Disaster

Hurricane Harvey may solve the auto industry’s inventory problem. But right now, it's about to create a giant headache for the federal government.

Based on the latest estimates from Irvine, California-based CoreLogic, insured flood losses for homes in the affected areas of Texas and Louisiana could total between $6.5 billion to $9.5 billion. Since private insurers typically don’t provide personal flood insurance, all but $500 million of that will fall to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Flood Insurance Program, or NFIP.

Shortly after President Trump backed away from his demand that $1.6 billion in funding for his border wall be included in a continuing-resolution bill to avert a government shutdown, the White House late Friday sent a request for $8 billion in emergency funding for the Hurricane Harvey cleanup effort, and asked that the money be tied to a bill to raise the US debt-ceiling limit. Trump’s request that the two legislative priorities be combined in one bill likely won’t go over well among Congressional Republicans, according to Bloomberg.

On Tuesday, just as Hurricane Harvey was peaking, we reported that according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, as well as MarineTraffic real-time tracking, at least 25 tankers carrying almost 17 million barrels of imported crude oil were drifting near Texas and Louisiana ports, unable to offload because of closures from Tropical Storm Harvey.

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

A man named Nash decided to protect his community from looters after Hurricane Harvey left the Houston area vulnerable.

Unfortunately, after a disaster, some people decide it’s the perfect time to steal from others.

This scenario is commonly known in survivalist circles as “without rule of law.”

You can't say they didn't warn us: this afternoon, the VP of US manufacturing Daryl Roberts at French chemicals giant Arkema, said the company was on "high alert" as more fires could start at the doomed facility at any moment. Well, that moment took place around 6pm ET, when ABC Houston reported that the doomed Arkema plant has exploded, causing a "massive" fire and "sending dark, black smoke into the air."

Wow. Chemical plant catches fire in Crosby, Texas. Take a look. #ABC13 #hounews pic.twitter.com/ZXT1MVKVHo