Montgomery County Upper Taylor Gully Cleanout at Woodridge Village

Upper Taylor Gully Clean Out by MoCo Precinct 4

Montgomery County has just finished an Upper Taylor Gully clean out that will restore the conveyance in the channel which had become totally blocked.

The new commissioner in Montgomery County Precinct 4, Matt Gray, has adopted a much more active and collaborative role in flood mitigation than his predecessor.

Commissioner Gray’s crews inspected Taylor Gully above the Harris/Montgomery County line and found it totally blocked in places from accumulated erosion and littered with illegally dumped trash.

Gray then dispatched more workers to remove blockages. As a result, residents on both sides of the county line will sleep a little better if and when the next hurricane or tropical storm strikes.

The area they addressed is Woodridge Village, the same area where Harris County Flood Control is working with Sprint Sand and Gravel to double the existing detention basin capacity.

While Harris County Flood Control and the City of Houston own the area around the main ditch, Montgomery County owns the yellow areas (see below).

Montgomery County Taylor Gully Cleanout at Woodridge Village
Pictures below were taken near the blue dot in the center. Montgomery County owns area in yellow. HCFCD and City of Houston own the blue area.

Pictures of Cleanup, Clean Out Effort

Kennedy Williams with Commissioner Gray’s office provided the pictures below. The effort began with inmates removing several truckloads of old illegally dumped tires, trash and signs.

Montgomery County Taylor Gully Cleanout at Woodridge Village
Prisoners removing old tires
Montgomery County Taylor Gully Cleanout at Woodridge Village
Then crews mowed banks of the outfall ditch.
Montgomery County Taylor Gully Cleanout at Woodridge Village
Finally, an excavator and front-end loader removed accumulated sediment
Montgomery County Taylor Gully Cleanout at Woodridge Village
Note how high the dirt line was. Sediment completely blocked the 36-inch outfall pipe.

A Timely, Valuable Job

The Upper Taylor Gully cleanup and clean-out efforts are timely for several reasons. We are:

  • Approaching the peak of hurricane season on September 10th.
  • At the fourth anniversary of the Elm Grove floods that damaged up to 600 homes twice in 2019 – between May 7th and Tropical Storm Imelda.
  • Watching an area of low pressure move into the Gulf that has a 90% chance of turning into a tropical storm or hurricane in the next 48 hours.

While the National Hurricane Center projects that it will miss Houston to the east, the projected impact area has been shifting west in the last 24 hours.

Gray’s effort will help restore conveyance of the Upper Taylor Gully channel to its design specs. It will also help reduce flood risk for hundreds of families should another flood strike the area.

Thank you, Commissioner Gray!

Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/26/2023

2188 Days since Hurricane Harvey and 1437 since Imelda