Final Harvey Report Puts Flood in Perspective
Jeff Lindner, Director Hydrologic Operations and a meteorologist with the Harris County Flood Control District, just released a fascinating compendium of statistics: the Final Harvey Report. It contains everything you need to know to impress your friends, relatives and someday, your great, great grandchildren. When they’re sitting on your knee someday, you can tell them how you survived the greatest flood since Noah.
Ultimate Guide to the Wrath of Harvey
This is the Hurricane Harvey equivalent of the Baseball Encyclopedia. It contains scorecards for every part of the county. Hollywood could start a game show with this document – Wheel of Misfortune!
The Final Harvey Report details the catastrophic devastation from Harvey flooding that occurred all across Harris County. It also puts the storm in historic context and compares it to other previous record storms. Find statistics on:
- House flooding by watershed and jurisdiction
- Vehicle Damage
- Rainfall statistics (duration, totals, intensity by location, probabilities, % over previous records, peak distribution)
- Insurance claims and coverage
- Channel flooding, stream flow and gage statistics
- And more…much more
Did You Know? A Sampling of Statistics from Final Harvey Report
Volume of flows entering Lake Houston from the San Jacinto Watershed
Want to know the peak inflow to Lake Houston? 491,800 cubic feet per second.
How high was the peak flow over the spillway at the Lake Houston Dam? 425,000 cfs.
What is that equivalent to? 5 times the average flow of Niagra Falls.
What was the max rainfall in one hour? 6.8 inches!
What’s the expected recurrence interval for getting 6.8 inches again in one hour? 1500 years!
How many times were 1″-rainfall-in-15-minute alarms triggered during the storm? 336 times!
Of the 154,170 estimated homes flooded across Harris County only 36% had active flood insurance policies in place the day before Harvey…64% did not have flood insurance.
Of the 154,170 homes flooded 105,340 were outside the mapped 1% (100-yr) floodplain and were not required to have flood insurance. The 154,170 is between 9-12% of the total number of structures in Harris County.
Learn more. Read the full Final HCFCD Harvey Report,
Or check out the Houston Chronicle’s coverage of the subject.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/4/18
Day 279 Since Hurricane Harvey