7/8/25 – After the rising floodwaters of Hurricane Harvey caught many people by surprise in the middle of the night, I posted about the need for warning sirens. Now, the Hill Country tragedy on the Guadalupe is causing me to sound off again. During Hurricane Harvey, floodwaters rose in the middle of the night in […]
7/7/25 – Most current Northpark expansion work has shifted west of Loop 494 out to US59. Work had been underway to bore underneath the UnionPacific Railroad tracks in order to connect the drainage east and west of the tracks. However, workers in the “receiving pit” encountered more unplanned utility conflicts and work stalled. The boring […]
7/6/25 – The closer you look at the two most recent 2018 Flood Bond Updates from Harris County Flood Control District – 2024 Year End and 2025 First Quarter – the more eyebrow-raising inconsistencies you see in accounting. Last week, I reported how “funds remaining” in the 2018 Harris County Flood Bond mysteriously decreased by […]
In Harris County Commissioners Court on June 26, 2025, Democrats voted 4:1 along party lines to reallocate all remaining money in the 2018 Flood Bond to projects that scored in the top quartile of Commissioner Rodney Ellis’ Equity Prioritization Framework. That will defund all but a handful of projects that voters approved. Is that legal? […]
7/4/2025 – Let the fireworks begin early today. Comparing the two most recent flood-bond updates – Year End 2024 and First Quarter 2025 – shows that HCFCD spent about $44 million in the first quarter. But more than a billion dollars has disappeared from “funds remaining” during the same period. This isn’t simply moving money […]
7/2/2025 – Part 2 of a 3-Part Series about the integrity of HCFCD’s information and its transparency. On 6/26/25, HCFCD’s director testified in Harris County Commissioners Court that the 2018 Flood Bond could have a $1.3 billion shortfall. But two flood-bond updates (Year End 2024 and Q1 2025), strangely released after her testimony, make no […]
7/1/25 – Caution: This post will make your head swim; but it’s better than drowning in the next flood. Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) data presented to the public differs radically from data presented to commissioners last week. One audience sees spending going up. The other sees spending going down. Commissioners used confusing, contradictory […]
6/30/25 – The City of Houston Public Works Department wasted no time in starting to clean out a blocked ditch under Kingwood Drive. Once they found it. The ditch, which parallels Valley Manor Drive west of Kingwood High School, had been neglected for so long that crews had a hard time finding it. Distraught residents […]
6/30/25 and 7/3/25 – Updated to clarify a distinction between Bond Projects and Bond IDs, and also correct several entries in tables. 6/29/25 – Analysis of documents released after the Harris County Commissioner’s Court meeting on 6/26/25, shows that because of a claimed 25% flood-bond funding shortfall, the county will stop funding 80% of Bond […]
6/27/25 4PM – In a marathon discussion yesterday that stretched for hours, Harris County Commissioners Court struggled with how to plug a $1.3 billion shortfall in 2018 Flood-Bond funding. In the end, they voted 4-1 along party lines to apply all remaining flood-bond money exclusively to projects that ranked in the top quartile on Rodney […]