5/19/26 – Contractors working on the Woodridge Village-Taylor Gully Project finally appeared yesterday and started working today. Construction on the site had been paused since November, 2023.
That’s when Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) cancelled an Excavation and Removal Contract with Sprint Sand & Clay to apply for a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) from the Texas General Land Office and US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
This particular CDBG project falls in the Mitigation Category. That means, HCFCD and the contractors have until March 31, 2028 to finish it – about a year and ten months.
History of Project
All this comes seven years after Perry Homes cleared approximately 270 acres on its Woodridge Village property, and sloped the land toward Taylor Gully … without building the required detention basins. Then the flooding problems started. Taylor Gully flooded up to 600 homes twice in 2019, once on May 7 and once in September during Tropical Storm Imelda.
Harris County and City of Houston bought the property from Perry Homes in 2020. That let Sprint Sand & Clay start excavating a giant detention basin on Woodridge. They removed 156,478 cubic yards of sediment. That brought the total detention on the site up to Atlas-14 requirements, But per HUD requirements, HCFCD had to stop Sprint while it applied for a grant, which Congressman Dan Crenshaw helped secure.
However, work stopped before the basin was finished and it was never connected to the rest of the drainage on the site. See below.
Woodridge Village in November 2023 when E&R contract ended. Note storm sewer pipe scattered around excavation.
Sprint removed all that dirt for less than a thousand dollars. The picture above shows how the site looked the day Sprint left. They gave the current contractors a giant head start.
Site Clean Up Started Today
Today, after a hiatus of almost three years, a new contractor started by cleaning up the site. I photographed them breaking up the old storm sewer pipe unearthed by Sprint.
Woodridge Village on 5/19/2026. Note contractors breaking up storm sewers that Perry had installed near detention basin excavation.
I counted three pieces of construction equipment onsite today: a small bulldozer, an excavator that was breaking up the pipe. And a forklift that ferried pipe to the excavator.
Restart of construction on 5/19/2026
I didn’t see any other equipment on Woodridge or along Taylor Gully.
Looking upstream along Taylor Gully from West Lake Houston Parkway toward Rustic Elms and Woodridge.Looking downstream toward the end of Taylor Gully.
What Project Includes
On 10/6/25, the Texas General Land Office (GLO) approved approximately $42 million to construct Taylor Gully Channel Conveyance Improvements and a Woodridge Stormwater Detention Basin.
On 3/26/26, the county purchasing agent approved a $29,387,654 bid from Brice Construction & Design, LLC to finish constructing the Woodridge and Taylor Gully flood mitigation projects in Kingwood
The Woodridge portion of the project (above the county line) includes 421.6 acre feet of additional stormwater detention capacity (See Compartment 1 above).
Other planned improvements along Taylor Gully include:
13,118 feet of channel conveyance improvements
Placing a concrete channel along the base of it
Replacing the concrete culverts at Rustling Elms with an open-span bridge.
Altogether the plan should reduce the water surface elevation by up to 5 feet and help 24,000 thousand people who live near or commute through the area.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/DJI_20260519142939_0131_D.jpg?fit=1100%2C619&ssl=16191100adminadmin2026-05-19 17:37:092026-06-13 12:29:05Woodridge-Taylor Gully Construction Starts Again
5/17/26 – According to Jeff Lindner, Harris County’s meteorologist, a wet and stormy period mid to late week could bring heavy rainfall, severe thunderstorms, flash flooding, and riverine flooding. The wet and stormy pattern will likely last through the Memorial Day weekend.
Weather Pattern
A slow-moving, upper-level trough will blanket the southwest through much of this week into next weekend while both surface Gulf moisture and high-level Pacific moisture stream into the area.
Additionally, a slow-moving frontal boundary will sag into the area mid to late week. Lindner says, “This is a classic mid to late May stormy pattern for Texas.”
The overall pattern looks stormy as early as late Tuesday. Incoming upper-level disturbances will be hard to time. So, while rain chances will remain high into next weekend, there will be periods of stormy weather followed by breaks.
Complexes of thunderstorms from the west and northwest will move into the area from time to time with the potential for heavy rainfall and severe weather until late week. When the slow-moving/stalled frontal boundary is nearby or overhead, it will help promote more sustained thunderstorm formation and potential cell training.
Rainfall Predictions
Nearly all of the major global weather models show heavy to excessive rainfall potential. However, it will be difficult to predict precisely where storms will train and how long breaks will be between rounds.
These are all details that will be worked out in the next several days as forecast confidence increases.
Expect widespread rainfall amounts of 2-5 inches from Wednesday through Sunday with isolated totals much higher in areas of cell training of slow moving storms. These totals may increase some over the next few days.
Initially, rainfall will soak into the ground. But repeated rounds of rain and training storms could quickly result in higher runoff rates and flash flooding.
Additionally, the large footprint of the forecasted rainfall will yield rises on area rivers systems. And it is possible that some rivers could approach or exceed flood stage by next weekend.
At this time, Pivotal Weather predicts 4.3 inches for Harris County, 5.1 for Montgomery County, and 6.1 for Walker County. The headwaters for Lake Conroe lie in Walker County and heavy rains there in the past have led to the SJRA opening its flood gates.
For instance, in May 2024, rainfall north of Harris County exceeded 10.0-15.0 inches in many locations. And it exceeded 15.0-20.0 inches on the headwaters of the East Fork and north of Lake Conroe on the West Fork.
Severe Threat
A low daily threat of severe weather (wind and hail) from late Tuesday onward exists. But this threat is conditional on several factors that are hard to determine at this time. Keep your eye on the sky and weather forecasts in coming days. The wet pattern may even linger into next week.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/day3prob_1930.png?fit=1630%2C1110&ssl=111101630adminadmin2026-05-17 17:00:562026-05-17 17:05:25Heavy Rains Could Bring Flash and Riverine Flooding This Week
5/15/2026 – At their 5/14/2026 meeting, Harris County Commissioners discussed the job performance of the Flood Control District Executive Director, Tina Petersen, Ph.D. After coming out of executive session, Commissioners announced that they were taking “no action” re: Dr. Petersen.
Petersen has come under increasing pressure to produce results on $322 million worth of projects funded by HUD Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Relief (CDBG-DR). They have a looming February 28, 2027 deadline. And Petersen’s own data shows many of the projects will miss that deadline, thus jeopardizing federal funding.
Dr. Petersen under pressure as she addressed commissioners
Hidalgo Putting Petersen’s Performance Back on Agenda
Despite taking “no action” on Petersen this week, in a lunch-time press conference yesterday, County Judge Lina Hidalgo, said she was putting Petersen’s performance back on the agenda for the June Commissioner’s Court meeting.
Addressing schedule slippage on CDBG-DR projects with tight deadlines, Hidalgo said, “The best I can do is place my trust in somebody else that might bring a different kind of energy, a sense of urgency and a new relationship with our partners at other levels of government.”
Hidalgo referred to Petersen’s “unforced errors” and added, “Every day that passes is a day in which perhaps we’re not working as quickly as we could be working.”
When asked about the probability of meeting the General Land Office deadline of February 28, 2027, Hidalgo replied,
“Given where we are and given the reports we have so far, I don’t see how they [the DR projects] will be done on time.”
Lina Hidalgo
Referring to other leaders at the federal and state levels who will have to make a decision about granting an extension, Hidalgo said, “If they’re anything like me, they will want to see a change [in leadership] as well. So that’s where I’m coming from.”
“I don’t think she’s the right person to continue to see this through. I don’t think that gives us the best shot at inspiring the confidence that the other levels of government will need to bet on Harris County,” Hidalgo added.
Ramsey Remains “Extremely Concerned”
Later, back in the meeting, Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey announced that he “remains concerned” about whether Petersen is achieving results and being transparent.
“There have been some delays internally in terms of when we get projects out, when we get projects bid. That’s very clear and we can go through a lot of detail related to that,” said Ramsey. “I think the GLO’s concerned that we’re not doing our job. So that concerns me. I get concerned when they tell me that they’re having trouble getting data.”
Ramsey expressed concerns about how transparent HCFCD was being regarding the status of projects. In referring to a detailed report that commissioners demanded from Petersen in the previous meeting, he said to her, “I shouldn’t have had to come to Commissioner’s Court to get support from this court to ask you to provide information to the GLO.” Then he added, “Every bit of data that we requested … was specifically needed by the GLO and they were not getting it.”
Speaking to Petersen, he said, “I’m not going to take for granted what you’re telling me. It’ll be verified by Administrator Carter [the country administrator] in great detail in the coming days.”
Ramsey concluded, “Clearly, this is urgent. I’m glad you were able to do a report that we asked for, but I remain extremely concerned.”
Petersen’s Presentation Focused Largely on Need for Deadline Extension
At the end of the meeting, Petersen appeared before commissioners, ostensibly to update them on the status of the CDBG projects. She did produce a series of one-page information sheets that show a timeline for each CDBG-DR project.
However, she did not go into details on those. Nor did she explain any “unforced errors” as Hidalgo called them.
Instead, she focused largely on how frequently she had requested deadline extensions. In her half hour at the podium, Petersen mentioned a need for deadline extensions or more time approximately 30 times.
I felt she was claiming that there was never enough time to do these jobs. What do you feel? Here are:
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Tina-Petersen-at-26.05.14-CC-Meeting.jpg?fit=1100%2C621&ssl=16211100adminadmin2026-05-15 23:49:122026-05-16 10:21:53HCFCD Director Tina Petersen Keeps Her Job … For Now
Woodridge-Taylor Gully Construction Starts Again
5/19/26 – Contractors working on the Woodridge Village-Taylor Gully Project finally appeared yesterday and started working today. Construction on the site had been paused since November, 2023.
That’s when Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) cancelled an Excavation and Removal Contract with Sprint Sand & Clay to apply for a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) from the Texas General Land Office and US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
This particular CDBG project falls in the Mitigation Category. That means, HCFCD and the contractors have until March 31, 2028 to finish it – about a year and ten months.
History of Project
All this comes seven years after Perry Homes cleared approximately 270 acres on its Woodridge Village property, and sloped the land toward Taylor Gully … without building the required detention basins. Then the flooding problems started. Taylor Gully flooded up to 600 homes twice in 2019, once on May 7 and once in September during Tropical Storm Imelda.
Harris County and City of Houston bought the property from Perry Homes in 2020. That let Sprint Sand & Clay start excavating a giant detention basin on Woodridge. They removed 156,478 cubic yards of sediment. That brought the total detention on the site up to Atlas-14 requirements, But per HUD requirements, HCFCD had to stop Sprint while it applied for a grant, which Congressman Dan Crenshaw helped secure.
However, work stopped before the basin was finished and it was never connected to the rest of the drainage on the site. See below.
Sprint removed all that dirt for less than a thousand dollars. The picture above shows how the site looked the day Sprint left. They gave the current contractors a giant head start.
Site Clean Up Started Today
Today, after a hiatus of almost three years, a new contractor started by cleaning up the site. I photographed them breaking up the old storm sewer pipe unearthed by Sprint.
I counted three pieces of construction equipment onsite today: a small bulldozer, an excavator that was breaking up the pipe. And a forklift that ferried pipe to the excavator.
I didn’t see any other equipment on Woodridge or along Taylor Gully.
What Project Includes
On 10/6/25, the Texas General Land Office (GLO) approved approximately $42 million to construct Taylor Gully Channel Conveyance Improvements and a Woodridge Stormwater Detention Basin.
On 3/26/26, the county purchasing agent approved a $29,387,654 bid from Brice Construction & Design, LLC to finish constructing the Woodridge and Taylor Gully flood mitigation projects in Kingwood
Other planned improvements along Taylor Gully include:
Altogether the plan should reduce the water surface elevation by up to 5 feet and help 24,000 thousand people who live near or commute through the area.
For more information about the project, see this PowerPoint by HCFCD.
It’s great to see this project moving again.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 5/19/2026
3185 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Heavy Rains Could Bring Flash and Riverine Flooding This Week
5/17/26 – According to Jeff Lindner, Harris County’s meteorologist, a wet and stormy period mid to late week could bring heavy rainfall, severe thunderstorms, flash flooding, and riverine flooding. The wet and stormy pattern will likely last through the Memorial Day weekend.
Weather Pattern
A slow-moving, upper-level trough will blanket the southwest through much of this week into next weekend while both surface Gulf moisture and high-level Pacific moisture stream into the area.
Additionally, a slow-moving frontal boundary will sag into the area mid to late week. Lindner says, “This is a classic mid to late May stormy pattern for Texas.”
The overall pattern looks stormy as early as late Tuesday. Incoming upper-level disturbances will be hard to time. So, while rain chances will remain high into next weekend, there will be periods of stormy weather followed by breaks.
Complexes of thunderstorms from the west and northwest will move into the area from time to time with the potential for heavy rainfall and severe weather until late week. When the slow-moving/stalled frontal boundary is nearby or overhead, it will help promote more sustained thunderstorm formation and potential cell training.
Rainfall Predictions
Nearly all of the major global weather models show heavy to excessive rainfall potential. However, it will be difficult to predict precisely where storms will train and how long breaks will be between rounds.
These are all details that will be worked out in the next several days as forecast confidence increases.
Expect widespread rainfall amounts of 2-5 inches from Wednesday through Sunday with isolated totals much higher in areas of cell training of slow moving storms. These totals may increase some over the next few days.
Initially, rainfall will soak into the ground. But repeated rounds of rain and training storms could quickly result in higher runoff rates and flash flooding.
Additionally, the large footprint of the forecasted rainfall will yield rises on area rivers systems. And it is possible that some rivers could approach or exceed flood stage by next weekend.
At this time, Pivotal Weather predicts 4.3 inches for Harris County, 5.1 for Montgomery County, and 6.1 for Walker County. The headwaters for Lake Conroe lie in Walker County and heavy rains there in the past have led to the SJRA opening its flood gates.
For instance, in May 2024, rainfall north of Harris County exceeded 10.0-15.0 inches in many locations. And it exceeded 15.0-20.0 inches on the headwaters of the East Fork and north of Lake Conroe on the West Fork.
Severe Threat
A low daily threat of severe weather (wind and hail) from late Tuesday onward exists. But this threat is conditional on several factors that are hard to determine at this time. Keep your eye on the sky and weather forecasts in coming days. The wet pattern may even linger into next week.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 5/17/2026
3183 Days since Hurricane Harvey
HCFCD Director Tina Petersen Keeps Her Job … For Now
5/15/2026 – At their 5/14/2026 meeting, Harris County Commissioners discussed the job performance of the Flood Control District Executive Director, Tina Petersen, Ph.D. After coming out of executive session, Commissioners announced that they were taking “no action” re: Dr. Petersen.
Petersen has come under increasing pressure to produce results on $322 million worth of projects funded by HUD Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Relief (CDBG-DR). They have a looming February 28, 2027 deadline. And Petersen’s own data shows many of the projects will miss that deadline, thus jeopardizing federal funding.
Hidalgo Putting Petersen’s Performance Back on Agenda
Despite taking “no action” on Petersen this week, in a lunch-time press conference yesterday, County Judge Lina Hidalgo, said she was putting Petersen’s performance back on the agenda for the June Commissioner’s Court meeting.
Here is a transcript of the Petersen portion of Hidalgo’s press conference.
Addressing schedule slippage on CDBG-DR projects with tight deadlines, Hidalgo said, “The best I can do is place my trust in somebody else that might bring a different kind of energy, a sense of urgency and a new relationship with our partners at other levels of government.”
Hidalgo referred to Petersen’s “unforced errors” and added, “Every day that passes is a day in which perhaps we’re not working as quickly as we could be working.”
When asked about the probability of meeting the General Land Office deadline of February 28, 2027, Hidalgo replied,
Referring to other leaders at the federal and state levels who will have to make a decision about granting an extension, Hidalgo said, “If they’re anything like me, they will want to see a change [in leadership] as well. So that’s where I’m coming from.”
“I don’t think she’s the right person to continue to see this through. I don’t think that gives us the best shot at inspiring the confidence that the other levels of government will need to bet on Harris County,” Hidalgo added.
Ramsey Remains “Extremely Concerned”
Later, back in the meeting, Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey announced that he “remains concerned” about whether Petersen is achieving results and being transparent.
“There have been some delays internally in terms of when we get projects out, when we get projects bid. That’s very clear and we can go through a lot of detail related to that,” said Ramsey. “I think the GLO’s concerned that we’re not doing our job. So that concerns me. I get concerned when they tell me that they’re having trouble getting data.”
Ramsey expressed concerns about how transparent HCFCD was being regarding the status of projects. In referring to a detailed report that commissioners demanded from Petersen in the previous meeting, he said to her, “I shouldn’t have had to come to Commissioner’s Court to get support from this court to ask you to provide information to the GLO.” Then he added, “Every bit of data that we requested … was specifically needed by the GLO and they were not getting it.”
Speaking to Petersen, he said, “I’m not going to take for granted what you’re telling me. It’ll be verified by Administrator Carter [the country administrator] in great detail in the coming days.”
Ramsey concluded, “Clearly, this is urgent. I’m glad you were able to do a report that we asked for, but I remain extremely concerned.”
Petersen’s Presentation Focused Largely on Need for Deadline Extension
At the end of the meeting, Petersen appeared before commissioners, ostensibly to update them on the status of the CDBG projects. She did produce a series of one-page information sheets that show a timeline for each CDBG-DR project.
However, she did not go into details on those. Nor did she explain any “unforced errors” as Hidalgo called them.
Instead, she focused largely on how frequently she had requested deadline extensions. In her half hour at the podium, Petersen mentioned a need for deadline extensions or more time approximately 30 times.
I felt she was claiming that there was never enough time to do these jobs. What do you feel? Here are:
Posted by Bob Rehak on 5/15/26
3181 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.