Buffalo Bayou Hurricane Hike
Stop 2 // PEOPLE // Human Impact and Art
North End of Jackson Hill Bridge
Figure 2.1. View looking east (downstream) from the Jackson Hill Bridge.
Human Impact Archived in 2-1-1 Texas/United Way HELPLINE calls
Looking east (downstream) (Fig. 2.1) the high-water level rose partially over the Waugh St. Bridge, flooding and displacing some of the bat colony. The United Way of Greater Houston’s headquarters is 0.5 km (0.3 mi) to the northeast (green arrow in Fig. 2.1). The 2-1-1 Texas/United Way HELPLINE call center that provides non-emergency aid to Houstonians is in that building. This call center fielded 1 million calls for assistance in 2017. During the first ~100 days after Harvey the 2-1-1 Texas/United Way HELPLINE center processed over 60,000 Hurricane Harvey related calls for help (HCDC, 2017). The flow of Harvey-related call volume and characteristics parallels the evolution of the hydrologic archive described at stop 1.
Figure 2.2. Hurricane Harvey Buffalo Bayou hydrologic archive with human impact archive overlay. The chart plots Buffalo Bayou water level at the Shepherd Drive bridge (Fig. 1.3) with an overlay of the Harvey related 2-1-1 Texas/United Way HELPLINE call volume vs time (orange line and scale on right). The volume of calls parallels the water level. In addition, the nature of the calls evolves with the flow phases. During the flood and early-middle adjustment (~day 0-14) phases, when the water levels rapidly rose and receded, the need is primarily for food and shelter. During the late adjustment phase, as the bayou returned to its channel (~day 30-40) the character of the need changes to financial as pay checks were missed. By the recovery phase, the need changes to medical and trauma related requests for help.
Figure 2.2 is the hydrologic archive chart from stop 1 with an overlay of 2-1-1 call volume. Notice how the volume of calls mimics the water level. The 2-1-1 call volume peaks with the flood phase and drops off rapidly during the early adjustment phase. It drops further during the middle adjustment phase, then picks up slightly 30-40 days after the hurricane during the late adjustment phase. 100 days after Harvey, during the recovery phase, the 2-1-1 call volume drops to a lower level.
In addition to the 2-1-1 call volume tracking the water level, the nature of the human impact changed as the water level character changed. Analyzing data from the Houston Community Data Center (HCDC) shows the flood and early adjustment phase calls were mostly for food and shelter (Figs. 2.3 and 2.4). During the middle adjustment phase, as people were missing their pay checks, the need was more financial (Fig. 2.5). During the recovery phase the need was more medical and trauma related (Fig. 2.6). This analysis shows how the hydrologic and human archives tracked one another.
Fluvial Tapestries, SAND PEEL SCULPTURES: Flow Archives of Hurricane Harvey
A sand peel is a geologic science tool used to capture and archive sediment deposit patterns. See our video here How to Make a Sand Peel. When also viewed as an art object, a sand peel enables a deeper conversation that connects the science with aesthetic, social and geopolitical considerations. The visual cues in the sand peel sculptures, as we have named them, can be interpreted through the lens of art, science or both to tell a narrative about their production process, which relies both on nature and human techniques and chance. The power of the sand peel is in its ability to hold both perspectives—the science and the art—at once.
From a scientific perspective sand peels enable answers to questions about how the deposit patterns formed. A geologist interprets the patterns through a geologic lens looking for signs of energy, direction, and types of sediment. A geologist is essentially reading and deciphering a complex flow: flow of water, flow of sand, and flow of time simultaneously. Add to this list the flow of humans and the artistic perspective starts to materialize as well. The idea of human flow can be thought of in multiple ways, from the hands of the artist to the human impact of the storm.
A sand peel could not be created without a human touch. The polymer used to adhere the sediment grains to each other and to cheesecloth to create the structure and solidity of the sculptures is literally painted onto the sandbar. The brush strokes and the “hand of the artist” are visible in many of the Harvey peels (one could also argue that the strata themselves are the brushstrokes of nature playing the artist). Each peel is thus unique in both its geology (structure, location and time) and also in its process of extraction, as each location had specific moisture and permeability variations, each time of extraction had specific weather conditions, and each pass with the brush to apply the liquid polymer had a unique stroke and penetration. All these variables give each sand peel its own shape, texture and relief.
The sand peel sculptures, through their ability to hold both a geologic and artists perspective at once, offer a more complex narrative for Harvey and its impact on Houston. The sand strata imagery provides both a direct natural narrative and a more abstract view than emotional images of flooded homes and stranded people clutching belongings. Most importantly, the abstraction and the consideration of the natural world enable thinking in earth time, the kind of time that is relevant to understand these kinds of events in relation to the past and the future of the city of Houston.
Today, the human time scale dominates our social and political values and choices. We make decisions based on the scale of a human lifetime even as there is an awareness of human history dating back thousands of years. In the context of describing the natural world there are terms like 100-year flood and 500-year flood; however, even these terms are too abstract for most people to recognize their value in relation to their own lives. Our contemporary time is only getting faster with new technology pushing us well beyond physical processes of horse power and steam power into digital speed through internet cables (when asked ‘how fast does Google search?’ Google returned 4,230,000,000 results in 0.64 seconds, as displayed just under the search bar where the search was enacted). This kind of speed and time is what we expect in the contemporary world.
As artists and geologists, we are interested in the intrinsic value of art and aesthetics to share this complex narrative of time, flow, sediment and human experience and ask viewers to consider that Hurricane Harvey is not unique. It was one of thousands of such events, and it will happen again. The human time scale is not dominant; it coincides with a natural one, an earth time. The artwork reminds us that we need to consider our cohabitation of the Gulf Coast, embrace this complexity, and be prepared to coexist with an ever-changing coastline.
Figure 2.7. Portion of adjustment phase sand peel A (Plate 2). A 0.5 m by 0.5 m (1.6 ft x 1.6 ft) portion of a sand peel from a bar deposited along Buffalo Bayou by Hurricane Harvey. Net flow is toward the viewer. The lower 3/4 of the peel shows broad planar stratification, changing to shorter wavelength ripples near the top. This is interpreted as deposited during waning flow. The small faults in the upper half of the image probably formed at ~30-40 days during the late adjustment phase, when a channel cut across the bar.
12 sand peel sculptures are the center of the artwork. Figure 2.7 is a detail of Sand Peel Sculpture A (Plate 2). High resolution images of the peels are linked above in Plates 1-12.