Q: When is a detention pond not a detention pond?A: When it’s just a wide spot on a stream. The defining characteristic of a detention pond is an “outfall” smaller than the inlet. The pond holds back rain in a storm and releases it later at an acceptable rate. This reduces downstream flooding. That’s the […]
DRC (Disaster Recovery Corporation) excavators are slowly whittling down the mouth bar of the West Fork of the San Jacinto. DRC is picking up where the Army Corps and Great Lakes Dredge and Dock left off around Labor Day last year. The Corps and Great Lakes removed 500,000 cubic yards of sediment. DRC will remove […]
The Emergency West Fork Dredging Program started by the Army Corps of Engineers in May of 2018 is now virtually done with demobilization. In the last month, the Army Corps and its contractors have vacated the old command post they established on the south side of the San Jacinto West Fork opposite Forest Cove. They […]
While photographing the West Fork from a helicopter Thursday, I saw something large from the corner of my eye. I looked up and was treated to a magnificent sight – a bald eagle in flight … right beside us. I quickly zoomed my lens out to 300mm and snagged this air-to-air shot. We were in […]
Yesterday, a reader, Donna Hanna Dewhirst, sent me pictures of a dredging operation beginning in the channel that cuts through Walden on Lake Houston. Today, I photographed it from the air. Walden Project Kicks Off Typically, in a project with wet dirt like this, contractors “de-water” it by letting it drain on the banks for […]
On a flyover of the Harris/Montgomery county line last month, I spotted something unusual: a detention pond with an outlet bigger than its inlet. And it was in Woodridge FOREST. You may remember that after Imelda, Woodridge Forest advertised homes that did not flood on signs posted in nearby intersections…around downstream homes that did flood! […]
In the continuing saga of sand mining on the East and West Forks of the San Jacinto, I present the results of my January 20, 2020, flyover. I found three breaches and two near breaches between I-45 and the East Fork. See below. Liberty Materials Mine in Conroe Let’s start upriver on the San Jacinto […]
I have a friend who is fond of saying, “If rain falls on your roof, you need flood insurance.” Here are two telling statistics from the final Harvey report issued by Harris County Flood Control that dramatize that point. But there’s more than one type of flood insurance. In Harvey, Two-Thirds of Flood Victims Had […]
Jeff Lindner, Harris County Meteorologist but put this notice thus morning. He said wet weather will persist until mid week. Slow-Moving Cold Front Stalls Out A slow-moving cold front currently extends from Longview to north of Austin and is creeping southward. Ahead of this boundary a warm and moist air mass covers all of SE […]
Here’s a construction update for Perry Homes’ Woodridge Village, the stalled development implicated in flooding Elm Grove and North Kingwood Forest twice last year. On January 25, 2020, I flew over Woodridge Village. Not much had changed since my December flyover. However, Perry Homes, had concreted about 280 feet of Taylor Gully on the east […]