Points:
There was no 2 weeks of warning but about 2 days they had no idea where it would hit or how bad much earlier so couldn't release the dam dam sooner to drain it. And it had never been released before and would have flooded downstream just earlier.
FEMA leaned from Katrina and Sandy and did great job of prepositinng assetes around the U.S. About 500 marines were deployed with the Navy ships with food plus hundreds of Helos. Coast Guard really did a good job before military assets, 12,000 national guard could arrive. Remember allmost all roads into the area were flooded so impossible to get into the area other than helos early on.
Our (Phoenix AZ) response team of highly trained rescue folks that hang out of helos to do mountain rescues and pluck people from cars with our Monsoon flooding were mobilized. 80 highly trained fire etc folks along with bumch of helos and some of our National Guard were sent from 1500 miles away!. But again no way in by land in the early days. Texas mobilized its entire 12,000 national guard and many other states also. It was a HUGE coordination problem., especially in airspace with all the helos all over until the miiltary radar planes arrived to help helo traffic control so they wouldn't run into each other plucking folks from rooftops.
Trump wants to take credit but he did nothing except brag about his crowd size.
Now we have unknown chemicals blowing up since TX Republicans passed law no longer requiring the nature of chemicals stored to be made public to prostect the industry. Also in their wisdom Houston has no zoning laws.
Houses can not be just dried out. Mold is already forming. It will take years to rebuild especially since in the U.S. most construction companies are backlogged already due to lack of skilled Mexican labor. Maybe will need zillions from Canada since easier to get into the U.S. than the Mexican workers we relied upon for years.
Overall expected to knock of 0.2% to GDP short term but all the construction paid for my insurance companies and government should more than offset other losses. Victims can get diaster relief loans up to $200,000 for homes and up to $40,000 for personal property including automobiles. It will probably be very good for the auto industry helping to reduce the glut we have had in used cars - coming off rentals etc. Rental cars will be in huge demand. Folks do have to repy the disaster loans and qualify which may be an issue.. Plus there was a housing shortage in Houston even before the flood so may have to reply on FEMA trailers again? Most hotels have arrangements with FEMA to provide short-term emergency housing but rebuilding will take years and what to do with all the displaced folks is a huge issue like in Katrina. Fortuinately Feds and local is much more ready than in New Orleans.
Sadly Trump seems more concerned about building his worthless vanity wall than fully funding the aid to the flood victims. The fight goes on with a worthless Congress.
