Flood mitigation is a complex process with hundreds of moving parts, all dependent on each other. When you focus intensely on the pieces, periodically it helps to review how they fit together. Only when you do this can you see progress toward your goals. In that spirit, I created this presentation. It has a Kingwood […]
At the current rate that crews are removing sand from the West Fork San Jacinto Mouth Bar, the remainder of the above-water portion of this once-behemoth sand bar could be gone by Christmas. See the two pictures below. The first taken after Harvey and the second taken today. Much Yet to Dredge Of course, even […]
Since June, I’ve posted about problems in the Colony Ridge development in Liberty County. Among them: the washout of FM1010 where it crosses over Rocky Branch. Authorities have closed the busy road which provides access to Colony Ridge for three years, forcing tens of thousands of residents to seek alternate access routes, such as FM1485 […]
Hurricane Watches issued for eastern and northern coasts of the Yucatan peninsula. (Sunday 8am, October 25, 2020) The tropical depression over the northwestern Caribbean Sea has continued to slowly become better organized. Satellite and hurricane hunter aircraft have determined that winds increased to near 40kts. Overall Zeta has not moved much in the last 12 […]
The tropical wave in the NW Caribbean that I posted about this morning has become better organized. It now has a broad low-level center southwest of the Cayman Islands. Low- and mid-level centers are currently not aligned, but conditions favor eventual alignment. There are numerous curved bands and weak to moderate scattered convection near the […]
Great Lakes Dredge and Dock is moving its corporate headquarters to Houston from Oak Brook, Illinois. Oak Brook is a western suburb of Chicago. Company that Dredged West Fork Great Lakes spent more than a year dredging the San Jacinto West Fork in 2018 and 2019 for the Army Corps of Engineers. The company has […]
A tropical depression or tropical storm is likely to form over the NW Caribbean Sea. However, at THIS TIME, it poses no threat to southeast Texas. Could Become Tropical Storm Zeta Jeff Lindner, Harris County Meteorologist says, “A slow moving tropical wave over the NW Caribbean Sea is becoming better organized. A tropical system will […]
After Harvey, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) made $1.3 billion in disaster recovery funds available for housing assistance to the City of Houston through the Texas General Land Office (GLO). The City kicked off several disaster recovery programs with great fanfare in January of 2019. However, in almost two years, the […]
In three years of writing about flooding, this is one of the most dramatic case studies I have seen about the value of wetlands. It starts with a developer clearing wetlands and ends with the developer at war with a neighboring town. Wetlands as Protectors Michael Shrader lived in a modest home in Plum Grove […]
At the Harris County Flood Control District’s (HCFCD) Kingwood Area Drainage Analysis meeting tonight, HCFCD recommended that expansion of the Kingwood Diversion Ditch should be the community’s highest priority. The Diversion Ditch project would help address several potential problems. Expanding it would remove 62 structures from inundation areas and another 586 structures would benefit from […]