Hurricane Harvey has absolutely devastated parts of Southeast Texas. Houston, in particular, is seeing apocalyptic flooding in certain areas. With a weather event like this comes tons of pictures on social media, many of them heroic images of people being rescued by public servants and people who just want to help. Even more images seem to pop up of the extreme nature of the event, for example absolutely crazy (and true) images of Houston under water.
But then you see images like this, shared with a caption something like “Whoa, I can’t believe these airlines at Hobby Airport were this dumb!”
It’s easy to chuckle and move on, but take a closer look. Anyone familiar with Hobby would realize that’s an awful lot of Delta jets for an airport dominated by Southwest. Anyone familiar with skylines would immediately notice the skyline of lower Manhattan in the distance. This is LaGuardia Airport in New York City.
After some sleuthing I found what I believe to be the original source of this image: this article from an anti-global warming publication called Climate Central, showing what LaGuardia could look like should climate change proceed unabated. While I’m sure everyone agrees that LaGuardia could use a bath, this clearly wouldn’t ever happen, since planes are pretty legendary for being able to fly away from situations like this.
Not wanting to get into a climate change discussion here, just wanted to debunk a picture I’ve seen more than once floating around the internets so the proper focus can be on getting help to where it’s needed in Houston. Many are saying to donate to the Red Cross, others to the Salvation Army, others through religious institutions, I’ll leave that decision up to you but I hope you’ll consider doing something.
To my friends and family in Houston, stay dry and stay safe, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help from up here in Dallas!
