alt Hacker NewsHelene survivor here. What's wild to me is that, regardless of the small scale of this facility, it's only a few hundred meters from a 1% flood zone: https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search
The address I found for the facility is 9101 Windmill Park Lane Hudson, TX 77064
This seems ill advised given recent events like Hurricane Harvey
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When it floods, they can hold their hands up and say "well we tried".. then get back to business as usual in China
That specific location would probably never flood in the way that you might think. The areas you really need to worry about are downstream of the Addicks and Barker dams:
https://www.swg.usace.army.mil/Missions/Dam-Safety-Program/A...
I don't know what the topography of houston is like, but here in toronto, a few hundred meters would move you from the bottom of a deep river valley to the top of it. I would imagine they made sure they could get insurance before building and wouldn't have picked any place with a significant risk.
They will build to a much higher standard than normal US residential construction, as they do with most commercial buildings. Many people do not understand the vast difference between residential construction quality and the quality that mega corps get. I personally watched Apple build their new campus in Austin (I have daily progress pictures of the construction site, I work there), everything is solid concrete. These buildings can withstand any type of hurricane.
Flooding is also something which can be mitigated: build foundations to be taller, work with the topography to avoid the path of water, and build drainage solutions. You should see the drainage field that Apple built for their campus in Austin, it's absolutely massive and can divert an incredible amount of water.
That's a good sign it's not a serious long-term effort. Onshoring cosplay?
Industrial buildings are typically built at dock height. Even if they don't do any grading, that would put the building well above any plausible flooding in that area.