Lake Conroe Lowering Benefits MoCo Residents, Too; More Than 1100 Flooded on West Fork During Harvey

Lake Conroe residents organizing opposition to the SJRA’s lake lowering policy have found it easy to “blame” Kingwood for their inconvenience. Kingwood is an affluent community in another county. But the Lake Conroe people ignore more than 1100 homes between Kingwood and Lake Conroe in Montgomery County (MoCo) that also flooded.

The lake lowering reduces downstream flood risk by creating extra capacity within the lake during months with the heaviest rainfall. It is a temporary measure until flood mitigation measures can be completed that help protect the Lake Houston Area.

ESRI GIS Database Shows Counts of Damaged MoCo Homes

ESRI operates a Montgomery County GIS (geographic information system) database called the Harvey Story Map. (Unfortunately, this may not work with all versions of Safari. Try Chrome if you have trouble.) Clicking on Section 12 shows the location of homes that flooded during Harvey in MoCo.

As you to zoom, you can see counts of flooded structures within the visible area. For instance, around Lake Conroe, 292 homes flooded during Harvey. The map below shows the location of those homes.

If you continue to zoom in, you can even see how individual houses fared in other floods as well.

Below are six screen captures that give you a sampling of what you will find. This first area is just below the Lake Conroe dam where 30 homes flooded during Harvey.

Below is River Plantation, just downstream from I-45. Put your water wings on, Bucko! The count here: 527.

Here are four more subdivisions farther downstream.

The West Fork subdivisions shown above had 1159 flooded structures during Harvey. But more homes flooded than in these six images. For starters, there were the 298 homes around Lake Conroe itself.

So, to the 4,484 homes that flooded in Kingwood, Humble and Atascocita on the West Fork, add these and more.

I’m not sure how many people have waterfront lots on Lake Conroe, but is their boating convenience really worth risking the possibility of flooding even a subset of these homes again?

Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/24/2019

817 Days after Hurricane Harvey