Houston - Rockport

One thing that sucks for me and my business.... Houston has always been a good "fishing hole" for wrecked cars that I can salvage. Buying from Copart and Insurance Auto Auction. In general, I am buying the cars for engines and transmissions. All those vehicles flooded means it willl be a long while until I go back to the auctions based there. No way am I going to deal with flood title cars and gamble my buying money that the engine will still function correctly.

And it makes me wonder how they will handle all those vehicles? Below is a photo of cars affected by Super Storm Sandy, where they took over an entire airport and 2 runways to store the vehicles they removed from the affected area.

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Like Ike or Allison, it'll take time for them to disappear. So long as they weren't run while underwater, I imagine most would be salvageable for those parts, though, right? Even for a salvage title, can't you run them at auction?
 
NoHeat said:
I expected that cowls should stay attached to a plane when exposed to 100 MPH winds. After all, that's what they do in flight.
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If it's coming right at the nose, sure. From other directions? Maybe not so much.
 
mkosmo said:
Shoot me a message and I'll be sure to be out there!



Yeah, I had seen the picture she posted of the t-covers today to one of the groups. I had mine moved to a community hangar for the storm... But I told them I didn't care which one they stuck me in since I wouldn't be flying until after. Other photos on the Houston Area Aviators group shows the West side to be doing okay, but I'm worried that if I'm in the blue hangar, I'll have some work to do. I'm hoping not, as I'd like to help out with some of the relief flights being organized.
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You probably also saw the text she copied and pasted from the airport powers that be. It looked like that post had some more details on water depths around the airport.

Hope your airplane is in a higher spot rather than a lower spot!
 
I guess that DWH doesn't need that seaplane runway right about now....
 
Haven't seen this one posted yet:

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Talk about being up to your neck. At this point they still look salvageable.
 
Jim_R said:
If it's coming right at the nose, sure. From other directions? Maybe not so much.
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Ah, yes, that could be.

Or as Dav8tor mentioned, it could be that it was removed before the storm for maintenance.

I wonder if insurance losses will be so extensive that we start seeing higher premiums next year for hulls?
 
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NoHeat said:
Ah, yes, that could be.

Or as Dav8tor mentioned, it could be that it was removed before the storm for maintenance.

I wonder if insurance losses will be so extensive that we start seeing higher premiums next year for hulls?
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I wonder if we'll see insurance companies next year. IIRC, Katrina nearly bankrupt them all.
 
denverpilot said:
You probably also saw the text she copied and pasted from the airport powers that be. It looked like that post had some more details on water depths around the airport.

Hope your airplane is in a higher spot rather than a lower spot!
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Yeah, but that was 12 hours ago now. The water levels are still rising...
 
Dav8or said:
I wonder if we'll see insurance companies next year. IIRC, Katrina nearly bankrupt them all.
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Are you asking if Harvey will cause the death of some insurance companies?

Not likely. One, in order to operate, the insurance company must show that they have sufficient liquid funds to meet the majority of the claims for both normal operations and major disasters like this. And, Two, nearly all the companies purchase "reinsurance" policies from other companies. Sort of like commonly known umbrella coverage, these policies don't kick in until various conditions are met, such as a very high severity of claims pay out in short time period and only after a very large "deductible". In the end, this allows the individual carrier to keep enough of their own liquid assets, and allow the "umbrella" carrier to help fund the additional claims.

And it's not uncommon for multiple layers of this to exist.

More info: What is Reinsurance

 
Another photo of West Houston (Courtesy of Sarah Rovner and Plane & Pilot website)

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From the West Houston terminal building

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I do expect premiums to rise, especially in any area that has exposure to the Gulf. The high water temperatures are giving these storms extra punch, and I don't expect that to abate in the years to come.
 
Maybe there is a business opportunity to create a floatation product for airplanes stranded in water like we see at West Houston. Attach to the fuselage properly, anchor to the surrounding structures, inflate, and hope the water don't rise so high that it jams into the underside of the roof.
 
Does anyone know how much of the nation's aviation fuel comes out of Houston? With many of the refineries around Houston suffering from this event, I wonder how bad the ripple effect will be on fuel prices. I'm already seeing some increasing numbers at the auto gas pump ($2.35/gal where I get my morning coffee).
 
In Colorado, gas spiked 20+/gal cents at the local stations which is unexpected because we've got refineries here. Avgas at FTG is 4.42, but it went up 20 cents last week. Don't expect to see the spike until a new load is delivered in the next couple weeks.

Update a day later (8-30)...auto gas bumped up another 10-15 cents. Avgas no change.
 
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I was a flight instructor at a little airport in West Virginia. One day it started raining, and raining, and it rained for three days straight. Since I lived in my Rv on the airport property, I kept my eye on the Mud River. Around sun down on the third day, the water was starting to run over the banks. Just a little, no flash flood or anything.

I woke up around day break to check on the river. It was at the end of the runway. I watched it, and a couple hours later half the runway was covered.

At that point I started pulling airplanes up off the ramp, towing them on the road and was parking them in a parking lot that was about 20 feet higher than the runway. I only had 15 planes to move. And of course no one showed up to help.

I was down to the last 3 planes and the water was at the bottom of the tractor I was using. I got one more plane out and when I got back the current was starting to lift and move the little tractor (an ancient Minneapolis-Moline) as I got into the deeper water. I got 1 more plane out and I could no longer take the tractor into the current.

By the time the flood crested, that poor little 150 had just the top of the tail sticking out of the water, about 8 inches worth.

A couple months later, someone showed up and started working on the 150. He had bought it at an auction and was going to fix it to sell. He worked on it for 2 1/2 days, then cranked it up. Early the next morning he fired it up, taxied out and took off. I assume he flew it home.
 
Zeldman said:
taxied out and took off. I assume he flew it home.
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Water is always a bad thing as general rule of thumb... but I imagine that it being fresh water, not salt water, definitely helped fix that plane up. Plus, despite some annoying electrical systems these planes are still remarkably simple. Dry it out, no corrosion, clean fuel and carb lines, check electrical... I bet I'd be surprised at just how many things can be brought back to life post flooding. Cars another matter with the sheer amount of electronics on them. But a simple old school steam gauge plane, probably not impossible
 
Tantalum said:
Water is always a bad thing as general rule of thumb... but I imagine that it being fresh water, not salt water, definitely helped fix that plane up. Plus, despite some annoying electrical systems these planes are still remarkably simple. Dry it out, no corrosion, clean fuel and carb lines, check electrical... I bet I'd be surprised at just how many things can be brought back to life post flooding. Cars another matter with the sheer amount of electronics on them. But a simple old school steam gauge plane, probably not impossible
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Well an airplane isn't that different. There's loads of wires and electronics in them too. There are connections throughout the plane and that's where corrosion really sets in and causes problems. I have no doubt that an airplane victim of a flood can be made to fly in a short time, but long term there will be issues and failures until every component and wiring to that component is replaced. Worst case scenario is if one of these corroded connections starts a fire in flight. Even a typical C-150 has a load of wiring.
 
AggieMike88 said:
Does anyone know how much of the nation's aviation fuel comes out of Houston? With many of the refineries around Houston suffering from this event, I wonder how bad the ripple effect will be on fuel prices. I'm already seeing some increasing numbers at the auto gas pump ($2.35/gal where I get my morning coffee).
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Roughly 50-60% (depending on who you ask, and what each plant wants to run) of 100LL comes from Gulf area refineries.
 
Those wanting to help, check the facebook pages of the city managers (they're using their phones). Rockport area manager requested 300 pairs of gloves, new white socks and water for their rescue crews.

My nephew out of Brownsville is heading that way with a group of hunting/fishing guides with several flat bottom boats and an air boat. One of the trailers is all water bottles and dry food (they collected from Brownsville, Harlingen and McAllen). Fuel is a major problem. The first set of fisherman from his group arrived and ran non-stop in SW Houston and Katy. Right as they were getting bingo fuel, a farmer shows up trucking in 600 gallons which extended the effort, but the air boats hold 50 gallons and burn a lot more than the johnson boats with small motors.
 
danhagan said:
Those wanting to help, check the facebook pages of the city managers (they're using their phones). Rockport area manager requested 300 pairs of gloves, new white socks and water for their rescue crews.

My nephew out of Brownsville is heading that way with a group of hunting/fishing guides with several flat bottom boats and an air boat. One of the trailers is all water bottles and dry food (they collected from Brownsville, Harlingen and McAllen). Fuel is a major problem. The first set of fisherman from his group arrived and ran non-stop in SW Houston and Katy. Right as they were getting bingo fuel, a farmer shows up trucking in 600 gallons which extended the effort, but the air boats hold 50 gallons and burn a lot more than the johnson boats with small motors.
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Fuel is showing up again. It's just in the dryer spots of town.
 
mkosmo said:
Fuel is showing up again. It's just in the dryer spots of town.
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My nephew indicated they got in and are performing rescues, but that their trucks that brought the boats aren't high enough to go out to retrieve fuel as the water level increased since they got into position and they're "locked in" temporarily until it recedes (his truck is one of the ones shown parked with others and trailers on an over pass to stay dry). They're using an airboat to get close to one of the operating stations, but they feel they're wasting a resource (the airboat has a 50 gallon tank and they're filling cans and siphoning off of that boat to keep the little flat bottoms rolling).
 
danhagan said:
My nephew indicated they got in and are performing rescues, but that their trucks that brought the boats aren't high enough to go out to retrieve fuel as the water level increased since they got into position and they're "locked in" temporarily until it recedes (his truck is one of the ones shown parked with others and trailers on an over pass to stay dry). They're using an airboat to get close to one of the operating stations, but they feel they're wasting a resource (the airboat has a 50 gallon tank and they're filling cans and siphoning off of that boat to keep the little flat bottoms rolling).
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He may want a heads up that some areas won't recede for quite some time now. Where is he locked in?
 
mkosmo said:
He may want a heads up that some areas won't recede for quite some time now. Where is he locked in?
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South side of Houston, they got re-deployed over to Wharton after finding passable roads and worked without sleep until just now 10pm CST from last night. On the good side, they are a crew of over 25 boats now out of Brownsville area, all guides with a ton of experience, and really killed it picking people up. On the bad side, Texas Game Wardens would not let them in an area that they could hear people screaming for help, saying it was under control (my nephew indicated no one was evacuated from that area as he was working adjacent to it). The sad news, all of the evacuees were transported to the Wharton Civic center (1200 total), as I was talking to him a radio went off indicating that the civic center was now taking on water and needed a full evacuation (Colorado and Brazos rivers are both now breaching) :( He expects he'll be on that all day tomorrow, but worries about the other zone they didn't get to clear ... at one point they were told to leave as their help was no longer needed:eek::confused:
 
Yikes! I was down near some of the flooded areas earlier this evening and was talking to a boater that was working evacuations in the Addicks reservoir flooded areas. He was talking of looters around and the difficulties finding the remaining persons. He was working alone, though, and under nobody's watch, so he had nobody to report to. The cops ran off a couple of jetskiers, though, it looked like. Not sure why, as they were also retrieving people.

This is a mess all over SE Texas.

Thank your nephew for me, for all of the tireless work and effort they're putting in. We'd be in far rougher shape if it weren't for the selfless volunteers out there right now.
 
mkosmo said:
Thank your nephew for me, for all of the tireless work and effort they're putting in. We'd be in far rougher shape if it weren't for the selfless volunteers out there right now.
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Will do, he has to return to work in a couple of days and really wanted to maximize his time there. Same area is now sending 5 semi-trucks with more donated supplies. Volunteers are really kicking rear down there, I think the ones that feel they're the "pro's" are getting a little territorial.

Area EAST of Houston got HAMMERED with 26" in one day and is begging for anyone with a boat ... he doesn't think he can get to that area, but believe the "Cajun Navy" is planning on it as it is adjacent to their home state.
 
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