When Harvey hit. I thought “man the value is going to go down in Houston. So many neighborhoods were affected” but look at us now. Most people can’t even afford to stay here anymore.
I was born and raised in Houston since the late 80s. I remember every single hurricane, storm, and flood. My family flooded twice in my lifetime as we lost everything twice as kids.
The freeze of 2021 was the final straw for me and I left. Harvey was my best friends final straw
Houston is the beneficiary of the best parts of the U.S. being so incredibly expensive that people can't afford property there anymore.
The quality of new housing is going to take a nosedive as greedy contractors rush to fill a gap.
Texas housing has been less than great for a long time. Using galvanized pipes until the late 80s, single pane windows until 2002, minimal insulation, etc. Whatever corners they could cut plus low-skilled labor to build huge houses for cheap.
Newer homes have a lot of crappy workmanship but at least the big stuff is modern and done decently.
We have all the greatest materials now but good labor is hard find.
good labor doesnt do residential work because it doesnt pay for shit and its run by idiots who cant run commercial or industrial work lmao.
residential in texas will be dog shit until they start using unionized trade partners rather than the guys they scoop up from county jail every morning
good labor isnt hard to find but good labor isnt going to work for residential rates and those subs rarely even offer bennies they're just bilking illegals who couldnt get a social to fudge everify with cash under table
I am a senior super in texas and residential is a joke you don't even learn your trade that well because it's so cookie cutter every project.
Oh definitely, residential big builders just churn out junk. About to help 2 friends fix their bathrooms due to bad quality parts and leaks. 2 and 5 year old houses.
I did a gut renovation and hired my own trades. Paid a bunch more for real companies and legal workers and better materiala. Drywall finishing was my only let down, but good fucking luck finding anyone that can even hide a tapered seam nowadays! I'll hire a commercial drywall company next time. Fortunately I have the skills to do most construction myself and saved a ton on finishing it out.
yeah you can honestly do all the rock yourself it's really not difficult to get a smooth finish just takes time. it takes time in commercial as well they just man up jobs and have an army of people to tape float and then sand and go back over it. i'm relatively confident most homes arent really given any sort of punch list in residential they just say its done and go next.
Yeah, back in the late 1900's, when I first got to Houston, I was told about major developer/builders who had been run out of the Chicago area for the lack of quality of their construction, who had all set up shop down here. The specific case was a development in Pearland, where the "grout" used to build the brick veneer was at least 95% sand: you could scratch it out with a stick, heaven help you if you used a garden hose, let alone a pressure washer.
Harvey was our breaking point. Everything since has just pushed us closer to accepting moving. The freeze was the thing that made us finally come to peace with moving. We've been working since then to position ourselves to moving.
Last Thursday's storm has done it for us. We have been directly impacted by 6 weather disasters (not to mention all the power loss and boil water notices in between) since 2009, and we just can't do this anymore.
I’m from here but lived in actual functioning societies lol. Our grid system issues are hilarious corruption that would get people in other places I’ve lived killed or jailed for life.
I love Texas, I love Houston. But they are both run by idiots who should be in jail. Foreigners look at how badly this is run and can’t believe it. We are so wealthy but so dumb in the mismanagement of our resources. Houston could look like Tokyo dude. Instead it looks like one giant suburb with more pollution than some developing nations.
Japan believes in the Commonwealth.
Texas leadership despises such a notion.
It's the ultimate failure of most failed US states. Individual needs are met out by those who can afford it. Everyone else just plods along.
Well that works out because Russia isn’t communist (or socialist, or Soviet). It is, however, extremely authoritarian, which conservatives have always liked.
Edit: the Red Scare in the US was always more about undermining labor and an independent press than actual communism, anyway.
Apt comparison. Bangalore traffic is ass, and I am from Mumbai, so I don’t say that lightly. Houston is headed towards shitty oversaturated gridlock just like Bangalore. We don’t even have commuter trains ffs, which Bangalore actually does😂
Houston and Harris County isn’t ran by Conservatives my friend. Hell, Houston has only one R mayor in its entire history. You best look in the political mirror if you want a political party to blame. 😂
Huh!? Texas has had idiot Republican governors since the great Anne Richards who was a real Dem. That woman was respected, fierce and beloved and no one gave her any crap. When she was governor TX was GOOD. Since her it's been one moron R after the other. There was moron Bush Jr., glasses Rick who didnt even LIVE in TX and now "all talk" Abbott (who seems uber-focused on ruining TX) it's been an ever downward trajectory in Texas ...
>I love Texas, I love Houston. But they are both run by idiots who should be in jail. Foreigners look at how badly this is run and can’t believe it.
I was raised in Houston, moved to a state with a well-run, community owned power "company," and I can't believe how bad, **and how much more expensive** the power situation is in Houston.
Texas is mid pack in cost for power my friend. And that’s only average. I personally pay 9.8 cents.
[Electricity Rates by State](https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/#0-section-copy)
The power company didn’t cause this outage. 😂😂
I cleaned up houses after harvey and have seen so many third world homes and neighborhoods from the inside in Houston. I’m Peruvian so I know what it looks like lol there’s even tent cities. The nice parts have shitty roads and stuff.
Tokyo and other cities have more homogeneous populations so everything is more equal. Houston will never be like that
These are NOT the things that concern me about living here anymore.
I have a young daughter.....
I'm more concerned about the rolling back of human rights.
It's influenced my opinions on a lot of things, and reinforced my opinions on some others. Some are things that can be fixed locally, and others not so much. Notably, we need to think about burying more power lines. The parts of town with buried lines fared very well in this storm. As far as living in Texas, the heat and sprawl is enough to make me want to move somewhere with the opposite of those things for some time now.
The issue with buried lines is that we don’t have great soil conditions for subsurface utilities. We have lots of saturated fat clays that have large swell potential and shifts a lot compared to more sturdy areas. I agree that we should explore the potential but I don’t think it is the ultimate savior to our issues that everyone makes it out to be. Especially with this recent storm where the bigger issue was a historically large and severe storm happened to tear up a multiple high voltage transmission systems which are not buried in most places.
Correct, our soil sucks and already rips up water mains during droughts.
Underground electrical also cant be run right next to sewer, water, and gas lines, plus cable and fiber needs a place too. To go underground means moving other utilities, and the only "easy" way is to do it during major tear-up-the-street projects which everyone hates.
The issue is th 26+ billion it would cost to bury a little over half the cities power lines. The added cost to your bill would be horrendous. Second part is we are near sea level and drainage in parts of town isn't great. That means excessive moisture on the buried infrastructure which has a higher maintenance cost and when it does fail takes longer to repair.
Texas ranks a little above avg for states without the primary source of power coming from hydropower in reliability when taking out named storms.
Main lines will never be buried.
I’ve lived enough other places (NYC, upstate NY, Philly metro, Seattle, Portland) to see the pluses and minuses to some of the more idealized places.
For now, the weather and cost of living here is better than an ever-lengthening wildfire season, earthquakes and COL of the west coast. And I hate snow, so the northeast is out for me. I could never, ever shovel snow again and die happy.
And I still don’t have power.
Now, the politicians in this state… that’s a whole other issue. But truthfully, Philly, Seattle and Portland are kind of the same…. Bright blue cities and real red real fast outside them. It’s the gerrymandering here that really sets it apart.
The opinion (fact) that the Texas government is run by hyper corrupt scumbags, and they all need to be thrown out of office and replaced by people who will actually fix things?
Nope.
Pretty much just reinforces that fact.
I've wanted to move north for a long time however large parts of the North real estate is very expensive. Canada is prohibitively expensive in fact they have a housing crisis.
Wife is not wild about moving to Michigan but it's much more affordable than New York. We are kind of in a holding pattern I think once my daughter reaches school age we will probably move.
For the time being I got solar panels.
I moved to the Twin Cities a couple years ago and don't regret it one bit, especially now. The summers average out in the 80s with a week or two in the 90s.
People complain about the heat and humidity here but it's a cakewalk if you're from Houston. I don't even notice the humidity.
Same when I lived in NC for a bit. Everyone complained about the heat and humidity and it was nothing compared to Houston. NC starts cooling down mid-August!
Depends on what you're looking for. Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights on the east side, Lakewood, Edgewater, on the west side, lots and lots of suburbs. It's a great little town, built for significantly more density than it has now, but as the southern regions continue to heat up and milder winters continue moving into the area it's going to keep drawing more folks. They have a great museum district and theatre scene as well as a very thriving food and drink scene. The national park in our backyard is really nice too.
FWIW - I just moved out of Houston to Cleveland last October for so many reasons, and climate was one of them.
I did the opposite in September, the city is nice but quality of life is shit for the taxes we pay (state, RITA, etc). Government there is getting much worse than before (look what they are doing with weed legalization)
I lived in new Hampshire and Connecticut and have lived here since 2016 and have experienced more problems and power outages than I ever experienced in other states I’ve lived in. Maybe Texans will wake up to the corrupt people they consistently elect to run this state into the ground.
I'd rather have power failures and the occasional hurricane or flood than tornados, earthquakes, and/or forest fires that cross into cities. (Yes, we get tornadoes from time to time, but we're not in the "Tornado Alley".)
There are very few places on this planet that are extremely safe from assorted catastrophes. You can bet even the most wonderful places have something that's not ideal.
Edit: Added last line in 1st paragraph.
I grew up where earthquakes are common. If you plan, build, and regulate with these them in mind, they aren’t a big issue. It’s why we haven’t heard of a major earthquake disaster in California since the early ‘90s, despite earthquakes being about as common there as major landfall hurricanes. The same applies for most natural disasters. Plan and regulate, and you’ll minimize affects. What puts people at more risk are unscrupulous businessmen and deregulation, two things Texas seems to enjoy having.
Yeah so many people think earthquakes are so crazy but everywhere prone to them is built for it so they are not much of a problem at all. Last a few seconds and everything is back to normal. West coast doesn’t have crazy storms that knockout power for close to a week
Maybe more than one tornado, and a derecho too!
And don't forget the great freeze of 2021.
I'd like to think maybe we're finished with all these catastrophic events, but I guess we have to face the fact that things will happen that we can't be prepared for.
> Yes, we get tornadoes from time to time, but we're not in the "Tornado Alley".
There was [this tornado](https://abc13.com/houston-storm-damage-katy-businesses-destroyed-by-high-winds-firestone-collapse-old-mason-road-bourbon-street-sports-bar/14641402/) that hit Katy in April, now the [two last week](https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/houston-tornado-confirmed-cypress-texas/285-e492fdb5-3098-4bd4-8505-c09f9e9c6e4b) in Waller County and Cypress as well as the [derecho](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-weather/article/what-is-a-derecho-houston-storms-thursday-winds-19464500.php) on Thursday of last week. So yeah, we aren't living in Oklahoma but that's not extremely rare if we've had three tornadoes in the area (plus the derecho) in the past month.
I don’t recall ever having earthquakes or tsunamis here in Houston.
We don’t get forest fires on the regular either like other places.
We don’t get buried in snow for months at time like other places.
We don’t experience below zero degree temperatures like other places.
We don’t experience ice for months at a time other places.
We don’t experience endless weeks of rainfall like other places.
We don’t have volcanoes like other places.
We don’t have the infrastructure to deal with the natural disasters and weather we do have. The northeast and countries in Europe get buried in snow, get ice, go below zero - so what, they have fleets of trucks to clear snow and spread salt - life doesn’t grind to a halt. Countries with monsoon season like Singapore don’t flood much because they have built a great drainage system. Here it floods on a sunny day! And things are blowing up on the east side of town every quarter!
That’s partially due to poor regulation and massive sprawling development and partially due to nature. We are a swampy bayou city with little topographic relief. Water has to go somewhere and we happen to get more severe storms than other places.
I’m not arguing that we couldn’t be doing MUCH better. But there is not a magic solution. It’s a bit of a catch 22 at this point as well.
It’s a bit like saying that California has failed by not building infrastructure that is resilient to forest fires. I know this is a stretch of an analogy and I am blatantly disregarding debatable forest management practices but it is a similar situation in a lot of ways. Sometimes Mother Nature humbles mankind and Houston has had an unlucky streak as of late. Factor in climate change (not even going there because the discussion would take forever) and you can see how challenging of an issue this can be for a HUGE city such as Houston.
>I don’t recall ever having earthquakes or tsunamis here in Houston.
Very few places in the US actually do and certainly not a regular basis.
>We don’t get forest fires on the regular either like other places.
Texas is actually 2nd behind California in the number of forest fires and 8th in the acres burned by forest fires. 2011 Bastrop fires had smoke coming to Houston. I'll give you this one though since Houston isn't known for its trees.
>We don’t get buried in snow for months at time like other places.
Except for the most northern states, this is not a regular thing for other states either. It would be nice to actually get snow now and then.
>We don’t experience below zero degree temperatures like other places.
Yeah but we had 3 a day power outage after 2 days of temperatures dropping in the teens and then we had months of rebuilding due to frozen pipe and water damage. In places where it does dip below zero, they actually have building codes that prepare for this so they don't deal with it.
>We don’t experience ice for months at a time other places.
Again, neither do other places unless you're in Minnesota or somewhere up there.
>We don’t experience endless weeks of rainfall like other places.
I'm starting to wonder whether you actually live in Houston or visit other places. Other places point to Houston when they talk about endless rain and flooding. We get so much rain here that they have names like the "May Day floods" and we say things like "this is reminding me of Allison". We get a major flood every 2 years. Even places like Seattle don't deal with the type of rain we deal with when it comes down.
>We don’t have volcanoes like other places.
This is like saying "we don't get asteroid damage like other places". Last time there was a volcano erupting in the US was 1980.
Nevertheless all those places do exist.
I guess Hawaii isn’t part of the US now regarding volcanoes. At least according to you. 😂😂😂
Who said I was even talking about the US.
Have a wonderful day.
Agreed with other commenters that meteorologists are noting how unusual the derecho placement was - apparently the Southwest extent for derechos is usually North Texas at its southernmost, and these areas are most active in LATE summer. There were also reported embedded tornado-like circulations which was deemed unusual for derechos, as they usually go in a straight line like most menacing supercell storms do. Tornado alley is changing and Houston is is it now, for better or for worse.
I grew up in a wildfire and earthquake zone (experiencing both) and the weather and the shit I’ve experienced here is 10x worse. This is borderline ignorant.
We also just experienced a tornado wtf 😂
I have evacuated from wildfire. I've had friends lose their home while it rained ash all over my region. It is a helpless feeling in a way that periodic flooding doesn't match IMO
I mean trees were knocked down and buildings lost walls and windows, homes lost roofs, cars slide across the road. Is there a place where weather is never an issue and there are no car/tree/window/wall/roof damage during storms?
Nope. Natural disasters happen everywhere. And me losing power three times in 10 years is NOT the worst thing that can happen.
I'm throwing in my Houston towel for mountains/hills and rivers/lake, likely in the next 10 years.
Has nothing to do with our uncommon power outages though.
Ike, the freeze, and this insane severe super storm. Outside of the freeze, all big cities lose power with natural disasters with 100+ mph winds, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.
The power problems while concerning are not influential in me living in Houston. The lack of accountability by the constituents of this state is. It’s completely unacceptable that the state government has so many shortfalls while allegedly having a 33 BILLION dollar surplus. Add that to the state effectively getting involved in all our body autonomies in a plethora of ways, it’s far more concerning that the average voter is just fine with living in such a dictatorship.
Last time I visited my old folks in Canada, they(we) lost power for a whole week, at Christmas, on sub-freezing temperatures. We had to relay winter-camping in the living room to stoke the wood stove, sleeping no more than 2 hours at a time.
You know how they call that? A regular winter. Do you imagine other places don't get blackouts and broken power lines? Everywhere gets that.
Ive lived the great Ice Storm of 1998 where people lost power in winter for weeks on end. Also the great North East blackout of 2003 where 55 million people lost power and a hundred people died. This shit happens everywhere.
I've wanted to leave for a long time but I don't have the money to leave. But when I do, I will be out like the flash. To the question being asked, yes, I want to live somewhere with a better power grind and, more importantly, better all around weather.
Not really. It's for a while now been a matter of, "I don't want to live here, but particularly since I'm self employed and all my business contacts are here, I'm basically stuck."
Weird. I've not had these experiences. Power went out for me during and post ike, but that was forever ago. The freeze was quite the fluke if you read any of the write ups about it on here. My power didn't even blink during Harvey while most of everything was under water. I was extremely impressed by centerpoint keeping things running during a hurricane as I had family working repairs during it. My God did they bust their ass. I was also unaffected by this tornado, but I grew up in tornado alley and am unshocked by what it did. So, I don't know what you mean by "string of power infrastructure catastrophes". Even the ice storm didn't mess up the infrastructure, and ike, Harvey, and this tornado are all local events, so to call it "Texas power infrastructure" seems quite hyperbolic. In the end, there is no where you will be able to run from climate change driven environmental disasters.
I've never liked living here and now I like it even less (and it isn't just because the power infrastructure is shit, I abhor our state government, I dislike heat and humidity and significantly prefer cool, chilly weather (heaven would be in the 20s-40s year around), and now we have a mayor who seems hellbent in destroying any advances in public transportation and an easily walkable downtown. That's not even mentioning how Houstonians can't directly control their largest school district anymore...).
>[There have been 263 power outages across Texas since 2019, more than any other state, each lasting an average of 160 minutes and impacting an estimated average of 172,000 Texans, according to an analysis by electricity retailer Payless Power. California ranked second with 221 outages from 2019 to 2023, while Washington placed third with 118, according to Adi Sachdeva, data researcher at Payless Power. The report was based on data from the Department of Energy.
](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/texas-leads-nation-power-outages-18887152.php)
Yes.
Not so much for myself, being relatively young and in decent shape, but for my more vulnerable family members.
And hey, everyone gets old at some point (unless they don't). Better plan for it now.
Natural events are going to happen everywhere, just pick your poison. I would rather be a little hot without power from a hurricane for a few days, instead of living for months in snow or never seeing rain in the desert. One really cool aspect of the occasional mother nature event is seeing the kindness and generosity from my fellow Houstonians.
This weather has taught me that I cannot generate cold easily in the heat, meanwhile during the freeze I was able to create warmth and comfort easily.
I liked the heat until that clicked for me this week lol.
The freeze was fun like camping, this is just hell.
Meh, for the cold you could deal with mobility issues with dangerous road conditions for however long. Burst pipes, water issues. With heat, you just need a window ac unit and a portable generator.
>Natural events are going to happen everywhere, just pick your poison
The difference is that in other states, especially those with cold winters, or in tornado alley, build up their electrical grid to be more resistant to natural events, and the citizens suffer less outages as a result. States like Minnesota and Wisconsin get Polar Vortex-type of winters every year, you but you don't hear about tens of thousands of households going without power for weeks on end there, and the freezes there can last for a month, every year, not just a week like in Texas.
And also, wouldn't your poison be Greg Abbott allowing the power companies that haven't reinforced the power grid to legally price gouge during outages?
Texas manipulates you into thinking that buying a $20k generator to free yourself from government dependence is what is needed instead of fixing the grid that you already pay for service and taxes to improve.
The great freeze of '21 and going more than a week without power and water was what got the conversation going in looking to leave Texas. I said that I'd start looking, and if Greg Abbot was re-elected, I'm leaving.
Roe v Wade being overturned and talk about rolling back LBGTQ+ rights since then have convinced me that I made the right move.
Nope. The power goes out for half a day or less once in a blue moon. Been here in houston for over 10,000 days (29 years). 3 days out of those 10k days ive had no power. The biggest one was the big freeze when i had no power for 1 day, second one was harvey at half a day. The rest was way less. Last weeks storm my lights went out for like a minute.
Where do you live? I’ve been here since 1984 and have had a number of outages. Hurricanes, tropical storms, deep freezes…come on, there have been many days when I had no power—13 days during Ike and still no power since last Thursday.
I moved there more than 10 years ago from another country. We loved it, until we didn’t. I told my partner I didn’t want to live there through another major weather event. Tax Day floods, then Harvey ripped apart our neighborhood, twice. And then the ice storm that left us without power for four days was enough. We put in a whole home generator and I was still like, DANG…if we don’t have to live here, why are we living here? We both work remote…no family ties to the state whatsoever. I’m sorry, but Houston was great and it’s strained now, even without the weather drama. But that’s my opinion. I know plenty of people who love it. We left last summer, actually moved into “Tornado Alley” and guess what…it’s totally doable living life somewhere else. The weather is better here (Texas has the highest number of tornadoes out of any state, likely due to the actual size of the state…) Fewer people. Lower crime. Smaller schools. And omg, I don’t get eaten alive by mosquitos when the weather is actually nice enough to be outside. The number of people crushing every available service, roadway, airport, event, and school system etc, was intolerable. I don’t ever need to live in an American city of that size again. I don’t miss the chaos. I thought I couldn’t live without my massive and affordable suburban home, and all the conveniences Houston has to offer. I was afraid I had gotten spoiled by all the city had to offer but it became so hard to keep sane there. We’re all happier now…who knew? It was hard to say goodbye but at the end of the day the only thing I miss apart from friends is H‑E‑B.
Yeah I remember before we moved out of Houston a couple of years ago I was concerned about about how much I would miss the place. When we finally moved and settled into our new city I found myself only missing my family, friends and food.
And as much as I like those 3 things, the cons of living in Houston far outweighed the pros till the point that I didn’t miss living in Houston at all.
But good things never last, after 2 years of living away from Houston when we had our first child we had moved back to Houston.
Nope. I consider the goal to be self sustainable and prepared to be a core Texas value. Mostly because our state and local governments have been corrupt and inept since Sam Houston was around. If you can take care of yourself then this state is for you
Yes and no. I don't expect much from the guys in Austin. They have made it clear that they aren't operating in the interest of most Texans. But when catastrophes hit, you get to see who your neighbors really are. In short-term catastrophes, they are amazing. If it's longterm, like a pandemic, they'll look for any reason not to care.
Define a *recent string* of catastrophes. So there was a record cold snowstorm in 2021 that forced nuclear power stations into controlled shutdown from freezing intake water and LNG shutdown from freezing gas. This has happened once in our lifetime. I speculate that the other catastrophe you speak of is last weeks tornado / derecho toppling transmission towers? Two events over three years apart and completely unrelated is hardly a string.
Read other comments in this thread, over decades Houstonians have suffered a lot of damage namely from Rita and Harvey, moreso than other hurricane-bound cities. I do believe the Atlantic-Gulf streams are getting more stronger and unruly - case in point last weeks monster derecho/tornado. Since everyone in the thread wants to downplay it. Consistently yearly Spring flooding for nearly 10 years now.
I have lost power 4 times in 2024 and like 5+ last year. Our infrastucture is terrible. I also blame the particular situation in our neighborhood to a block of 70 crammed box homes that went up down the street 2 years ago. There was a nice 2-3 acres of woods that were demolished to make them and now we have outages all the time.
A greedy person made a ton of money selling those. Some of the suckers who bought them are already selling 😂
It has compelled me to get serious about backup power, and thanks to the folks at /r/Generator I've learned I can power most of the house with a large portable for maybe 20% of the cost of a whole house setup.
It’s the old trauma tax of living in Houston. Relative to many other places you can find cheaper housing, certainly per sq ft. But when you account for volatile weather, chemical explosions/leaks plus the trend higher now in housing costs, that narrative begins to break down. And this will only get worse - climate change should lead to hotter, more volatile weather. I’ve rented the 5 years I’ve been in Houston, and am leaving soon for work in another city. But as a somewhat unbiased outside observer, I don’t know if I’d want to own property here over the next 50 years. Insurance rates will increase as the threat of volatile weather does
Not necessarily the outages and weather events themselves, but the government's inability to fix anything or do anything that's helpful for citizens. It's been like this for years and nothing has changed. I have been looking for jobs out of Texas recently and would gladly move for more personal freedom and effective local and state governments. Also not having 100+ degree summers would be nice
Not really. Power infrastructure problems aren't a surprise to me, I've lived near a hospital and/or a fire station to get that first access to power getting back on, and have started my prep stuff. My complex was hit by the deracho Thursday and we were only out of power for about 15 hours from what I was told. I have decided to go ahead and get a solar generator, though, since I'll be moving soon and don't know yet if I'll have the same location hookup I've had.
I think the major hit that we’ll see in the next few years is that honeowner’s insurance companies will leave the state and there won’t be anyone left who’s willing to insure them. Prices will skyrocket further and coverage will be close to nothing. Loans are often contingent on holding insurance, which means that even fewer people will be able to afford to buy. Home prices will increase because they are now being offered to a higher income level than back when insurance cost less. A home will soon be more of a luxury than ever before.
I'm no power line tech expert so I can't say we would have fared any better with better funding or not, but I have to say, it's one of those "the reasons are adding up" things. Born and raised Texan, returned after my service. Would suck to have to leave.
I like Houston, the friendliest most diverse big city in the world. I wish the weather were better. I am tired of it. Thing is, so many desirable places to live in the U.S. are way more expensive than Houston.
As a native Houstonian who left 8 years ago, I don’t see myself ever moving back after seeing all the troubles my family there has to go through due to weather
The storm this week has really deterred me from ever moving back home to be with my family who still lives in Houston. For the past 8-9 years almost every Spring, H-town a legit monsoon season with extensive rains and flooding which is only made worse by the bayou infrastructure and low elevation. Hurricanes didn’t seem super scary growing up because they always decreased in intensity before hitting us, but this weather event scared the shit out of me. The main damage was in downtown but it had me worried that random family members in Cypress had been affected; and my family is without power still. Never will I pay a premium to live somewhere without a stable power grid. Texas is not it for me anymore.
Basically just reinforced. I wouldn’t still be here if it weren’t for my family and friends.
I was without power for a week last year after a freak storm in Houston, 8 months pregnant during some of the hottest days of the year. There have been so many other incidents too. Had to start over after Harvey. My old boss demanded we go through the 2 hour commute each way during the Ike aftermath.
Now I WFH with people all over the country. My team has 2 other people from my area thankfully or else I don’t know if they would believe how frequently I experience issues with power and connectivity. Other areas experience disasters but nothing like how it is here.
The combo of extreme weather and an isolated energy grid isn’t a great one.
1. The heat is getting ever more oppressive
2. Traffic is getting stupider, both in sheer numbers and idiocy of the drivers.
3. Only reason that I am here is my few friends and it's fast becoming that not even that draw will be able to keep me here.
4. The continental "dry" line is shifting east so that this area is going to get drier (drought conditions) punctuated by punishing downpours and violent storms.
No question. Lived here all my life and like it at times but would prefer to live elsewhere. Somewhere with better weather and more relaxed lifestyle filled with outdoor activities and better scenery. This city has been good to me and my family but don’t really enjoy it and the post natural disaster headaches are just the icing on that shit cake
So I lived in 3 other places outside of Houston. 2 other smaller cities in Texas and the other in Atlanta.
The weather and Houston’s infrastructure is by far the worst.
There seems to be a lot of Houstonians that developed Stockholm syndrome when it comes to weather disasters. I’ve even seen some Houstonians taunt transplants for wanting to move out the city due to Thursday storm.
News flash Houstonians these type of incidents aren’t as common as they are in Houston. Don’t get me wrong, most cities in America have some sort of disaster but Houston imo feels more consistent.
Even outside of storms and hurricanes there’s the occasional heavy rainfall that leaves you stuck and nervous on the commute to and from work. I didn’t have to worry about that in Atlanta. Maybe twice did I run into a heavy downpour commute and it didn’t last as long as Houston.
That experience is stressful and exhausting. You don’t know how comforting it is to live in a city where you don’t have to worry about monthly flooding or excruciating heat and humidity. But….but…but Houston strong * rolls eyes*
I'll always hate living in Texas. Am obligated to be here for my family but that obligation is limited and eventually, I'll leave. Hopefully this will happen before our trash-tier grid gets to the point where Texas will be doing load-shedding like in South Africa or doing two-hour rolling blackouts like in Egypt.
Not in itself only, but the recent open hostilities from the state and local government toward other infrastructure has been absolutely eye-opening.
The anti-transit/walkability actions that have been increased tenfold over the last decade and really affects me personally. I can't afford to keep driving for every single outing and honestly don't really want to. It's insulting how we are regressing while cities nationwide are booming in options, and when insurance keeps going up I'm not really what I'm going to do? Sell the car for a motorbike and pray I don't become a bloodstain on the road when everyone knows someone that used to be a person? Forego insurance entirely and just go driving illegal? All I know is this game is becoming unaffordable and thus, I'm out.
At least some of the other problems I can try to brace myself against. I did fairly okay during the outage because I've always kept food/water/cooking backup reserves and an evac plan. While the school problems affect all of us indirectly, I don't have kids in HISD or family in there.
But yeah, while I still love the city of Houston, it is not the same city that it was a decade ago when we moved here. I feel like since ~2017 it's been a noticeable decline in some parts of infrastructure, and that's what concerns the hell out of me.
By keeping Texas off the national grid,the Republicon hierarchy has schemed a system to reward the electricity/energy lobby to harvest outrageous profits in times of weather calamity in the state. I'm shocked,shocked I tell you that the grifters running the state would ever be capable of that level of corruption.They sanctimoniously claim to be people of deep faith.Its more like deeply in your wallet. Despite my cynical views, I don't think we're going anywhere.
Came to Houston from San Francisco 14 years ago. We had power outages, brown outs, fires caused by PG&E. At least our power is less than half as much per KW vs CA.
Yes. Between our failing utilities (some of which can be seen throughout the U.S.) and the scary political leanings of those in power, I am very worried about living here long term.
It sucks. My family has been living in Texas on the same plot of land since before Texas was Texas. And I’m thinking about moving because we can’t keep the fucking lights on or provide medical care to women.
Still nowhere near as bad as my experience growing up in California. Lots of blackouts. Lots of brownouts. I thought they were normal everywhere until I moved away from California.
No, the string of legislation that punishes black and brown people, the rampant gun violence, and the removal of female/Trans Gay rights has influenced my opinion on living in Texas. The closing of libraries, the miseducation of Texas youth and the constant misuse of taxes and education budgets has influenced my opinion on living in Texas. Even Grey’s Anatomy has something to say about how fucked up Texas is becoming. As soon as I finish my degree I am out of this hell hole.
I couldn’t care less about these events. It’s always been the infrastructure and culture of this city compared to the rest of the world that I’ve hated and wanted to get away from.
If people would stop allowing multiple oak trees to live for 30+ years on their little 1/4 acre yard with limbs dangling over power lines, it would help tremendously.
Y’all are going to be very disappointed when you find out this type of storm damages power infrastructure in any city. Hell, the power came back quicker than expected most areas.
I’m selling my house and moving out of state. Things will not improve and they’ve demonstrated that time and time again. It’s being listed next week. Between the grid and the heat, enough is enough.
Not at all. No tax base is willing, nor should it be, to completely or even mostly insulate the infrastructure writ large against the massive-energy type threats we face. Insulate against "most" and then be prepared to respond.
On that basis, I think Texas in general and Houston does a great job. I've lived through every Houston disaster since Bush the first and I've had family live through the massive hurricane in New York, earthquakes in Kali, in Mexico, various floods and other fuckeries in various other place internationally and in the US. Thus I have a wide view of how "everyone else" does it.
The huge #1 lesson that comes through is this: if you are going to live through a natural disaster, you definitely want to do that in Texas. Texans and especially the "red necks", more than any other people on the planet are the people you want on either side of you when a tornado sucks up all the electricity or the world floods or whatever.
On the flip side...Oh, My, God....you absofuckinglutely do not want to anywhere near NYC or San Francisco when disaster hits. Because, again, the foul, useless, feckless, slack handed, loudmouthed, selfish, graspy horrible people.
What string?? Last one was 2021 and the one before that was 2008 for my family. 🙄 But more power to transplants who want to leave you guys make the bad things worse here and have the audacity to complain constantly.
Oh lord. I guess we’ve moved onto the retrospective angst phase of natural disasters where everyone needs a scapegoat. A literal tornado took out critical electric infrastructure. It’s happened before. It will happen again. Quit bitching and parroting these talking points about burying power lines.
If you like how Europe or Japan does it - simply move there.
It already influenced me to move. I wanted out since I was a child, and the clearly mismanaged infrastructure getting affected by every possible storm (I lived in Kingwood during Harvey) has informed me that I no longer should be there.
My parents still live East of Houston and have never entertained the idea of moving out of the state..until recently. Thankfully they have a generator but many others aren't as lucky
I’ve lived in other states where extreme weather has caused power outages. It is easier to make yourself comfortable when it’s cold outside and this happens. Idk, I guess it didn’t particularly sway me one way or the other
My opinion on what areas in Houston to live in have changed. I would not live close to any rivers, bayous, lakes or reservoirs. I would not live close to the coast. Flooding is still the greatest weather threat here. It’s a great idea to buy a generator and a window ac unit just case of an emergency. Extreme weather events are happening everywhere at a greater frequency especially in states where jobs are.
When Harvey hit. I thought “man the value is going to go down in Houston. So many neighborhoods were affected” but look at us now. Most people can’t even afford to stay here anymore.
I was born and raised in Houston since the late 80s. I remember every single hurricane, storm, and flood. My family flooded twice in my lifetime as we lost everything twice as kids. The freeze of 2021 was the final straw for me and I left. Harvey was my best friends final straw
You move to another state?
Houston is the beneficiary of the best parts of the U.S. being so incredibly expensive that people can't afford property there anymore. The quality of new housing is going to take a nosedive as greedy contractors rush to fill a gap.
Texas housing has been less than great for a long time. Using galvanized pipes until the late 80s, single pane windows until 2002, minimal insulation, etc. Whatever corners they could cut plus low-skilled labor to build huge houses for cheap. Newer homes have a lot of crappy workmanship but at least the big stuff is modern and done decently. We have all the greatest materials now but good labor is hard find.
good labor doesnt do residential work because it doesnt pay for shit and its run by idiots who cant run commercial or industrial work lmao. residential in texas will be dog shit until they start using unionized trade partners rather than the guys they scoop up from county jail every morning good labor isnt hard to find but good labor isnt going to work for residential rates and those subs rarely even offer bennies they're just bilking illegals who couldnt get a social to fudge everify with cash under table I am a senior super in texas and residential is a joke you don't even learn your trade that well because it's so cookie cutter every project.
Oh definitely, residential big builders just churn out junk. About to help 2 friends fix their bathrooms due to bad quality parts and leaks. 2 and 5 year old houses. I did a gut renovation and hired my own trades. Paid a bunch more for real companies and legal workers and better materiala. Drywall finishing was my only let down, but good fucking luck finding anyone that can even hide a tapered seam nowadays! I'll hire a commercial drywall company next time. Fortunately I have the skills to do most construction myself and saved a ton on finishing it out.
yeah you can honestly do all the rock yourself it's really not difficult to get a smooth finish just takes time. it takes time in commercial as well they just man up jobs and have an army of people to tape float and then sand and go back over it. i'm relatively confident most homes arent really given any sort of punch list in residential they just say its done and go next.
Yeah, back in the late 1900's, when I first got to Houston, I was told about major developer/builders who had been run out of the Chicago area for the lack of quality of their construction, who had all set up shop down here. The specific case was a development in Pearland, where the "grout" used to build the brick veneer was at least 95% sand: you could scratch it out with a stick, heaven help you if you used a garden hose, let alone a pressure washer.
I keep telling people this. Houston would likely lose population if California, New York or Florida ever got there housing prices under control.
Which is never going to be possible le so... it's only gonna go up and up lol.
Harvey was our breaking point. Everything since has just pushed us closer to accepting moving. The freeze was the thing that made us finally come to peace with moving. We've been working since then to position ourselves to moving.
The big freeze followed the next year by a blistering summer that killed everything the freeze didn’t has pushed us to consider jobs in other states.
I'm fully remote and can be anywhere. We are working to get my partner in the same position.
Last Thursday's storm has done it for us. We have been directly impacted by 6 weather disasters (not to mention all the power loss and boil water notices in between) since 2009, and we just can't do this anymore.
It was your “breaking point” but here you are almost 7 years later lol.
I've been trying to leave since Rita.
I’m from here but lived in actual functioning societies lol. Our grid system issues are hilarious corruption that would get people in other places I’ve lived killed or jailed for life. I love Texas, I love Houston. But they are both run by idiots who should be in jail. Foreigners look at how badly this is run and can’t believe it. We are so wealthy but so dumb in the mismanagement of our resources. Houston could look like Tokyo dude. Instead it looks like one giant suburb with more pollution than some developing nations.
We could look like Tokyo, but our fearless conservative leadership would prefer we end up as Bengaluru.
the craziest part is Japan is socially conservative in many ways more akin to Republicans but logistically far more progressive and intelligent.
Japan believes in the Commonwealth. Texas leadership despises such a notion. It's the ultimate failure of most failed US states. Individual needs are met out by those who can afford it. Everyone else just plods along.
the red scare fucked up our country into a 100 years of stupid policy.
The red scare never stopped for conservatives.
Except now it appears they are fans of Russia and Putin
Well that works out because Russia isn’t communist (or socialist, or Soviet). It is, however, extremely authoritarian, which conservatives have always liked. Edit: the Red Scare in the US was always more about undermining labor and an independent press than actual communism, anyway.
You mean sponsored by*
Apt comparison. Bangalore traffic is ass, and I am from Mumbai, so I don’t say that lightly. Houston is headed towards shitty oversaturated gridlock just like Bangalore. We don’t even have commuter trains ffs, which Bangalore actually does😂
Damn!
Houston and Harris County isn’t ran by Conservatives my friend. Hell, Houston has only one R mayor in its entire history. You best look in the political mirror if you want a political party to blame. 😂
Huh!? Texas has had idiot Republican governors since the great Anne Richards who was a real Dem. That woman was respected, fierce and beloved and no one gave her any crap. When she was governor TX was GOOD. Since her it's been one moron R after the other. There was moron Bush Jr., glasses Rick who didnt even LIVE in TX and now "all talk" Abbott (who seems uber-focused on ruining TX) it's been an ever downward trajectory in Texas ...
You don’t seem to understand how Texas government works.
Power infrastructure isn't run by the city, friendo. Take a look, it's in a book. Reading Rainbow.
Man I just watched Bullet Train and now I'm sad as fuck, envying what they got and we don't.
All of this times 1000.
Lived in Tokyo for 6 years, in Bengaluru for 2. I can say Houston is objectively worse infrastructure wise than both.
>I love Texas, I love Houston. But they are both run by idiots who should be in jail. Foreigners look at how badly this is run and can’t believe it. I was raised in Houston, moved to a state with a well-run, community owned power "company," and I can't believe how bad, **and how much more expensive** the power situation is in Houston.
regulation is good.
Texas is mid pack in cost for power my friend. And that’s only average. I personally pay 9.8 cents. [Electricity Rates by State](https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/#0-section-copy) The power company didn’t cause this outage. 😂😂
I cleaned up houses after harvey and have seen so many third world homes and neighborhoods from the inside in Houston. I’m Peruvian so I know what it looks like lol there’s even tent cities. The nice parts have shitty roads and stuff. Tokyo and other cities have more homogeneous populations so everything is more equal. Houston will never be like that
These are NOT the things that concern me about living here anymore. I have a young daughter..... I'm more concerned about the rolling back of human rights.
It's influenced my opinions on a lot of things, and reinforced my opinions on some others. Some are things that can be fixed locally, and others not so much. Notably, we need to think about burying more power lines. The parts of town with buried lines fared very well in this storm. As far as living in Texas, the heat and sprawl is enough to make me want to move somewhere with the opposite of those things for some time now.
The issue with buried lines is that we don’t have great soil conditions for subsurface utilities. We have lots of saturated fat clays that have large swell potential and shifts a lot compared to more sturdy areas. I agree that we should explore the potential but I don’t think it is the ultimate savior to our issues that everyone makes it out to be. Especially with this recent storm where the bigger issue was a historically large and severe storm happened to tear up a multiple high voltage transmission systems which are not buried in most places.
Correct, our soil sucks and already rips up water mains during droughts. Underground electrical also cant be run right next to sewer, water, and gas lines, plus cable and fiber needs a place too. To go underground means moving other utilities, and the only "easy" way is to do it during major tear-up-the-street projects which everyone hates.
I have buried line and are still without power…
The issue is th 26+ billion it would cost to bury a little over half the cities power lines. The added cost to your bill would be horrendous. Second part is we are near sea level and drainage in parts of town isn't great. That means excessive moisture on the buried infrastructure which has a higher maintenance cost and when it does fail takes longer to repair. Texas ranks a little above avg for states without the primary source of power coming from hydropower in reliability when taking out named storms. Main lines will never be buried.
I’ve lived enough other places (NYC, upstate NY, Philly metro, Seattle, Portland) to see the pluses and minuses to some of the more idealized places. For now, the weather and cost of living here is better than an ever-lengthening wildfire season, earthquakes and COL of the west coast. And I hate snow, so the northeast is out for me. I could never, ever shovel snow again and die happy. And I still don’t have power. Now, the politicians in this state… that’s a whole other issue. But truthfully, Philly, Seattle and Portland are kind of the same…. Bright blue cities and real red real fast outside them. It’s the gerrymandering here that really sets it apart.
The opinion (fact) that the Texas government is run by hyper corrupt scumbags, and they all need to be thrown out of office and replaced by people who will actually fix things? Nope. Pretty much just reinforces that fact.
I lost my house to the freeze several years ago so yes
Somewhat. The politics is more concerning than the weather honestly.
Many things have influenced my attitude towards living in Texas. The power issues are just par for the course at this point.
I've wanted to move north for a long time however large parts of the North real estate is very expensive. Canada is prohibitively expensive in fact they have a housing crisis. Wife is not wild about moving to Michigan but it's much more affordable than New York. We are kind of in a holding pattern I think once my daughter reaches school age we will probably move. For the time being I got solar panels.
The midwest is probably going to be your best bet for cities with semi affordable housing if you are looking to go north.
Where in the Midwest are we talking? Kansas City still gets in the 90s. I am trying to get far enough north that the high is 85 or less
I moved to the Twin Cities a couple years ago and don't regret it one bit, especially now. The summers average out in the 80s with a week or two in the 90s. People complain about the heat and humidity here but it's a cakewalk if you're from Houston. I don't even notice the humidity.
Same when I lived in NC for a bit. Everyone complained about the heat and humidity and it was nothing compared to Houston. NC starts cooling down mid-August!
Lemme tell ya a little story about Cleveland Oh. 🙂
What are some safe areas to look for a house in Cleveland?
Depends on what you're looking for. Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights on the east side, Lakewood, Edgewater, on the west side, lots and lots of suburbs. It's a great little town, built for significantly more density than it has now, but as the southern regions continue to heat up and milder winters continue moving into the area it's going to keep drawing more folks. They have a great museum district and theatre scene as well as a very thriving food and drink scene. The national park in our backyard is really nice too. FWIW - I just moved out of Houston to Cleveland last October for so many reasons, and climate was one of them.
I did the opposite in September, the city is nice but quality of life is shit for the taxes we pay (state, RITA, etc). Government there is getting much worse than before (look what they are doing with weed legalization)
No. All places have their own issues.
I’ve lived in 3 states in multiple cities and Houston has a lot more issues. People who think this must not have lived many other places.
It’s a cost/benefit analysis that’s so personal. It’s not necessarily just about number of issues, but also severity of issues.
Tell us more! We are boiled frogs here.
I lived in new Hampshire and Connecticut and have lived here since 2016 and have experienced more problems and power outages than I ever experienced in other states I’ve lived in. Maybe Texans will wake up to the corrupt people they consistently elect to run this state into the ground.
I’ll take some storms. But I’m pretty invested here. 100 acres of raw land and a home and my family all over the state. I’ll take a few storms.
I’m just here on my 7800 sq ft lot that I paid 400k for….
Exactly
My opinion about living in Houston includes 50+ years of the electricity going out after natural disasters. So that hasn't changed.
I'd rather have power failures and the occasional hurricane or flood than tornados, earthquakes, and/or forest fires that cross into cities. (Yes, we get tornadoes from time to time, but we're not in the "Tornado Alley".) There are very few places on this planet that are extremely safe from assorted catastrophes. You can bet even the most wonderful places have something that's not ideal. Edit: Added last line in 1st paragraph.
I grew up where earthquakes are common. If you plan, build, and regulate with these them in mind, they aren’t a big issue. It’s why we haven’t heard of a major earthquake disaster in California since the early ‘90s, despite earthquakes being about as common there as major landfall hurricanes. The same applies for most natural disasters. Plan and regulate, and you’ll minimize affects. What puts people at more risk are unscrupulous businessmen and deregulation, two things Texas seems to enjoy having.
Yeah so many people think earthquakes are so crazy but everywhere prone to them is built for it so they are not much of a problem at all. Last a few seconds and everything is back to normal. West coast doesn’t have crazy storms that knockout power for close to a week
Same here. Earthquakes are a helluva lot scarier than hurricanes even in well-built buildings, and there's no warning either.
I was more scared during Harvey than the Loma Prieta quake in ‘89. I was much younger, so it may have been the innocence of youth.
Ironic to say this 4 days after a tornado tore up the city
Maybe more than one tornado, and a derecho too! And don't forget the great freeze of 2021. I'd like to think maybe we're finished with all these catastrophic events, but I guess we have to face the fact that things will happen that we can't be prepared for.
> Yes, we get tornadoes from time to time, but we're not in the "Tornado Alley". There was [this tornado](https://abc13.com/houston-storm-damage-katy-businesses-destroyed-by-high-winds-firestone-collapse-old-mason-road-bourbon-street-sports-bar/14641402/) that hit Katy in April, now the [two last week](https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/houston-tornado-confirmed-cypress-texas/285-e492fdb5-3098-4bd4-8505-c09f9e9c6e4b) in Waller County and Cypress as well as the [derecho](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-weather/article/what-is-a-derecho-houston-storms-thursday-winds-19464500.php) on Thursday of last week. So yeah, we aren't living in Oklahoma but that's not extremely rare if we've had three tornadoes in the area (plus the derecho) in the past month.
> but we're not in the "Tornado Alley". Not yet. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230616-how-tornado-alley-is-changing
Tornadoes are still a problem for us. Not even a year ago we had 3 in deer park I believe.
Valid point. Still, I feel less concern for tornados than I do hurricanes and/or flooding. I edited my comment. Thanks for your comment.
I was crossing the Beltway 8 bridge when one of those was nearby. Fucking bad news. I was incredibly lucky it didn’t hit the bridge itself.
I don’t recall ever having earthquakes or tsunamis here in Houston. We don’t get forest fires on the regular either like other places. We don’t get buried in snow for months at time like other places. We don’t experience below zero degree temperatures like other places. We don’t experience ice for months at a time other places. We don’t experience endless weeks of rainfall like other places. We don’t have volcanoes like other places.
We don’t have the infrastructure to deal with the natural disasters and weather we do have. The northeast and countries in Europe get buried in snow, get ice, go below zero - so what, they have fleets of trucks to clear snow and spread salt - life doesn’t grind to a halt. Countries with monsoon season like Singapore don’t flood much because they have built a great drainage system. Here it floods on a sunny day! And things are blowing up on the east side of town every quarter!
That’s partially due to poor regulation and massive sprawling development and partially due to nature. We are a swampy bayou city with little topographic relief. Water has to go somewhere and we happen to get more severe storms than other places. I’m not arguing that we couldn’t be doing MUCH better. But there is not a magic solution. It’s a bit of a catch 22 at this point as well. It’s a bit like saying that California has failed by not building infrastructure that is resilient to forest fires. I know this is a stretch of an analogy and I am blatantly disregarding debatable forest management practices but it is a similar situation in a lot of ways. Sometimes Mother Nature humbles mankind and Houston has had an unlucky streak as of late. Factor in climate change (not even going there because the discussion would take forever) and you can see how challenging of an issue this can be for a HUGE city such as Houston.
I'd rather be cold than hot. I can bundle up for warmth There's only so much I can do to cool off in a hot, humid, powerless apartment
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So take off all your clothes...
>I don’t recall ever having earthquakes or tsunamis here in Houston. Very few places in the US actually do and certainly not a regular basis. >We don’t get forest fires on the regular either like other places. Texas is actually 2nd behind California in the number of forest fires and 8th in the acres burned by forest fires. 2011 Bastrop fires had smoke coming to Houston. I'll give you this one though since Houston isn't known for its trees. >We don’t get buried in snow for months at time like other places. Except for the most northern states, this is not a regular thing for other states either. It would be nice to actually get snow now and then. >We don’t experience below zero degree temperatures like other places. Yeah but we had 3 a day power outage after 2 days of temperatures dropping in the teens and then we had months of rebuilding due to frozen pipe and water damage. In places where it does dip below zero, they actually have building codes that prepare for this so they don't deal with it. >We don’t experience ice for months at a time other places. Again, neither do other places unless you're in Minnesota or somewhere up there. >We don’t experience endless weeks of rainfall like other places. I'm starting to wonder whether you actually live in Houston or visit other places. Other places point to Houston when they talk about endless rain and flooding. We get so much rain here that they have names like the "May Day floods" and we say things like "this is reminding me of Allison". We get a major flood every 2 years. Even places like Seattle don't deal with the type of rain we deal with when it comes down. >We don’t have volcanoes like other places. This is like saying "we don't get asteroid damage like other places". Last time there was a volcano erupting in the US was 1980.
Nevertheless all those places do exist. I guess Hawaii isn’t part of the US now regarding volcanoes. At least according to you. 😂😂😂 Who said I was even talking about the US. Have a wonderful day.
Agreed with other commenters that meteorologists are noting how unusual the derecho placement was - apparently the Southwest extent for derechos is usually North Texas at its southernmost, and these areas are most active in LATE summer. There were also reported embedded tornado-like circulations which was deemed unusual for derechos, as they usually go in a straight line like most menacing supercell storms do. Tornado alley is changing and Houston is is it now, for better or for worse.
I grew up in a wildfire and earthquake zone (experiencing both) and the weather and the shit I’ve experienced here is 10x worse. This is borderline ignorant. We also just experienced a tornado wtf 😂
I have evacuated from wildfire. I've had friends lose their home while it rained ash all over my region. It is a helpless feeling in a way that periodic flooding doesn't match IMO
Yes but I can't afford to leave
I bought a generator
I mean trees were knocked down and buildings lost walls and windows, homes lost roofs, cars slide across the road. Is there a place where weather is never an issue and there are no car/tree/window/wall/roof damage during storms?
Nope. Natural disasters happen everywhere. And me losing power three times in 10 years is NOT the worst thing that can happen. I'm throwing in my Houston towel for mountains/hills and rivers/lake, likely in the next 10 years. Has nothing to do with our uncommon power outages though. Ike, the freeze, and this insane severe super storm. Outside of the freeze, all big cities lose power with natural disasters with 100+ mph winds, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.
No, because there’s pros and cons to every state. Texas’s pros for me outweigh the cons. For the cons, I stay prepared to keep myself ahead.
I hate this shithole but I can't afford to leave
The power problems while concerning are not influential in me living in Houston. The lack of accountability by the constituents of this state is. It’s completely unacceptable that the state government has so many shortfalls while allegedly having a 33 BILLION dollar surplus. Add that to the state effectively getting involved in all our body autonomies in a plethora of ways, it’s far more concerning that the average voter is just fine with living in such a dictatorship.
Last time I visited my old folks in Canada, they(we) lost power for a whole week, at Christmas, on sub-freezing temperatures. We had to relay winter-camping in the living room to stoke the wood stove, sleeping no more than 2 hours at a time. You know how they call that? A regular winter. Do you imagine other places don't get blackouts and broken power lines? Everywhere gets that. Ive lived the great Ice Storm of 1998 where people lost power in winter for weeks on end. Also the great North East blackout of 2003 where 55 million people lost power and a hundred people died. This shit happens everywhere.
Nope, it always sucked, still does
I've wanted to leave for a long time but I don't have the money to leave. But when I do, I will be out like the flash. To the question being asked, yes, I want to live somewhere with a better power grind and, more importantly, better all around weather.
Not really. It's for a while now been a matter of, "I don't want to live here, but particularly since I'm self employed and all my business contacts are here, I'm basically stuck."
Weird. I've not had these experiences. Power went out for me during and post ike, but that was forever ago. The freeze was quite the fluke if you read any of the write ups about it on here. My power didn't even blink during Harvey while most of everything was under water. I was extremely impressed by centerpoint keeping things running during a hurricane as I had family working repairs during it. My God did they bust their ass. I was also unaffected by this tornado, but I grew up in tornado alley and am unshocked by what it did. So, I don't know what you mean by "string of power infrastructure catastrophes". Even the ice storm didn't mess up the infrastructure, and ike, Harvey, and this tornado are all local events, so to call it "Texas power infrastructure" seems quite hyperbolic. In the end, there is no where you will be able to run from climate change driven environmental disasters.
I've never liked living here and now I like it even less (and it isn't just because the power infrastructure is shit, I abhor our state government, I dislike heat and humidity and significantly prefer cool, chilly weather (heaven would be in the 20s-40s year around), and now we have a mayor who seems hellbent in destroying any advances in public transportation and an easily walkable downtown. That's not even mentioning how Houstonians can't directly control their largest school district anymore...).
I already wanted to leave, this just helped cement the idea
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I genuinely fear the same
>[There have been 263 power outages across Texas since 2019, more than any other state, each lasting an average of 160 minutes and impacting an estimated average of 172,000 Texans, according to an analysis by electricity retailer Payless Power. California ranked second with 221 outages from 2019 to 2023, while Washington placed third with 118, according to Adi Sachdeva, data researcher at Payless Power. The report was based on data from the Department of Energy. ](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/texas-leads-nation-power-outages-18887152.php)
Yes. Not so much for myself, being relatively young and in decent shape, but for my more vulnerable family members. And hey, everyone gets old at some point (unless they don't). Better plan for it now.
I’m moving next week.
Not as much as the hurricanes and property taxes, but add the infrastructure issues to the mix and I'll think about retiring somewhere else.
It's reinforced the knowledge that red states do fuck all for their people in need
Natural events are going to happen everywhere, just pick your poison. I would rather be a little hot without power from a hurricane for a few days, instead of living for months in snow or never seeing rain in the desert. One really cool aspect of the occasional mother nature event is seeing the kindness and generosity from my fellow Houstonians.
This weather has taught me that I cannot generate cold easily in the heat, meanwhile during the freeze I was able to create warmth and comfort easily. I liked the heat until that clicked for me this week lol. The freeze was fun like camping, this is just hell.
It wasn't fun for us when the pipe burst. I know better now but we were lied to, the blackouts were not rolling and we should have acted differently.
Meh, for the cold you could deal with mobility issues with dangerous road conditions for however long. Burst pipes, water issues. With heat, you just need a window ac unit and a portable generator.
>Natural events are going to happen everywhere, just pick your poison The difference is that in other states, especially those with cold winters, or in tornado alley, build up their electrical grid to be more resistant to natural events, and the citizens suffer less outages as a result. States like Minnesota and Wisconsin get Polar Vortex-type of winters every year, you but you don't hear about tens of thousands of households going without power for weeks on end there, and the freezes there can last for a month, every year, not just a week like in Texas. And also, wouldn't your poison be Greg Abbott allowing the power companies that haven't reinforced the power grid to legally price gouge during outages?
Texas manipulates you into thinking that buying a $20k generator to free yourself from government dependence is what is needed instead of fixing the grid that you already pay for service and taxes to improve.
Yes. I'm glad tornadoes that demolish high-tension power lines are rarer here than in some places.
North Carolina is looking pretty good.
Traffic and property tax more than anything 🫣
The great freeze of '21 and going more than a week without power and water was what got the conversation going in looking to leave Texas. I said that I'd start looking, and if Greg Abbot was re-elected, I'm leaving. Roe v Wade being overturned and talk about rolling back LBGTQ+ rights since then have convinced me that I made the right move.
Owning a generator and having a yard to operate it in makes all the difference.
Really thinking about a way to leave in the next five years.
Nope. The power goes out for half a day or less once in a blue moon. Been here in houston for over 10,000 days (29 years). 3 days out of those 10k days ive had no power. The biggest one was the big freeze when i had no power for 1 day, second one was harvey at half a day. The rest was way less. Last weeks storm my lights went out for like a minute.
Where do you live? I’ve been here since 1984 and have had a number of outages. Hurricanes, tropical storms, deep freezes…come on, there have been many days when I had no power—13 days during Ike and still no power since last Thursday.
Lost power for 4 days with this last storm.
Lol still out at my house
I have already lost power on 4 separate occasions this year alone.
I moved there more than 10 years ago from another country. We loved it, until we didn’t. I told my partner I didn’t want to live there through another major weather event. Tax Day floods, then Harvey ripped apart our neighborhood, twice. And then the ice storm that left us without power for four days was enough. We put in a whole home generator and I was still like, DANG…if we don’t have to live here, why are we living here? We both work remote…no family ties to the state whatsoever. I’m sorry, but Houston was great and it’s strained now, even without the weather drama. But that’s my opinion. I know plenty of people who love it. We left last summer, actually moved into “Tornado Alley” and guess what…it’s totally doable living life somewhere else. The weather is better here (Texas has the highest number of tornadoes out of any state, likely due to the actual size of the state…) Fewer people. Lower crime. Smaller schools. And omg, I don’t get eaten alive by mosquitos when the weather is actually nice enough to be outside. The number of people crushing every available service, roadway, airport, event, and school system etc, was intolerable. I don’t ever need to live in an American city of that size again. I don’t miss the chaos. I thought I couldn’t live without my massive and affordable suburban home, and all the conveniences Houston has to offer. I was afraid I had gotten spoiled by all the city had to offer but it became so hard to keep sane there. We’re all happier now…who knew? It was hard to say goodbye but at the end of the day the only thing I miss apart from friends is H‑E‑B.
Yeah I remember before we moved out of Houston a couple of years ago I was concerned about about how much I would miss the place. When we finally moved and settled into our new city I found myself only missing my family, friends and food. And as much as I like those 3 things, the cons of living in Houston far outweighed the pros till the point that I didn’t miss living in Houston at all. But good things never last, after 2 years of living away from Houston when we had our first child we had moved back to Houston.
Ahhhhh man. Hang in there. At least you’ve got family and friends. And H‑E‑B!
Nope. I consider the goal to be self sustainable and prepared to be a core Texas value. Mostly because our state and local governments have been corrupt and inept since Sam Houston was around. If you can take care of yourself then this state is for you
Yes and no. I don't expect much from the guys in Austin. They have made it clear that they aren't operating in the interest of most Texans. But when catastrophes hit, you get to see who your neighbors really are. In short-term catastrophes, they are amazing. If it's longterm, like a pandemic, they'll look for any reason not to care.
Define a *recent string* of catastrophes. So there was a record cold snowstorm in 2021 that forced nuclear power stations into controlled shutdown from freezing intake water and LNG shutdown from freezing gas. This has happened once in our lifetime. I speculate that the other catastrophe you speak of is last weeks tornado / derecho toppling transmission towers? Two events over three years apart and completely unrelated is hardly a string.
Read other comments in this thread, over decades Houstonians have suffered a lot of damage namely from Rita and Harvey, moreso than other hurricane-bound cities. I do believe the Atlantic-Gulf streams are getting more stronger and unruly - case in point last weeks monster derecho/tornado. Since everyone in the thread wants to downplay it. Consistently yearly Spring flooding for nearly 10 years now.
I have lost power 4 times in 2024 and like 5+ last year. Our infrastucture is terrible. I also blame the particular situation in our neighborhood to a block of 70 crammed box homes that went up down the street 2 years ago. There was a nice 2-3 acres of woods that were demolished to make them and now we have outages all the time. A greedy person made a ton of money selling those. Some of the suckers who bought them are already selling 😂
My opinion on living in Texas couldn’t be lower, so no it did not change.
How long until Centerpoint imposes an assessment to recoup the costs associated with fixing all of the infrastructure?
It has compelled me to get serious about backup power, and thanks to the folks at /r/Generator I've learned I can power most of the house with a large portable for maybe 20% of the cost of a whole house setup.
No
It’s the old trauma tax of living in Houston. Relative to many other places you can find cheaper housing, certainly per sq ft. But when you account for volatile weather, chemical explosions/leaks plus the trend higher now in housing costs, that narrative begins to break down. And this will only get worse - climate change should lead to hotter, more volatile weather. I’ve rented the 5 years I’ve been in Houston, and am leaving soon for work in another city. But as a somewhat unbiased outside observer, I don’t know if I’d want to own property here over the next 50 years. Insurance rates will increase as the threat of volatile weather does
This is the first year in my 42 of living in Houston I have considered moving out of state.
Not necessarily the outages and weather events themselves, but the government's inability to fix anything or do anything that's helpful for citizens. It's been like this for years and nothing has changed. I have been looking for jobs out of Texas recently and would gladly move for more personal freedom and effective local and state governments. Also not having 100+ degree summers would be nice
18 year Firefighter and paramedic with Houston here: I’m ready to leave once/if I reach retirement.
Not really. Power infrastructure problems aren't a surprise to me, I've lived near a hospital and/or a fire station to get that first access to power getting back on, and have started my prep stuff. My complex was hit by the deracho Thursday and we were only out of power for about 15 hours from what I was told. I have decided to go ahead and get a solar generator, though, since I'll be moving soon and don't know yet if I'll have the same location hookup I've had.
No
I think the major hit that we’ll see in the next few years is that honeowner’s insurance companies will leave the state and there won’t be anyone left who’s willing to insure them. Prices will skyrocket further and coverage will be close to nothing. Loans are often contingent on holding insurance, which means that even fewer people will be able to afford to buy. Home prices will increase because they are now being offered to a higher income level than back when insurance cost less. A home will soon be more of a luxury than ever before.
I'm no power line tech expert so I can't say we would have fared any better with better funding or not, but I have to say, it's one of those "the reasons are adding up" things. Born and raised Texan, returned after my service. Would suck to have to leave.
I like Houston, the friendliest most diverse big city in the world. I wish the weather were better. I am tired of it. Thing is, so many desirable places to live in the U.S. are way more expensive than Houston.
As a native Houstonian who left 8 years ago, I don’t see myself ever moving back after seeing all the troubles my family there has to go through due to weather
Nope. Moving back from Colorado in a couple of weeks. Generator in hand
No. It's the traffic that makes me question it
gtfo and dont come back.
The storm this week has really deterred me from ever moving back home to be with my family who still lives in Houston. For the past 8-9 years almost every Spring, H-town a legit monsoon season with extensive rains and flooding which is only made worse by the bayou infrastructure and low elevation. Hurricanes didn’t seem super scary growing up because they always decreased in intensity before hitting us, but this weather event scared the shit out of me. The main damage was in downtown but it had me worried that random family members in Cypress had been affected; and my family is without power still. Never will I pay a premium to live somewhere without a stable power grid. Texas is not it for me anymore.
Basically just reinforced. I wouldn’t still be here if it weren’t for my family and friends. I was without power for a week last year after a freak storm in Houston, 8 months pregnant during some of the hottest days of the year. There have been so many other incidents too. Had to start over after Harvey. My old boss demanded we go through the 2 hour commute each way during the Ike aftermath. Now I WFH with people all over the country. My team has 2 other people from my area thankfully or else I don’t know if they would believe how frequently I experience issues with power and connectivity. Other areas experience disasters but nothing like how it is here. The combo of extreme weather and an isolated energy grid isn’t a great one.
1. The heat is getting ever more oppressive 2. Traffic is getting stupider, both in sheer numbers and idiocy of the drivers. 3. Only reason that I am here is my few friends and it's fast becoming that not even that draw will be able to keep me here. 4. The continental "dry" line is shifting east so that this area is going to get drier (drought conditions) punctuated by punishing downpours and violent storms.
The grass is always greener. I can’t see myself living anywhere but Texas and the occasional storm-related power outages do not motivate me.
No question. Lived here all my life and like it at times but would prefer to live elsewhere. Somewhere with better weather and more relaxed lifestyle filled with outdoor activities and better scenery. This city has been good to me and my family but don’t really enjoy it and the post natural disaster headaches are just the icing on that shit cake
Be happy it happened now and not in a few weeks when it's 100 degrees outside.
It will happen then too!
Hate the traffic, weather and 3-5 day power outages when someone sneezes hard enough.
So I lived in 3 other places outside of Houston. 2 other smaller cities in Texas and the other in Atlanta. The weather and Houston’s infrastructure is by far the worst. There seems to be a lot of Houstonians that developed Stockholm syndrome when it comes to weather disasters. I’ve even seen some Houstonians taunt transplants for wanting to move out the city due to Thursday storm. News flash Houstonians these type of incidents aren’t as common as they are in Houston. Don’t get me wrong, most cities in America have some sort of disaster but Houston imo feels more consistent. Even outside of storms and hurricanes there’s the occasional heavy rainfall that leaves you stuck and nervous on the commute to and from work. I didn’t have to worry about that in Atlanta. Maybe twice did I run into a heavy downpour commute and it didn’t last as long as Houston. That experience is stressful and exhausting. You don’t know how comforting it is to live in a city where you don’t have to worry about monthly flooding or excruciating heat and humidity. But….but…but Houston strong * rolls eyes*
I'll always hate living in Texas. Am obligated to be here for my family but that obligation is limited and eventually, I'll leave. Hopefully this will happen before our trash-tier grid gets to the point where Texas will be doing load-shedding like in South Africa or doing two-hour rolling blackouts like in Egypt.
Not in itself only, but the recent open hostilities from the state and local government toward other infrastructure has been absolutely eye-opening. The anti-transit/walkability actions that have been increased tenfold over the last decade and really affects me personally. I can't afford to keep driving for every single outing and honestly don't really want to. It's insulting how we are regressing while cities nationwide are booming in options, and when insurance keeps going up I'm not really what I'm going to do? Sell the car for a motorbike and pray I don't become a bloodstain on the road when everyone knows someone that used to be a person? Forego insurance entirely and just go driving illegal? All I know is this game is becoming unaffordable and thus, I'm out. At least some of the other problems I can try to brace myself against. I did fairly okay during the outage because I've always kept food/water/cooking backup reserves and an evac plan. While the school problems affect all of us indirectly, I don't have kids in HISD or family in there. But yeah, while I still love the city of Houston, it is not the same city that it was a decade ago when we moved here. I feel like since ~2017 it's been a noticeable decline in some parts of infrastructure, and that's what concerns the hell out of me.
By keeping Texas off the national grid,the Republicon hierarchy has schemed a system to reward the electricity/energy lobby to harvest outrageous profits in times of weather calamity in the state. I'm shocked,shocked I tell you that the grifters running the state would ever be capable of that level of corruption.They sanctimoniously claim to be people of deep faith.Its more like deeply in your wallet. Despite my cynical views, I don't think we're going anywhere.
Came to Houston from San Francisco 14 years ago. We had power outages, brown outs, fires caused by PG&E. At least our power is less than half as much per KW vs CA.
Yes. Between our failing utilities (some of which can be seen throughout the U.S.) and the scary political leanings of those in power, I am very worried about living here long term. It sucks. My family has been living in Texas on the same plot of land since before Texas was Texas. And I’m thinking about moving because we can’t keep the fucking lights on or provide medical care to women.
Still nowhere near as bad as my experience growing up in California. Lots of blackouts. Lots of brownouts. I thought they were normal everywhere until I moved away from California.
No, the string of legislation that punishes black and brown people, the rampant gun violence, and the removal of female/Trans Gay rights has influenced my opinion on living in Texas. The closing of libraries, the miseducation of Texas youth and the constant misuse of taxes and education budgets has influenced my opinion on living in Texas. Even Grey’s Anatomy has something to say about how fucked up Texas is becoming. As soon as I finish my degree I am out of this hell hole.
Oh no, not Greys Anatomy
Is the power infrastructure issue now related to the grid?
I couldn’t care less about these events. It’s always been the infrastructure and culture of this city compared to the rest of the world that I’ve hated and wanted to get away from.
If people would stop allowing multiple oak trees to live for 30+ years on their little 1/4 acre yard with limbs dangling over power lines, it would help tremendously.
Y’all are going to be very disappointed when you find out this type of storm damages power infrastructure in any city. Hell, the power came back quicker than expected most areas.
I’m selling my house and moving out of state. Things will not improve and they’ve demonstrated that time and time again. It’s being listed next week. Between the grid and the heat, enough is enough.
Not at all. No tax base is willing, nor should it be, to completely or even mostly insulate the infrastructure writ large against the massive-energy type threats we face. Insulate against "most" and then be prepared to respond. On that basis, I think Texas in general and Houston does a great job. I've lived through every Houston disaster since Bush the first and I've had family live through the massive hurricane in New York, earthquakes in Kali, in Mexico, various floods and other fuckeries in various other place internationally and in the US. Thus I have a wide view of how "everyone else" does it. The huge #1 lesson that comes through is this: if you are going to live through a natural disaster, you definitely want to do that in Texas. Texans and especially the "red necks", more than any other people on the planet are the people you want on either side of you when a tornado sucks up all the electricity or the world floods or whatever. On the flip side...Oh, My, God....you absofuckinglutely do not want to anywhere near NYC or San Francisco when disaster hits. Because, again, the foul, useless, feckless, slack handed, loudmouthed, selfish, graspy horrible people.
No
Still better than oklahoma
What string?? Last one was 2021 and the one before that was 2008 for my family. 🙄 But more power to transplants who want to leave you guys make the bad things worse here and have the audacity to complain constantly.
Among other things This place has no future
Oh lord. I guess we’ve moved onto the retrospective angst phase of natural disasters where everyone needs a scapegoat. A literal tornado took out critical electric infrastructure. It’s happened before. It will happen again. Quit bitching and parroting these talking points about burying power lines. If you like how Europe or Japan does it - simply move there.
It already influenced me to move. I wanted out since I was a child, and the clearly mismanaged infrastructure getting affected by every possible storm (I lived in Kingwood during Harvey) has informed me that I no longer should be there. My parents still live East of Houston and have never entertained the idea of moving out of the state..until recently. Thankfully they have a generator but many others aren't as lucky
I’ve lived in other states where extreme weather has caused power outages. It is easier to make yourself comfortable when it’s cold outside and this happens. Idk, I guess it didn’t particularly sway me one way or the other
Not at all. <>
My opinion on what areas in Houston to live in have changed. I would not live close to any rivers, bayous, lakes or reservoirs. I would not live close to the coast. Flooding is still the greatest weather threat here. It’s a great idea to buy a generator and a window ac unit just case of an emergency. Extreme weather events are happening everywhere at a greater frequency especially in states where jobs are.
There is a balance of hell and no state income tax.