"the hurricanes are now being attributed to GLOBAL WARMING"

Hurricanes have been a regular feature of life long before global warming was ever thought of. Houston has had numerous previous flooding events and it was known that a hurricane making landfall anywhere near Houston would cause severe flooding. The city is cut through by rivers, bayous and flood channels and most of the adjacent areas comprise flood plain. Building in a flood plain by the sea is not a very good idea, especially when there is previous history of severe flooding events.
It will be hard to prove that global warming directly influenced the energy buildup within this particular hurricane. It is more to do with anomalous heating of parts of the Gulf, as was the case with Katrina.


http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2006GL026623/full