Why You Still Live with Higher Flood Risk than Necessary

7/18/2025 – Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) under the county’s current Democratic leadership has not put a high priority on improving flood risk in the San Jacinto watershed. That’s despite the fact that the San Jacinto had the highest flooding in Harris County during Harvey. And almost half of the deaths due to Harvey occurred in Kingwood.

“Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is”

An analysis of spending in all Harris County watersheds shows where the focus has been to date. The table and graphs below show the county’s true priorities.

“Put your money where your mouth is” means you back up your words with action. But that is not happening with 2018 Flood Bond money. Promises made long ago have not been kept. Words do not match actions.

One caveat about the numbers below: During the initial days of the bond, HCFCD contributed money to the Army Corps to complete projects the Corps had been working on in several watersheds: Brays, Hunting, Clear Creek and White Oak. That skewed the figures below slightly.

Total and Construction Spending by Watershed To Date

The table below shows dollars budgeted to each watershed in the 2018 bond. It also shows how much has been spent in total and against construction to date. It is arranged by descending order in the “% Spent” Column. Only one watershed has gone over budget to date: Carpenters. It had three small projects. The other watersheds range from almost 90% spent to 4%.

*Calculated from original bond spreadsheet and spending through the first half of 2025 as shown on HCFCD’s website.*

Critical Role of Construction in Reducing Flood Risk

Preliminary engineering reviews, feasibility studies and design are absolutely necessary to document the need for a project, determine its scope, and bid it. But they don’t reduce flood risk one iota. They only talk about how to do it.

Only when someone actually starts turning dirt during construction does flood risk start to come down.

The bar graph below compares “total budgeted dollars,” “total dollars spent,” and “construction dollars spent” for each watershed in the 2018 bond.

Note the huge variation in all three columns. The blue “budgeted” bars show the most dramatic difference from high to low.

Beyond that, note how White Oak, Cypress, Greens and Brays are close to $200 million in spending to date and how all four have more than $100 million in construction spending.

Now compare that with the San Jacinto Watershed. It had the fifth largest budget. But…

The San Jacinto ranks second from the bottom both in terms of “% Spent” and “% of Construction $ Spent.”

Other Lake Houston Area watersheds such as Spring Creek, Luce Bayou and Cedar Bayou show similar disparities.

This is not an accident. The cherry-picked metrics in the Rodney Ellis’ Equity Prioritization Framework favor other watersheds and no longer even include flood risk.

Critical Role of Construction

Construction is the most critical component of spending. Historically, it comprises the largest share of a project life cycle.

Eight years after Harvey and seven after passage of the flood bond, we’ve only spent about 17% of the total budget on construction.

Beyond that, comparing individual watersheds with the Brays Bayou watershed shows tremendous disparities in construction spending.

Halls Bayou, for instance, has the highest percentage of people in the county making less than the median income for the region. It also suffered the most “damage per square mile” in five major storms (Harvey, Imelda, Tax Day, Memorial Day and Allison). See below how it compares to Brays, where Rodney Ellis lives.

*Halls had far more dollars allocated than Brays, but Ellis’ formula put Halls residents at the back of the bus compared to where he lives in the Brays Bayou watershed.*

Halls Bayou was budgeted to receive 55% more dollars than Brays. But it has received far less than half of Brays’ total funding to date. And far less than a quarter of Brays’ construction spending!

The San Jacinto story is similar.

The bond promised the San Jacinto watershed more than Brays. But Brays has received 4 times more total dollars and six times more construction dollars to date.

The Great Irony

We should be coming into the home stretch with this bond money. Far more than half should have been spent by now and far more construction should have been completed or in progress.

The great irony is that both total and construction spending are decreasing when they should be increasing.

I have been told by many people that capacity among construction contractors is not the issue.

*From HCFCD Activity Page. Shows spending through Q2 25. Both overall and construction spending would continue to decline even if first half spending were annualized.*

And despite having more than $3 billion left to spend, with only one watershed over budget to date by a tiny amount, HCFCD’s Director is talking about a $1.3 billion shortfall without providing any public explanation about her projections. And commissioners are using that as an excuse to cancel projects in watersheds that have received minuscule funding to date.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/20/2025

2882 Days since Hurricane Harvey

The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.