A new definition of “Waters of the U.S.” proposed by the Army Corps and EPA would eliminate the federal brakes on development of upstream wetlands, such as those in the Lake Houston Area and Montgomery County. Time is running out to file a protest letter. Less than a month remains before the close of public […]
12/9/25 – City of Houston regulations prohibit bringing fill dirt into floodways and floodplains. Chapter 19 Div. 2 Sec. 19.34 states: Floodways enjoy even more protection. Chapter 19 Div. 3 Sec. 19.43(a-b3) states: And yet this morning, within the space of a half hour, I observed six giant dump trucks bringing fill to a construction […]
12/6/25 – Northpark Drive expansion contractors started boring underneath Union-Pacific Railroad Tracks on 5/17/25. Yesterday, they finally connected the drainage networks on both sides – an early Christmas present for the project team. It also represents a major project milestone in the quest to build an all-weather evacuation route for Kingwood. Pictures of Final East/West […]
12/5/25 – The Gulf Coast Protection District (GCPD) and Texas General Land Office (GLO) announced yesterday the approval of two engineering design contracts for the largest coastal protection effort in the history of the United States – the Coastal Texas Project. The two contracts represent a milestone in moving this historic initiative toward construction. Each […]
12/4/25 – The new 512-acre-foot Mercer Stormwater Detention Basin Project at FM1960 and the Hardy Tollroad is finally nearing completion. The project – originally expected to take a year – took more than three and a half. The impending completion is good news. But the length of time it took is not. It raises serious […]
The Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas (IDRT), part of Texas A&M University (TAMU) has launched the Texas Disaster Information System (TDIS), a program funded by the Texas General Land Office. Their goal: to enhance disaster resilience throughout the state by bridging the gap between research and decision making. TDIS’s vision is to ingest, store, […]
12/1/25 – Sometimes, solving problems of the past creates problems of the future. Consider the elevation of homes above floodplains. During Hurricane Harvey, 154,170 homes in Harris County flooded, according to the Harris County Flood Control District. Of that number: Said another way, more than 100,000 homes flooded because building codes did not recognize the […]
11/30/2025 – Today marks the end of the 2025 hurricane season. It was average in terms of the number of storms, but unusual in terms of where they tracked. These three screen captures from the National Hurricane Center tell the story. This table shows the strength and timing of each. And this table compares the […]
11/28/25 – Turning from the northbound US59 feeder these days onto eastbound Northpark Drive can test one’s patience. Last Wednesday – near midday – traffic was backed up for four blocks. And it took several cycles of a very long traffic light to make the turn. See below. Note how the two turn lanes on […]
11/28/25 – On Monday, 11/26/25, two tornadoes swept through Commissioner Tom Ramsey’s Precinct 3 in northwest Harris County. Yesterday, the National Weather Service assessed the damage. Even though it was not flood related, many readers live in those areas. Therefore, I am publishing this two part post. The first part covers where the damage occurred. […]