Hurricane Harvey

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"harvey" is not at all a threatening name.

Our Superstorm Sandy was only a minimal extratropical hurricane when it made landfall in Southern New Jersey. Damage was about $70 billion dollars in NY/NJ alone.

Imagine if a storm like Harvey hit NYC?

One of the worst things that can happen to a wind farm is too much wind.

Hurricane Harvey was packing top winds of 115 miles (185 kilometers) an hour on Saturday, according to a National Hurricane Center advisory. That’s more than twice the 55 miles-an-hour speed that prompts many turbines to shut off. The result: The storm could knock out between 2.1 and 3.6 gigawatts of power near the Texas coast, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Wind-farm operators have been bracing for days. Avangrid Inc., the New Haven, Connecticut-based power company, evacuated all personnel from its wind farm complex on the South Texas coast, a spokesman said in an email.

“The problem with this hurricane is they don’t see it trailing off in any direction so it’s just going to hover,” said Jeff Ferguson, the Magnolia, Texas-based senior vice president of project development at Apex Clean Energy Inc. “So it could be next week for the winds to diminish adequately so we can resume normal operations.”

“They’ll pitch down and yaw into the wind, which allows them to safely pinwheel,” said John Martinez, director of operation at Pattern Energy Group Inc., which owns the 283-megawatt Gulf Wind farm in Kenedy County. “This way the blades don’t flex, which can be damaging. The turbines are designed to automatically do that.”
Least Worrisome

Wind power may be the least of the region’s power-market worries. If hundreds of thousands of people lose power as is expected, it doesn’t matter whether the wind farms are running or not, because they’d have nowhere to send the electricity generated. It’s the very reason why power and gas are trading down.

“With gas plentiful and load down, I suspect the lack of wind won’t matter at all,” Cody Moore, the Houston-based president of BioUrja Group’s power trading division. “I’d be more concerned with the safety of the turbines than any need for load.”

The 3.6 gigawatts of capacity installed in the south power zone of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas is a different matter. About 2.1 gigawatts is directly along the coast.

“As that storm starts coming onshore, there’s a good chance winds will exceed 55 miles per hour,” Michaella Farese, a Boston-based meteorologist and demand forecaster at Genscape, said in an interview Friday.

"§174. Time and occasions for display "(c) Inclement weather The flag should not be displayed on days when the weather is inclement, except when an all weather flag is displayed."

About an hour after city officials confirmed Houston's first fatality from Harvey late Saturday, Houston police officials began to evacuate two apartment complexes in Greenspoint due to rising flood waters early Sunday.
Bayous and rivers throughout the region have risen to near-record levels as Tropical Storm Harvey's powerful rain bands continued to stall over southeast Texas. About 119 sections of waterways in Harris County had spilled over their banks, according to the Harris County Flood Warning System.

One of rain bands dumped between 5 and 6 inches of rain on parts of the Houston metro area late Saturday, and a second is expected to bring another 6 inches early Sunday.

As floodwaters rose near Buffalo Bayou, a spokesman for the Harris County Emergency Operations Center said a woman died after she apparently exited her vehicle in high water in west Houston. She was found near here vehicle by passersby.

No other details were available about the death, which was announced at a press conference Saturday night, just after the National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency, its most dire warning, for three areas: south and southwest Houston, parts of east Fort Bend County and northwest Brazoria County.

About 119 sections of waterways - including bayous and rivers - had spilled past their banks early Sunday morning, according to the Harris County Flood Warning System. At least six of those areas were within the I-610 Loop, but about 19 were located in southeast Harris County.

Lake Conroe exceeded its normal elevation by early Sunday, and officials planned a series of water releases through the lake's dams throughout the morning.

The cities of Pasadena and Dickinson told residents to shelter in place overnight Sunday as flood waters continued to rise in both areas.

The Dickinson Police Department said all roads in the city are impassable, and that the department had conducted multiple high water rescues.

The National Weather Service has blanketed huge swaths of the Houston area a flash flood warnings, among the most dire alerts the agency can issue. It issued flash flood emergencies for the following areas: from the Hobby Airport to Friendswood and Pearland; from Cloverleaf to Pasadena to near San Luis Pass; and from west central Harris, east Fort Bend and north Brazoria counties.

Acevedo tweeted that as many as 110 city roads were impassable at about 11:45 p.m. due to flooding. That number had jumped to 142 by 1:30 a.m. The high water road closures are listed here.

Turner tweeted that a rain band appeared to stall over the Braeswood and Meyerland areas, producing as much as 4 inches of rainfall within one hour there. City and emergency officials warned people in those neighborhoods to move valuables and electronics off the floors and to be prepared for water to come into some residences.

Within one hour Saturday night, the Houston Fire Department responded to 17 water rescues along Houston roads, according to its Twitter account. The areas most affected by water rescues include the Southwest Freeway, the Katy Freeway and Westheimer Road.

The Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office and the Stafford Police Department reported tornado sightings at about 8: 30 p.m. The Sheriff's Office also tweeted that a different tornado had been spotted near U.S. 90 and the Texas Parkway minutes earlier.

A tornado warning has been issued for Meadow Place, Addicks and Santsuma through 9 p.m.
National Weather Service Meteorologist Wendy Wong confirmed seven tornadoes touched down in the Houston area between Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.

A possible eighth tornado may have formed near FM 359 and McCrary Road in Fort Bend County, according to a Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office Twitter post at 7:15 p.m.

It was not immediately clear where the other three tornadoes touched down in that area Saturday afternoon.
Gonzales tweeted that some homes had suffered "extensive damage" in the Lone Oak Subdivision, and that other buildings had been impacted near the Barry Center; Black Horse Ranch; Fry Road at Cypress North Houston Road; and between Tuckerton and West roads. Photos tweeted by Gonzales show the roof of one home was almost completely ripped off, while gutters and other hardware hung down the walls of another.
Other twisters caused damage near College Station and Sargent.

Melissa Huffman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Houston, said Harvey's strong winds have set in motion smaller vortexes, resulting in frequent but brief tornadoes. Such conditions are expected to continue through Monday.

"They're not super long-lived," she said. "That's the good thing."


Oil companies have evacuated personnel from about 15 percent of the manned oil-production platforms and half of the working drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, federal officials said Saturday.

As of 11:30 a.m., Gulf operators reported they have evacuated 112 out of 737 platforms and five of 10 drilling rigs, and one so-called dynamically positioned rig has moved off its drilling site, a precautionary move as the storm swept through the region, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice evacuated about 4,500 inmates in the Ramsey, Terrell and Stringfellow units in Rosharon in Brazoria County by buses to facilities in East Texas.

Around 7 a.m., the National Weather Service warned of “catastrophic” and potentially “historic” flooding in the metropolitan area of the country’s fourth-largest city.

Officials in Houston urged residents to be cautious. Early Sunday, a woman was found dead by her vehicle, believed to have been trapped during a flood.

As morning broke, police and rescue workers continued to plead for residents to stay indoors and not attempt to travel flooded roadways. They urged residents experiencing flooding make their way to the highest point possible in their house, even if it is the roof, if they were awaiting rescue.

By 7 a.m. Central time, the National Weather Service had recorded at least 27 inches of rain in Houston, with an additional three to seven inches expected. Warnings for flash flooding and tornadoes remained in place for a large swath of the state, and storm surges were expected along the coast, bringing flooding to typically dry areas. William H. Hobby Airport was shut down.

“There’s flooding all over this city,” Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said in a live stream video early Sunday morning. “We have one fatality, and a potential second fatality from the floodwaters out here.”

In Pasadena, a suburb of Houston, residents were ordered early Sunday to shelter in place. “Flooding is ongoing; roadways are impassable,” city officials warned. “Please do not leave until all-clear is given.”

Authorities in the Houston area reported they’d received calls from residents climbing into their attics to escape the rising water. Water overflowed the banks of area waterways in more than 30 places, spilling into roadways and homes.

Parts of Interstate 45 had more than 60 stalled vehicles on them, tweeted Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

Gonzalez fielded tweets from some residents who posted pleas for help, saying 911 lines were busy. “We’re on it, but so widespread, it’s hard to get to everyone immediately,” the sheriff replied to one Twitter user.

The National Weather Service predicted “major flood” conditions at some 49 river locations across a vast expanse of coastal Texas.