Texas Is Not Ready For The Next Big Hurricane

It has tanks of ugly stuff that might get loose and destroy some of Texas.

“We’re sitting ducks. We’ve done nothing.” said Phil Bedient, an engineering professor at Rice University and co-director of the Storm Surge Prediction, Education, and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center.

“We’ve done nothing to shore up the coastline, to add resiliency … to do anything.”

“That keeps me up at night,” said George P. Bush, the grandson and nephew of two U.S. presidents and Texas’ land commissioner.

As head of an agency charged with protecting the state’s coast, he kickstarted one of the studies that will determine the risk the area faces and how to protect it.

But the process will take years. Bush said, “You and me may not even see the completion of this project in our lifetime.”

It is not if, but when Houston’s perfect storm will hit.

They called Ike “the monster hurricane.”

Hundreds of miles wide.

Winds at more than 100 mph. And — deadliest of all — the power to push a massive wall of water into the upper Texas coast, killing thousands and shutting down a major international port and industrial hub.