Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas as a category four hurricane, ending America’s 4,324 day major hurricane drought.
Parts of Texas are in for a walloping.
The National Weather Service described the hurricane as “about as fierce as they come” … and they are right.
Hurricane Harvey is severe, entirely natural — and not unprecedented.
In 1900, America’s deadliest ever hurricane devastated Galveston, Texas.
The practice of naming hurricanes was not yet in vogue, but this category four hurricane didn’t need a name to become a true human tragedy.
The storm brought 145 mile per hour winds and a 15 foot storm surge which flooded the city.
Estimates range from 6,000 to 12,000 dead. The loss of life was so extreme that Texans couldn’t cope with the sheer number of bodies. They were forced to resort to mass graves, barges for mass burials at sea, and mass funeral pyres on the beach. The loss of homes, life and property was staggering.
The City of Galveston rose again, but never fully regained its former prominence.
As can be expected, already climate campaigners are rushing to attribute Hurricane Harvey to global warming.
This is nonsense.
Exploiting the suffering in Texas for propaganda purposes is both shameless and insensitive; just as exploiting the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy was in the past.
In truth, America recently enjoyed a prolonged period during which no higher level hurricane made landfall. The last was Hurricane Wilma which struck Florida on October 24, 2005 – 12 years ago.
This has been very inconvenient for Al Gore and others anxious to hype natural weather tragedies as the product of man-made global warming.
Team warming’s climate simulations have not only failed to predict America’s prolonged hurricane drought, but also the full gamut of extreme weather events which have been on the whole historically benign. They’d do better tossing coins.
The good news is that although there is heart-rending suffering and hardship ahead for Texas, we can be confident we will not see the kind of suffering the Great Galveston Hurricane caused 117 years ago.
The economic might and advanced technology we have at our disposal, thanks to our free markets (which the Greens despise), is there to provide warning in time for people to prepare and evacuate. Today we are able to rush in help and resources enabling people to cope with the storm and recover.
Meteorology is also a far more advanced, solid discipline than flimsy climate science. When meteorologists use short-term computer models, they are actually able to accurately project hurricane paths they save lives.
An yone telling you that Hurricane Harvey would have been meaningfully less ferocious in any way had we never had the industrial revolution, or harnessed energy to serve mankind, is selling something. Something you don’t want to buy.
In fact, the reverse is true. Hurricane Harvey is natural. The ability to cope with it is man-made.
The ability of free market capitalism to provide for people in need is unmatched.
The financial loss of a Hurricane like Harvey can today be greater than ever before. There’s a simple reason for that. It’s NOT because of the size or strength of the storm. It’s because the strength of our economy has dramatically increased the value of the property in the hurricane’s path. There goes the power of the free market again. There’s no economic force to match it.
Today our thoughts, prayers and assistance must be with those whom Harvey strikes.
And to anyone looking to exploit this hurricane to push global warming, Socialism, or to make their fortune from government subsidies, we say:
