Before we wade into the floodwaters, let's pause for those who have lost their lives and those who lost everything but in the recent deluge. Hundreds of thousands of lives in Texas have been turned upside down and it won't get back to normal anytime soon. They are going to need a lot of help.
As I write this, over 30% of the 4th most populated county in the United States is under water. The rain is still falling and the water is still rising.
Harvey--who names a Hurricane Harvey?--smashed the record rainfall total from any storm to hit the United States. It has turned southwest Texas into a swamp.
There is nothing unusual about a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. What is unusual is the amount of rain that came with it. What is unusual are the conditions created by a warming planet.
Here's where the line between natural disaster and thousand year flood gets murky. It's where we've got to step into the floodwaters.
This past winter, for the first time since measurements have been taken, the surface temperature of the Gulf of Mexico never dropped below 73 degrees.
The warmer the water in the gulf, the more evaporation to fall as rain. Air temperatures in Texas have been the warmest in the country. Warmer air carries more moisture.
A slow moving powerful storm like Harvey would always carry a wallop. But warmer ocean and air temperatures always increase the moisture that comes with it. That's how a place gets more rain in 72 hours than it normally gets in a year.
But more people believe in snake handling around here than believe in global warming, so forget that.
Hurricanes are never good for anybody, but they've been worse for the Republican party lately. Just look to the botched response to Katrina by Bush the Younger and the stonewalling of Hurricane Sandy relief from conservatives like Ted Munster Cruz.
This storm should have been named Hurricane Hypocrite, because that's what its made out of the Texas congressional delegation and one of those multi-millionaire TV preachers.
In 2013, Teddy Munster and his Texas delegation voted against relief funding for New Jersey and New York in the wake of Sandy. Now the entire delegation pushes for fast congressional action to get funds to Texas.
When asked for justification, Cruz said, "I don't think taxpayer funds should go to foreign countries. A lot of people in Texas believe New York and New Jersey are just that."
The guy with the best teeth money can buy had to be reminded a 16,000 seat auditorium would probably be able to handle a refugee or two. His hesitation was pure. All those people with wet feet would surely mess up his high dollar carpet.
He reversed when his tax-exempt lawyer reminded him there'd be millions of tax exempt relief dollars on their way and he could get a taxpayer funded facelift on his tax exempt mansion. I mean church.
Republicans tell you government is bad, but not if they need it. One of these days we'll figure out what makes government bad is the billionaire lackeys we keep electing.