Hurricane season officially ended yesterday, November 30. 2022 turned out to be an average season, not the above-normal season that was predicted. No storms affected Houston. But Category 4 Ian slammed the West Coast of Florida, killing at least 144 people. Four U.S. Landfalls The 2022 season saw four hurricane landfalls in the U.S.: Unusual […]
Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) released its November report on Flood-Bond progress to Commissioners Court yesterday. The report covered through October 2022. I had two major take-aways: The major announcement: the District advertised bids for the construction of a stormwater detention basin in Inwood Forest. The project encompasses property owned by the City of […]
On the morning of 11/29/22, Humble ISD contractors finished demolishing the last walls of the old KMS (Kingwood Middle School). They were also draining a water tower on the property before taking that down. The next two steps: remove all the debris and start removing the foundation. New athletic fields and a permanent larger detention […]
The Preserve at Woodridge based its detention basin calculations on 65% impervious cover. But photos taken on 11/26/22, a full year after they cleared the land, suggest the impervious-cover percentage may have been dramatically understated. That affects the amount and speed of runoff. And that raises concerns for downstream residents along Ben’s Branch, many of […]
Holidays have a way of bringing back memories. Almost ten years ago, I published a book of photographs based on a four-year project I started 50 years ago between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was called Uptown: Portrait of a Chicago Neighborhood in the Mid-1970s. The book sold well initially. But Hurricane Harvey destroyed almost all […]
The photo below does not show the Royal Pines detention basin. It’s their main entrance at West Lake Houston Parkway. And this was not a repeat of Woodridge Village on May 7th, 2019, when 7 inches of rain fell in one day. It was three separate rains totaling less than four inches spread out over […]
An article in the New York Times asserts that flood-risk perception is altering migration patterns among retirees. by by Susan B. Garland titled “Do you really want to rebuild at 80? Rethinking Where To Retire?” describes changes in where many older people choose to retire. The lead say, “It’s a small yet noticeable shift, experts […]
Rainfall predictions associated with approaching Thanksgiving storms keep increasing. Jeff Lindner, Harris County’s meteorologist now says approaching storms will bring widespread impacts from Thursday through Saturday. He also warns that heavy rainfall may lead to street flooding and rises on area creeks/bayous. Models now show a band of 5-7 inches of rain in places. Thursday […]
During Lina Hidalgo’s first term, hundreds of millions of dollars in flood-mitigation projects went to low-income watersheds while the Lake Houston Area went begging. So what does the recent election mean for the area’s flood-mitigation goals and strategies? What can we do to reduce flood risk with the deck stacked even further against us? It’s […]
Like damage, population is one of the “weighting factors” considered in the distribution of flood-mitigation dollars. Compared to 2017 estimates of watershed populations in Harris County, 2022 estimates show that five watersheds have lost population. But overall, the county has gained 155,254 people. The map below shows the location of each of these watersheds. Reasons […]