7/19/25 – Eight years after Harvey, we still don’t have new flood maps. That creates flood-risk uncertainty. Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) has yet to release flood maps based on Atlas-14 data developed 4 years ago. HCFCD says it is waiting for FEMA to approve its maps, but FEMA delays have dragged on for […]
7/16/25 – Brays Bayou, the watershed where Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis lives, has received virtually as much capital-improvement spending as 12 other watersheds put together. The county has 23 watersheds in all. So… Ellis’ watershed received as much capital-improvement funding as half of all other watersheds combined. For this analysis, I focused […]
7/15/25 – Texas State Representative Steve Toth of Conroe announced today that he will run for U.S. Representative Dan Crenshaw’s job next year in the Second Congressional District. But Toth, who is campaigning on protecting our security, has repeatedly voted against it. Toth: Ultra-Right Mr. No Toth voted against HB-13, designed to improve warnings in […]
7/14/25 – I incorrectly reported four totals in my 7/12/25 story about the revised 2025 first-quarter, flood-bond update. I would like to set the record straight. I would also like to apologize to people at the Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) and my readers. I take great pains to present accurate, reliable information that […]
Corrections on 7/14/25 include revisions to the four items in the bulleted list below. All of those discrepancies have been resolved. See the post that supersedes this one. However, the last two questions about the amount of new projects in Q1 and the $1.3 billion dollar shortfall remain. 7/12/25 – Harris County Flood Control District […]
7/10/25 – In today’s Harris County Commissioners Court meeting, the Court clarified its stance on funding flood-bond partnership projects in the face of spending cuts announced in the last meeting. Commissioners revisited a vote on a motion from their 6/26/25 meeting that cast doubt over completion of 80% of the projects in the 2018 flood […]
7/9/2025 – Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) Executive Director Dr. Tina Petersen has submitted a travel request for approval by Harris County Commissioners on 7/10/25. She wants to attend a three-day Urban Land Institute (ULI) conference in San Franciso. Her request includes $3500 for a hotel room. That works out to $1167 per night. […]
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 […]