{"id":245272,"date":"2017-08-28T12:15:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T16:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=245272"},"modified":"2017-08-29T16:08:24","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T20:08:24","slug":"contrary-to-what-youre-being-told-the-houston-flooding-isnt-unprecedented","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2017\/08\/28\/contrary-to-what-youre-being-told-the-houston-flooding-isnt-unprecedented\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best of America on Display in Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Things going on in Houston today, over the weekend, we\u2019re seeing in many ways the absolute best of America. It is a devastating scene. It is incomprehensible to people with all kinds of questions. At the same time, the heroism and the selflessness that is occurring there to rescue people and animals, pets and so forth, is just a typically American thing to see.<\/p>\n

You realize that we do this all over the world. Whenever there are disasters around the world, we are among the first on the scene with resources and human beings, humanity and so forth. An incomprehensible effort to save people, to save things, and to restore and rebuild. And this is exactly what\u2019s going to happen here in Houston. It\u2019s confusing, folks, because everything\u2019s been politicized in America to the point that when you have a fast-developing hurricane like this, which just days before it struck was a tropical storm that wasn\u2019t being paid much attention at all. And then overnight the thing just fueled up like crazy, becomes a Category 4 when it strikes.<\/p>\n

And we have these supposedly unprecedented amounts of rain in a basically stationary system and people are saying, “Gee whiz, it\u2019s global warming, global warming.” Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019m not gonna get off on global warming here. To explain this, you can\u2019t avoid it. This is what people are thinking, \u2019cause the media\u2019s got stories about this all over the place asking questions or making statements, “Is global warming responsible?” And it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

There is a meteorological explanation for everything that has happened here that can be made independent of anything global warming or man-made. Global warming, of course, means that man caused this, that our activities, that our progress, that our lifestyles caused this. And we didn\u2019t. If we wanted to create 35 or 40 inches of rain over a drought area, we couldn\u2019t do it, just as we couldn\u2019t here. Yet it happened. And there\u2019s curiosity. Why, and how? Why\u2019s it not moving? Why was it stationary? Where does it get this amount of rain? Where does this rain come from? There are meteorological explanations for all of this.<\/p>\n

\"\"The reason it didn\u2019t move is there were high-pressure areas on either side of it. And hurricanes are steered by high- and low-pressure areas, and it was just sandwiched, it was just squeezed. It had no place to go because a hurricane is low pressure, and two high pressure centers, both to the east and west, basically had the thing locked. It couldn\u2019t go anywhere until one of those two high-pressure areas either moves or dissipates, and that is beginning to happen now.<\/p>\n

I was alerted to our official climatologist\u2019s web page today, Dr. Roy Spencer<\/a>, University of Alabama at Huntsville, and he\u2019s got a great, comprehensive explanation for what has happened here meteorologically, whether you want to include global warming or climate change in it or not. And he does this rather well. He doesn\u2019t do this in response to specific claims, political claims. He just establishes facts here meteorologically.<\/p>\n

He points out that major floods are difficult to compare throughout history because of the ways in which we alter the landscape. Houston can get flooded by a drizzle. I remember, I forget the year, but it was in the summer, and there was a baseball game scheduled in the old Astrodome. And they had to cancel the baseball game after both teams had arrived because a late-afternoon downpour had flooded enough of the city that people could not get to the ‘Dome.<\/p>\n

Both teams were there so they had a gigantic dinner on the field, the two teams together. It was the Astros and I think the Pittsburgh Pirates, but I\u2019m not altogether sure, and I don\u2019t remember the year. But these kinds of floods — well, not these kinds, but floods in Houston are not rare. And one of the reasons is the way we alter landscapes. Cities like Houston expand over the years, and when that happens dirt and soil, which soak up rain, are covered up by roads and parking lots and buildings with water rapidly draining off rather than soaking into.<\/p>\n

The population of Houston is now 10 times what it was in the 1920s, and the Houston Metroplex area has expanded greatly, and the water drainage is basically in the direction of downtown. No criticism. It\u2019s just the way it\u2019s been built. There have been a lot of floods, disastrous floods in Houston dating back to the mid-1800s when the population was very low. In December of 1935, a massive flood occurred downtown as the water level height measured at Buffalo Bayou in Houston topped out at 54.4 feet.<\/p>\n

Now, remember that number. People are being told it\u2019s the worst ever. People are being told it\u2019s unprecedented. It isn\u2019t true — and again, this is not to lessen the damage, not to lessen the impact because it\u2019s a disaster. Once again, we\u2019re trying to keep things in perspective and do what we do best here, and that\u2019s check the out-of-control, disaster\/chaos-oriented media. In December of 1935, there was a massive flood of downtown Houston. Water level height at Buffalo Bayou topped out at 54.4 feet. I have a picture of it here at Dr. Spencer\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

\"\"It looks like what you\u2019re seeing today except the buildings are older. By way of comparison, as of 6:30 this morning, the water level in the very same location as the flood of 1935 is at 38 feet — 16 feet lower than the flood in 1935. Now, the water is gonna continue to rise. The 38 feet is not final. But the point is the flooding has been much higher and much greater. But Houston has changed in those years as well. Now, the rainfall amounts. Are these totals unprecedented? The question\u2019s hard to answer, but I remember Dr. Spencer was on this program once years ago.<\/p>\n

He had called, and it was during particularly inclement weather. I don\u2019t remember if it was a hurricane or a series of tornadoes or whatever. I asked him a question based on an instinct. I said, “Dr. Spencer, is the amount of water in our eco-system constant?” Meaning: Is the amount of water on earth — in the oceans, in the atmosphere, water vapor. Is it constant? He says, “Yes.” In other words: We don\u2019t lose water. It just changes location. We don\u2019t gain water; we don\u2019t produce more. So where did these 40 inches of rain come from? How did it happen? They were not created out of thin air.<\/p>\n

It was from circumstances that already existed. It wasn\u2019t that brand-new water never before existing on earth came together on this storm and got dumped on Houston and other parts of Texas. The simplest explanation is that the water temperature in the Gulf of Mexico is about two degrees warmer than so-called normal. That\u2019s a lot of heat and a lot of evaporation. Basically, that\u2019s where the rainfall came from, is from the condensation of evaporation from the Gulf of Mexico. The heat just sucked it up out of there, those high-towering clouds. It turns into a hurricane, and then the rains come.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: These stories that are coming out of Houston, some just melt your heart. Have you seen the YouTube videos of the guy, he\u2019s a cabdriver in Houston and a Cooper Rush hawk landed on the front seat of his car and wouldn\u2019t leave. You haven\u2019t seen this? The guy\u2019s got a series of videos on YouTube. He\u2019s a longhaired, you know, ponytail guy, and he\u2019s a cabdriver, and this Cooper hawk apparently was afraid of the hurricane and landed on the front seat, the passenger side in his car. And it wouldn\u2019t leave.<\/p>\n