Correction: This article has been modified to include information about the confirmation election. In all the hoopla over the big ticket flood mitigation bills passed by the 86th legislature, some smaller bills escaped the headlines in Harris County. One such bill was HB 1820. It created a Liberty County Drainage District. Think of it as […]
Yesterday, I posted about the discovery of something called the Odom Lake Swamp on a 70-year-old map. Many of the homes that flooded in Elm Grove on May 7 were built in or near it. But learning that required scaling and aligning maps in Photoshop. It’s a time consuming process and not everyone has Photoshop. […]
A 1949 map of the area now called Kingwood reveals that the homes in Elm Grove that flooded on May 7 were built in something once called the Odom Lake Swamp. It turns out, “Nature never forgets.” I previously posted about this map in the context of how the West Fork has shifted over time. […]
Tonight, the Lake Houston area is under yet another flash flood watch. Residents of North Kingwood Forest and Elm Grove are wondering whether a new detention pond in Woodridge Village will be enough to protect them. Another 1-4 Inches of Rain Possible We may get another chance to test the engineering on the detention ponds […]
The Army Corps of Engineers announced last week that it had received a mission assignment from FEMA to dredge 500,000 cubic yards in the area of the mouth bar of the San Jacinto West Fork. This week, the dredge operated by Great Lakes was sighted within 200 yards of the bar. (See videos below.) Dredging […]
When Elm Grove and North Kingwood Forest flooded on May 7, the Woodridge Village contractor had cleared most of the 268 acres of land north and west of them. The contractor also had sloped the drainage toward those subdivisions without first installing a critical 50 acre-foot detention pond to intercept runoff. Tonight after months of […]
Charles Jones, a Lake Houston Area resident and business man, has developed a presentation that examines the role of the FM1960 bridge in Harvey Flooding. The small openings in the bridge, he says, constrict the flow of floodwaters, much like sand gets pinched and backed up when moving through an hourglass. You can download and […]
Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) has enhanced its Flood Warning System at www.harriscountyfws.org. Flood Warning System Enhancements The system can now provide: Residents of Harris AND surrounding counties… The ability to receive CUSTOMIZED water level AND rainfall alerts… From ANY gage or gages IN THE ENTIRE REGION… Via TEXT message, EMAIL, or BOTH. How to […]
Geologic change happens so slowly, most people won’t live or stay long enough in one place to perceive it. Then something happens to make you crank up the Wayback Machine and look more closely. Yesterday was one of those days for me. The Army Corps announced that it was going to begin dredging part of […]
The Army Corps announced Monday that it will begin dredging approximately 500,000 cubic yards of the giant sand bar at the mouth of the San Jacinto West Fork. It has been linked to flooding in the Humble-Kingwood-Atascocita area. However, previous estimates put the total volume at close to 2 million cubic yards, with the volume […]