much water was dumped in just on evening. Many thought it was over. Many didn’t realize it was just the start of the chaos.

Sun, August 27, 2017
This morning, we found a gap from rainfall to venture out into the storm. We made our way into downtown, but the rain got too heavy and we decided it was best head back and stay indoors for the rest of the day. I spent most of my time staring at charts, graphs, gauges, maps, and following the Reddit Live Thread.

Before I went to bed, there was a gap in rain and I made my a couple blocks out to see downtown and amazed to see to see how high the water got.

Mon, August 28, 2017
Water receded a bit over night. I got a little anxious, so I took a walk around the area. This time, I was able to get into downtown and up to UH Downtown. This has a great view of the city, including parts of the park – completely submerged in water.

Tue, August 29, 2017
After reading about all the craziness, a group of us attempted to volunteer at the GRB. There was an overwhelming turnout for volunteers. After registering and going through orientation, we talked with a few coordinators and thought it would be best for us to return at 7 PM, when they have a light number of overnight volunteers.

After some rest and a nap, we returned to the GRB and the volunteering line was twice as long as before, WOW. After waiting in line for quite some time, we got near the front and they announced they were at capacity for volunteers for the evening. I’m amazed to see how many people were ready to help out when our city needed them most!

After Harvey

Wed, August 30, 2017
I woke up this morning and the sun was out!

Instead of attempting to help out at the large mass shelters, my brother and I helped out in the morning at our the Houston Police Officers Union near our house and the retirement facility on the other side of the neighborhood.

We finished around lunch time and I took a bike ride around the area. It’s insane to see the amount of water still lingering. Houston’s infamous August heat and humidity got the best of me, and I cut the adventure short and went home to rest.

First of all, we’re safe, doing well, and the houses are clear from flooding at the moment

Over the past couple years, I’ve put together a list of favorite places to get data, maps, and information. I was finally able to put some of it to use over the weekend.

Weather Forecasting

These folks are freaking awesome. They keep it short and sweet and back it up with tons of data with no bullshit hype.

Space City Weather

https://spacecityweather.com

• Tuesday – Yeah, this weekend is looking wet for Texas
• Wednesday – Harvey redevelops in southern Gulf, will bring major rains to Texas
• Thursday – Harvey late night: Some final Thursday thoughts
• Friday – Category four Harvey slowly approaches landfall near Rockport

Maps and Gauges

From flood maps to bayou gauges, anything that would help me understand when we were in trouble is really helpful.

Harris County Flood Education Mapping Tool

http://www.harriscountyfemt.org/
Before purchasing homes in the near downtown, we check made sure we had a low chance of flooding since we are near Buffalo Bayou. Luckily, we’re just outside the 500-year floodplain.

United States Geological Survey

https://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/tx/nwis/uv?site_no=08074000
The gage site is near us, so it’s a great way to keep track with their WaterAlert tool. I set it up to notify me when the height is above 23 feet and 30 feet. It’s also an interesting way to see the historical trends in order for us to prepare for current and future flooding events.

Each graph is five week’s worth of data, and noticed that when it stops raining, the bayou drains out pretty quickly. We just need Harvey to chill out and let the water recede a little bit.

September 8, 2017 Update

Hurricane Ike September 2008	Flooding April 2009	Memorial Day May 2015
Hurricane Patricia October 2015 Â	Tax Day Flood April 2016	October 2017 Hurricane Harvey

Zooming in on the Harvey gauge profile, notice how long it’s taking the water levels to go down compare to all other events. This is because the city has open up the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs, dumping a tons of water into Buffalo Bayou. You can see the water levels at both reservoirs are extremely high and now slowly draining out.

Addicks and Barker Reservoirs Map Â	Addicks Reservoir	Barker Reservoir

Raindar

Google Play Store: Raindar
This is map is super useful to find out where the heavy rainfall is located in the area, along with a time lapse to help predict the path.

CODNEXLAB

http://weather.cod.edu/satrad/exper/?parms=meso1-02-24-0
This map is just hauntingly beautiful. Keep in mind the one linked is a live feed for visible spectrum, so if it’s night time, you won’t see anything. Just change what you want to see – water vapor, infrared, and bunch of other things I don’t know about.

Requirements will change. Everybody wants an upfront design that’s set in stone. When it comes time to do the real work and you have something in your hands to touch, your “wants” will most likely change. The key is to be agile, flexible, and properly communicate expectations.

Hiring inexpensive workers can sometimes a pain in the ass. You have to explain everything you want to them, spell it out, and always have to recheck their work and never take their word for it. There are a lot of hidden costs when hiring inexpensive workers.¹ When evaluating cost, be sure to include your own time required for the extra overhead.

Hiring high quality craftsman can be expensive. The hard part is identifying their expertise and skill set based on their word. An experienced person can identify their own expertise and is not afraid to tell you their shortcomings. They get your money’s worth when they are able to explain why they do things from their previous experiences.

Getting milestone/inspection sign off can be difficult, but find out where the expectation gaps are and address them as soon as possible. This is where scope creep happens:

• Identify the gaps – this is the hard part
• Make a decision to add/remove to the current phase – not the maybe pile
• Come to an explicit agreement

Delays will happen, so prepare for them (damn you, Murphy!). You can’t be expected to think of every minor problem or worst case scenario upfront. We cannot control the weather. We cannot control the power to the office building. People have lives outside of work. Do not expect them to pick work over anything else in their lives – Brian Dyson said it best.

¹ Thanks TomF for helping me out with this post!

Apparently she's backward for the photo op, "gears out!"

Since I moved to New York late January of 2011, I have always said I would get a bicycle. Laziness, research, procrastination, uncertainty, and the fear of riding on the streets of NYC have all deterred me…until now. I would like to introduce all of you to Contessa. She’s a State Bicycle – Contender and I have had her for about a month now.

My first bike ride around Central Park changed my life. I didn’t really think I would stay in New York much longer, but this bicycle has completely rebooted my future with this city. Since I’m only a few avenues away from Central Park, it’s easy to take a ride. I’ve taken a whole new view and loving every pedal of it.

I have even taken this bike from my place to East Village, West Side, up/down Park Avenue, but I still need to take it on the West Side Highway, over a few bridges (Brooklyn, Williamsburg, Queensboro, and George Washington Bridge), and around some other islands (Governors Island, Roosevelt Island, and Randalls Island).

Personal Records

I have been timing myself using Strava and today’s ride was quite significant – I have a few new personal records:

1. Central Park Full Loop: 23:34
2. The “ACTUAL” Harlem Hill: 1:54
3. Fastest speed: 65.7km/h (~40.82 mph)

After just a month, I have been able to shave off:

1. Central Park Full Loop: 1:50
2. The “ACTUAL” Harlem Hill: 46 seconds

Just to be clear, all these are based on Strava’s calculations with my phone in my pocket, so I’m sure there are a few discrepancies. Either way, I’m having tons of fun with this bike and most importantly – I’m working out again. Feels fucking great.

Shout out to Shey for assisting in the bicycle purchase.

New York City did not welcome me when I first arrived. I took a flight from HOU to MDW and the same plane was going to fly to LGA, but got cancelled just as everyone was done putting up their bags. We deboarded the plane and a lucky few of us got on a plane to ISP (Long Island). My bags were going to stay in Chicago since the flight was taking off in just fifteen minutes.

After landing, I did not believe my eyes, but the entire airport was SNOW. A couple of us who were trying to get to New York took the LIRR back to Penn Station where I finally got a taxi to Joseph’s place. Remember, my checked bags? I picked them up just a few days later from the airport. What a freaking hassle (Thanks Yuwi for helping to pick up my bags!)

Tonight marks the second night in my apartment on the Upper East Side. I have nothing but the things I brought with me on the plane – two carry ons and those two checked bags. Believe it or not, I am actually quite happy. I signed up for ZipCar and need to pick up my card so I can start trolling Craigslist to furnish my apartment.

I’m trying to take pictures of all the food places I visit, but it just sometimes ruins the moment. I have reinstalled Foursquare, but I will not be publishing them to anyone just for historical purposes. Enjoy some of these:

Some of my random thoughts while in New York:

1. Don’t wear sneakers in a place with heavy snow – there’s SLUSH afterward
2. Get some waterproof boots
3. On my birthday, I got to see the sun (the last time I saw it – HOUSTON), I got the keys to my apartment and found out a coworker of mine has the exact same birthday as mine!
4. I never though I’d say, “It’s 40 outside, kind of warm today”
5. I took a black trail while snowboarding in CamelBack

Currently, I’m using my DreamHost‘s Subversion to backup general working files (no pictures and videos). I’m extremely happy with it. I can access it anywhere and even better, work on it whenever and where ever I want without worrying about having the latest files. I just have to follow the rules: update, make my changes, commit, whatever I want: BING, BANG, BOOM!

I’ve talked to James about Mozy to back up my pictures and videos, but I have yet to get it setup. So far, I have only seen the screen shots and setup instructions. It sounds really promising since I have a ton of other things I want to backup. They’re currently sitting in an external hard drive on top of my file cabinet waiting for a huge disaster to come along. You know, spilling something on it, power surge, or just tipping over and corrupting data.

Joseph just got the ridiculous unlimited plan from DreamHost and is sucking up all the bandwidth in his area. He’s putting all his pictures and videos on his FTP and I’ve slightly considered this too. Something just sounds icky about it, so I’d like to get some opinions/suggestions about it.

Whatever I back up on, I’ve got to make sure there’s a back of that back up because Murphy’s Law is always in effect.

The house was lit by a few candles and we hung out in the kitchen. I don’t know why, but Ben, Sarah and I spent a good ten or fifteen minutes taking turns trying to ninja-flick the candle flame out. There we a bunch of close calls, but I was the first one to flick it out, GO ME! I think Sarah brought up the fact that there was beer in my refrigerator and so we unanimously decided to hurry back and drink up!

By the time we got back, the house was already a bit warm, so we opened up a few windows to let the breeze cools us off. We played a round of King’s Cup (OMG awesome game), Jenga, and Speed-Scrabble. It sucked not having any power the first night. By this time, the wind really picked up and it started to sprinkle. This was Teresa’s signal to go get her brother from a neighbor’s house since he forgot his phone. As Teresa and Jenny are knock at the door, Ben sneaks up behind a truck. They start returning back to our house and Ben POUNCES on them! Teresa runs off screaming and her brother runs the other way. What a brother…hahaha. Teresa heads home and we end up back at my house to get ready for bed.

[Day 2 – Saturday]
I didn’t well sleep all night. I kept one waking up, walking around, checking windows and the yard. Morning came and still no power, HMPH. I took a look around the house and the only damage we had were two of our bottle-brushes were leaning at forty-five degree angles in the backyard from the crazy wind and one panel from our fence was knocked out. Jenny and I took a drive around the neighborhood to check out the damage. There were just a few trees leaning over, nothing really completely uprooted, a bunch of branches in the streets, but still drivable, and shingles everywhere.

After returning, my parents showed up to check up on us since they’re only about a twenty minute drive away. We all agreed to crash at our parents’ house since they lost no more than thirty minutes of power the entire night! My parents assessed the damage and took off. Ben and Sarah took off afterward while Jenny and I drove to Marie’s house to scoop her up. This was when the devastation of Hurricane Ike was more visible. Street lights were hanging from the poles, huge trees knocked over, billboards knocked out, and some flooding. Some streets were impassable due to debris and there was absolutely no power.

When we got to Marie’s house, we saw that her fence was knocked over, and TONS of pine needles and branches scattered throughout her yard. They seemed to have it worse than us, but nothing crazy.

[Day 3-7 – Sunday-Thursday]
I don’t remember much besides playing Risk, Monopoly, Wii Mario Kart, and getting on the canoe around my parents’ lake. At one point, Ben and I returned to our house and cleaned out the refrigerator. This was completely disgusting, but we had to do it. The freezer had blood from the sausage and ground beef we stored up pooled at the bottom. The fridge smelled like an old trash can. Nothing Colorox can’t clean up. The same day, my dad came by and we cut off some branches to the tipsy trees and put the upright again. We were on a roll, so we weeded the backyard, trimmed the rest of the trees so we can have a nice walkway without a branching slapping anyone in the head. These were the highlights of the aftermath.

If you’re asking about work, well our building lost power and got a little water damage from the windows. Working from kind of sucked, but I did learn to mock a bunch of objects and catch/handle exceptions properly.

That evening, a few of us decided to go to Sammy’s despite the curfew. While we were there, I got a text message from a friend that our friend had power (she lives in our neighborhood too). Around midnight, we drove home and sleeping in my own bed in my own house with A/C felt great!

[Day 8-9 – Friday-Saturday]
We spent the Friday morning enjoying the power and then I was off to work. We finally got power there as well. We setup all the servers and cleaned up all the cabling. We left the place ready for a fresh start on Monday!

What good is power without the Internet? Almost absolutely POINTLESS! We just got home today (Saturday) from a dinner at Luby’s and returned to my house with Internet. Time to catch up on news, blogs, and everything that I’ve missed…

[QOTD] “You put an apple in his mouth?” – Grace

“Blech!”

1. Our Software Engineering presentation was terrible
2. My OpenGL project was incomplete, since I started it a few hours before it was due
3. CrystalThought Flash and PowerPoint presentation is to be completed ASAP
4. OpenGL Final is on Thursday

“WhooHoo!”

1. My first time at Whataburger was AWESOME!
   1. After you order, you get a plastic number thing. It’s really fun to play with (Thanks James!)
   2. They have the bendy straw things.
   3. They bring your food to you
   4. They walk around to offer condiments
   5. Ketchup comes in a platic bowl thing, not a packet
2. Javier’s party is on Friday!
3. Montreal, Canada business trip on Saturday
4. Redmond, Washington trip next week

I really need to get back to work…