We step on them. Spit on them. Park on them. Ride on them. But we rarely think about them. If there’s anything we truly take for granted, it’s the lowly storm sewer inlet. Critical Rate-Limiting Factor in Drainage I’ve always known they were there. But I never realized how important they were until I posted […]
Randy Reagan is tough. He grew up in the Conroe oil fields and riding bulls. But nothing prepared him for flooding five times in four years and the series of events that followed. Reagan raised his family on a 5-acre lot in Bennett Estates. That’s a neighborhood between the San Jacinto West Fork and FM1314, […]
Mayor Pro Tem Dave Martin shocked a meeting of Kingwood residents at a town hall meeting on February 25, 2020. He he said the City would not participate in a much-rumored buyout of the Perry Homes’ Woodridge Village property that contributed to the flooding of Elm Grove Village twice last year. The rumors first went […]
Yesterday, I posted about the hidden costs of flooding. Here’s another one: infrastructure repairs. And another one: re-doing infrastructure repairs. Like those to the Tree Lane Bridge over Ben’s Branch. History of Issue Upstream development in Montgomery County with insufficient and un-repaired detention pond capacity started dumping excess water into Ben’s Branch. It didn’t take […]
When we think about flooding, most of us don’t think beyond the repair costs of homes. But there are more costs to communities that can remain hidden for years. Erosion, for instance, is one of the hidden costs of flooding that we rarely talk about. You’ve heard me talk about the eroded sediment from sand […]
On February 20, NOAA announced computing upgrades that will enable new and improved weather and climate forecasting. Significant upgrades to supercomputing capacity, storage space, and interconnect speed of its Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System will keep the agency’s supercomputing capacity on par with other leading weather forecast centers around the world. Why We Need […]
Harvey households covered by FEMA group flood insurance should prepare now to buy standard flood insurance by Oct. 24. Lack of coverage may affect eligibility for future disaster assistance. What is Group Flood Insurance? Many families affected by Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 did not have flood insurance. As part of its disaster assistance, FEMA provided Group […]
On February 19, the Bayou City Initiative hosted presentations by Charles Irvine of Irvine & Connor, PLLC and Professor Jim Blackburn of Rice University. Irvine was the Court-appointed, Co-lead Counsel for the Addicks-Barker “Upstream” case. Blackburn is co-director of the Severe Storm Prevention, Education and Evacuation from Disaster (SSPEED) Center at Rice and a faculty […]
This morning, the San Jacinto River Authority put out a press release about the seasonal lowering of Lake Conroe. I reported the results of the board vote last Friday. The elements of the policy in this press release do not differ. Regardless, I’m printing this press release verbatim for two reasons: a) its the official […]
Eighty percent of the Forest Cove townhomes south of Hamblen on Marina and Timberline Drives have been bought out so far. But while HCFCD scrambles to complete the remainder of the buyouts, the area has become a magnet for illegal dumpers. Vacant Since Harvey Ever since Hurricane Harvey when 15-20 feet of water swept through […]