{"id":12274,"date":"2017-08-28T18:04:45","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T01:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=12274"},"modified":"2017-08-28T18:03:25","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T01:03:25","slug":"houston-flood-officials-spent-years-denying-scientific-warnings-of-catastrophic-flooding-bradcast-8282017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=12274","title":{"rendered":"Houston Flood Officials Spent Years Denying Scientific Warnings of Catastrophic Flooding: ‘BradCast’ 8\/28\/2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

On today’s BradCast<\/i><\/a>, the years of ignored warnings in Houston, as the devastation continues, and what Trump did as the storm came ashore, threatened millions of Americans. [Audio link to show follows below.<\/i>]\n

As unprecedented<\/a> rains from Hurricane Harvey<\/a> continue to overwhelm<\/a> Houston, Texas and surrounding areas with as much as 50 inches of catastrophic flooding, the storm is now moving slowly back into the Gulf of Mexico, where it may regain strength for a second landfall on the Texas\/Louisiana border. Rainfall is likely to double between now and the end of the week.<\/p>\n

My producer and Green News Report<\/i><\/a> co-host, Desi Doyen, a Texas native, joins me to discuss why evacuation orders weren’t issued for Houston, before we go on to review the years of warnings about this very type of event amid the recent population boom in Harris County (Houston), the nation’s 3rd most populous county.<\/p>\n

As it turns out — as revealed in an excellent and detailed investigative report published by The Texas Tribune<\/i> and Pro Publica<\/a> late last year — the County’s 18-year flood manager aggressively dismissed those warnings for years and marginalized the scientists repeatedly offering them. All, while denying the threat of over-development and destruction of flood-mitigating wetlands, poor (and poorly enforced) flood mitigation regulations, and the ever-increasing devastation of such storms due to climate change<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also today: the “uncharted territory” of the President of the United States issuing a pardon<\/a> to notorious<\/a> Maricopa County (Phoenix) Sheriff Joe Arpaio — even as the Category 4 hurricane was bearing down on Houston late Friday night — after Arpaio was convicted for contempt of federal court orders. Arpaio had, for years, unlawfully and unconstitutionally profiled Latino-looking residents in defiance of the Court. But much of what else he did during his reign of terror as Sheriff was far worse than that, as the Phoenix New Times<\/i> had long reported<\/a>, and as we also detail today. Even more troubling, however, is the intended message of Trump’s pardon to both law enforcement officials<\/a>, the federal judiciary<\/a> and the Constitution<\/a> itself.<\/p>\n

And, as if all of that isn’t enough, as we took to the air today, North Korea reportedly<\/a> fired a missile that passed over northern Japan. It’s another harrowing show today as the wheels continue to come off the world…<\/p>\n

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!…<\/a><\/i><\/b>
\n[audio:http:\/\/bradblog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman_HurricaneHarvey_HoustonIgnoredWarnings_ArpaioPardon_NKMissile_082817.mp3]<\/blockquote>\n

* * *<\/b><\/center>While we post <\/i>The BradCast<\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they’re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes<\/a>, Stitcher<\/a>, TuneIn<\/a> or our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The BRAD BLOG<\/strong>, The BradCast<\/em> and Green News Report<\/em> are all 100% independent and 100% listener and reader supported!<\/span>Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On today’s BradCast, the years of ignored warnings in Houston, as the devastation continues, and what Trump did as the storm came ashore, threatened millions of Americans. [Audio link to show follows below.] As unprecedented rains from Hurricane Harvey continue to overwhelm Houston, Texas and surrounding areas with as much as 50 inches of catastrophic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,70,89,675,543,272,479,390,200,548,1034,1030,473,1031,477,332,825,157,126,47,127],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-12274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-arizona","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-climate-change","category-dept-of-defense","category-donald-trump","category-economy","category-environment","category-extreme-weather","category-harris-county","category-hurricane-harvey","category-japan","category-joe-arpaio","category-kpfk","category-lgbt","category-maricopa-county","category-north-korea","category-rights-and-freedoms","category-texas","category-the-constitution","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12274"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=12274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}