ELI5: I’ve seen a lot of news and videos about flooding in Houston, but not as much about severe flooding in Miami. Why is that? Is it because Miami has better infrastructure, or does its geographic location help it avoid the worst of hurricanes?
South Florida is built around Hurricane mitigation because of the damage done by Hurricane Andrew in the 1992, and the extremely high water table.
Houses are anchored deep into the foundation with steel frames and doors/garages/windows that lock down like a bunker.
It is covered in an elaborate canal and connected lake/levee system and can be drained into the intercostal waterway ahead of big storms so that water the storm brings fills it back in rather than flooding.
It also has Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades to buffer and direct rainwater, instead of rivers that can overflow their banks.
But it also just… does flood to a degree. I don’t think it has had a storm that pulled in a surge the size of what Houston has seen, which is why FL is looking to build more storm surge protection for the city and area.
Houston has spread out to include a lot of areas that were originally bayous. These bayous provided areas for water to collect. When you build houses and businesses over that area though, there is no longer areas for the water to collect. In order to fix that, the infrastructure in Houston was built to largely use the roads as the water collection areas, instead of the now houses and businesses in those areas. This creates a lot of flooded roads which makes for good TV coverage of flooding. It also means if the roads can’t drain it fast enough, then some of those houses and businesses get flooded.
Miami has two things going for it: is directly on the ocean (0-20 miles to open water) and the ground is naturally porous.
This means that when it rains the water can quickly either get to the ocean or sink into the ground.
Houston and its suburbs are 0-60 miles from Galveston Bay, and the ground is mostly clay. This means that when it rains, the water has a long way to go, and sinking into the ground is not really an option.
Miami is closer to the coast. When you are close to the coast, storm surge is the flooding concern. Houston is pretty far inland, when you are inland rain fall is the flooding concern.
Galveston is situated more like Miami, Galveston has storm surge problems, but not flooding from rain fall. Orland would be closer to Houston, in terms to location to the coast. Orlando has a lot of flooding problems from rain fall.
Someone said it above but something I’ve noticed visiting Houston a few times is that
It’s like Houston purposely lets their roads/interstate flood as a means to keep it away from homes/businesses. Drive down I45 to Galveston during any rainfall and you’ll see the roads flood first
Comments
South Florida is built around Hurricane mitigation because of the damage done by Hurricane Andrew in the 1992, and the extremely high water table.
Houses are anchored deep into the foundation with steel frames and doors/garages/windows that lock down like a bunker.
It is covered in an elaborate canal and connected lake/levee system and can be drained into the intercostal waterway ahead of big storms so that water the storm brings fills it back in rather than flooding.
It also has Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades to buffer and direct rainwater, instead of rivers that can overflow their banks.
But it also just… does flood to a degree. I don’t think it has had a storm that pulled in a surge the size of what Houston has seen, which is why FL is looking to build more storm surge protection for the city and area.
Houston has spread out to include a lot of areas that were originally bayous. These bayous provided areas for water to collect. When you build houses and businesses over that area though, there is no longer areas for the water to collect. In order to fix that, the infrastructure in Houston was built to largely use the roads as the water collection areas, instead of the now houses and businesses in those areas. This creates a lot of flooded roads which makes for good TV coverage of flooding. It also means if the roads can’t drain it fast enough, then some of those houses and businesses get flooded.
Miami has two things going for it: is directly on the ocean (0-20 miles to open water) and the ground is naturally porous.
This means that when it rains the water can quickly either get to the ocean or sink into the ground.
Houston and its suburbs are 0-60 miles from Galveston Bay, and the ground is mostly clay. This means that when it rains, the water has a long way to go, and sinking into the ground is not really an option.
Miami is closer to the coast. When you are close to the coast, storm surge is the flooding concern. Houston is pretty far inland, when you are inland rain fall is the flooding concern.
Galveston is situated more like Miami, Galveston has storm surge problems, but not flooding from rain fall. Orland would be closer to Houston, in terms to location to the coast. Orlando has a lot of flooding problems from rain fall.
Someone said it above but something I’ve noticed visiting Houston a few times is that
It’s like Houston purposely lets their roads/interstate flood as a means to keep it away from homes/businesses. Drive down I45 to Galveston during any rainfall and you’ll see the roads flood first
Miami floods on a regular basis as it will soon be completely underwater due to global warming.