1/5/2025 – At a Community Resilience Flood Task Force Meeting in December last year, the Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) announced that it would be kicking off a new feasibility study in Q1 2025 designed to make half of Harris County SAFER from flooding. SAFER stands for Solutions for Advancing Flood Mitigation, Equity, and […]
1/4/25 – In a Houston-area-flooding context, we usually consider erosion as a negative. It reduces the capacity of streams, channels and Lake Houston. It can also form sediment dams like mouth bars that back water up. But elsewhere, many consider erosion a tourist attraction. And I’m not just talking about the Grand Canyon. Welcome to […]
1/3/25 – Jeff Lindner, Harris County’s Meteorologist, provided this official holiday tornado report. Southeast Texas experienced a highly active period of severe weather from 12/24/24 through 12/28/24. It included several tornado outbreaks on both the 26th and 28th. Said Lindner, “While it is not uncommon to have severe weather and tornados in southeast Texas during […]
12/29/24 – Several rounds of intense rain in the past week triggered a slew of emails from concerned residents about the need for better construction management practices to control sediment-laden runoff. Chris Summers, a retired commercial photographer, included pictures of the runoff from the Foster Elementary site in Kingwood’s Trailwood Village. Contractors recently cleared the […]
Meritage has finished clearing all of its 40 acres between Pinehurst and Kings River. The property is just east of West Lake Houston Parkway and borders Kings Park Way, Texas Laurel Trail, and Pinehurst Trail Drive. The company plans to build 210 homes on the site in two phases. Status of Phases 1 and 2 […]
12/22/24 – The West Lake Houston Parkway development between Kings Park Way and Upper Lake Drive is finally nearing completion, more than 2.5 years after land clearing began. Construction of the development has been plagued by stormwater control issues. Property Ultimately Owned by Trammell Crow The property has been developed in two phases by Kingwood […]
12/21/24 – West Fork dredging spoils are being pumped across the East Fork and up Luce Bayou to where it joins the Inter-basin Transfer Project. Just Outside of Floodplain The first question I had after learning of the location was, “Is it out of the floodplain?” Comparing drone photos taken today to FEMA’s Flood Hazard […]
12/20/2024 – Just in time for the holidays, the City’s new dredging program on Lake Houston finally launched this week, but with some changes. According to Dustin Hodges, Chief of Staff for District E City Council Member Fred Flickinger, delays earlier this year in the long-awaited dredging program had to do with the search for […]
12/19/24 – Northpark and Loop 494 lane switches happen tonight to accommodate new construction. Two large lane switches will begin at 9PM. One will be on the eastbound lanes between Kings Mill and the eastern end of the project at the Kingwood Diversion Ditch. The second will be on Loop 494 about a block north […]
12/18/24 – Bayou Land Conservancy (BLC), one of the area’s leading environmental groups, gave me an inside peak at what it takes to keep natural flood control natural. Preserving land for flood control along Houston area bayous and creeks is more difficult than it seems. Kevin Muraira is BLC’s Land Stewardship Manager. He inspects more […]