[Magdalen] Houston

[Roger Stokes]

The problem is the sheer volume of water that has to be dispersed. I 
read that there has been something like 6 cubic miles of water dumped on 
Houston. First it has to be drained into the bayou in the first place 
using pipes that are not up to transporting that volume of water that 
quickly. Given that the Canal is about a tenth of a mile wide and 9 feet 
is about 1/587 mile rounding to 1/600 you get a cross-sectional area of 
about 1/6,000 square miles if you raised the water level by 9 feet.  6 
cubic miles would mean 36,000 miles of water at that cross-section. I 
don't know how fast a stream the canal could take given the bends and 
islands in it, which would produce turbulence and so slow the flow, but 
if you assume an improbably high 36 mph that would take 1,000 hours or 6 
weeks to clear.

Some of the water will doubtless find other routes to the sea but it 
will still take some time to shift such an immense volume of water.

Roger

On 30/08/2017 05:14, Cantor03--- via Magdalen wrote:
> In a message dated 8/29/2017 10:32:35 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> ann.markle at aya.yale.edu writes:
>
> Watching  coverage of the flooding  >>>>>>>>>>>>>
>   
> I notice that the elevation of Houston is listed as something like
> 9 feet above sea level.  The City of Houston is 50 miles north
> of the Gulf, and yet has one of the busiest ports in the USA because
> of the Houston Ship Canal. an artificially dredged  bayou from the
> Galveston Bay.
>   
> The Canal is at sea level, and thus I can't understand why water
> doesn't exit quickly from flooded Houston into the sea via this  Canal.
>   
> I guess I'd be an Army Engineering  dropout.