Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) spending data obtained via a Freedom of Information Act Request shows that countywide:
Spending now tops $2 billion since Hurricane Harvey back in 2017
It modestly rebounded between the first and second quarters of this year
More money is now going to land acquisition and construction compared to other phases of the project lifecycle, while less money is going to upfront studies
On a per watershed basis, watersheds with a majority of Low-to-Moderate Income (LMI) residents still get far more than those with a minority of LMI residents.
Spending in the San Jacinto Watershed continues to lag despite high flood risk
Spending has fallen off a cliff in some watersheds.
For details, see below.
Modest Rebound Compared to 1Q24
The chart below shows HCFCD spending in 27 quarters since Hurricane Harvey. It shows a dramatic uptick between 2018 and 2021, followed by an even more dramatic decline through the first quarter of 2023. Since then, spending has averaged slightly more than $60 million per quarter, about half of the peak in 2021.
What accounts for the lower totals recently?
Changes in leadership and personnel turnover at HCFCD
Numerous changes in “equity” allocation formulas that required reprioritization of projects
Lengthy delays at Harris County Community Services involving more than $750 million in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds.
COVID
Inflation during COVID forcing a re-evaluation of the Bond project list
The 2018 Flood Bond was considered a 10-year project. We are now almost 6 years into the bond, which was approved on the first anniversary of Harvey, but the money is only about 40% spent. That means projects are moving slower than originally anticipated. And that gives inflation a chance to gobble up a higher percentage of them.
More Money Now Going to Land Acquisition and Construction
On a positive note, more projects are moving off the drawing boards and into construction. You can see this trend most clearly by comparing two pie charts that show spending broken down by project phase. The first shows spending since Harvey and the second shows spending during the last quarter.
Looking back at the last 27 quarters, HCFCD spent 76% of its funds on right-of-way acquisition and construction. But during the last quarter, those combined percentages jumped to 85% – up 9%.
Meanwhile, feasibility studies and preliminary engineering reviews fell from 8% to 3% during the comparable periods.
Perhaps we’re starting to mitigate more than ruminate.
Since HarveyDuring second quarter this year
The following table may make it easier for you to compare percentages if you are viewing this on a phone.
Spending in Watersheds with Majority LMI Populations
The percentage of LMI residents in a watershed helps determine eligibility for flood-mitigation grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Harris County has 23 watersheds. Of those, 8 have a majority of LMI residents.
Regardless, since Harvey, those 8 received almost as much money as the other 15 put together.
Since Harvey
Looking only at the last quarter, that trend has moderated somewhat.
Second quarter this year only
But on a per watershed basis, the 8 LMI watersheds still each receive an average of 5.5% of the budget. Meanwhile, the 15 other watersheds each receive an average of 3.7%.
This is largely a function of the weighting given to LMI-majority projects in Harris County’s equity prioritization project scoring formula.
Spending by Watershed: A Study in Extremes
Comparing bar graphs of spending by watershed shows extreme differences between the highs and lows that are getting wider.
Since Harvey, difference between high and low equaled 100 to 1.
Note also the disappearance of the middle ground.
During second quarter, difference between high and low equaled 375 to 1.
During the second quarter, the entire San Jacinto Watershed – the county’s largest – received less than $400,000 of support…while moving up from 13th place to 11th.
Harris County watersheds in the upper San Jacinto River Basin include Spring, Cypress, Willow, Little Cypress, Luce and San Jacinto. They all funnel through the Lake Houston Area.
Since Harvey, they have received about 20% of HCFCD spending. But they drain an area about 50% larger than where the rest of the other 80% of the money went.
And as we saw in May, that can have a huge impact on flood damage.
Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) briefed the County’s Community Resilience Flood Task Force on how the extent of the May 2024 flood compared to Hurricane Harvey. In places, inundation matched Harvey. And in others it came close or fell short.
See the inundation map below. In my opinion, it dramatizes three things:
Serious flooding can happen any month of the year in the Houston region.
Flooding can happen anywhere that rain falls.
Flood-mitigation measures make a huge difference.
Inundation map from HCFCD comparing Harvey with May 2024 floods and evacuation zones.
Anytime
As the map above shows, major rain can fall outside of a hurricane season. In fact, May is usually the third wettest month of the year in Houston, exceeded only by June and October.
Of seven major storms to strike this area since 2016, four have happened outside of hurricane season.
Anywhere
The worst rainfall in the early May floods happened at the very top of the San Jacinto river basin in the upper portions of the East and West Forks. Parts of those watersheds received almost 20 inches of rain.
In Huntsville, Harvey dumped only 2 more inches of rain than a training band of thunderstorms in May 2024. The map above shows the results.
Cypress, Spring and Lake Creeks, which originate on the west side, received roughly a quarter to a third of the rain that fell to the north during early May.
However, during Harvey, the rainfall distribution was the opposite of the map above. Huntsville received about 17 inches while areas to the south received more than 40.
Flood-Mitigation Measures
The inundation map above shows the importance of another location-related variable: upstream stormwater detention. Note how much more blue you see on the West Fork than on the East Fork which is predominantly green. The West Fork has a dam at Lake Conroe which partially blocked the heaviest flows. The East Fork has no dams.
Development usually increases the speed and volume of runoff. Developers normally use detention basins to limit post-development runoff to pre-development rates, so that they don’t increase flooding.
But for the most part, that didn’t happen in Colony Ridge. And that contributed to flooding downstream.
The inundation map above should be a wakeup call. Of 16 major flood-mitigation projects identified in the San Jacinto River Basin Master Drainage Study, not one has even gotten to the drawing boards, much less off them – after four years.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/3/24
2500 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.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/20240627-Harvey-Vs-May-24-Storm.jpg?fit=1100%2C712&ssl=17121100adminadmin2024-07-03 13:35:122024-07-03 13:41:21How May 2024 Flood Compared to Harvey
7/2/24 – Beryl has become an incredibly intense hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 165 MPH and a central pressure of 935mb. See this Infrared Satellite Loop at Tropical Tidbits. This is an unprecedented hurricane event for July.
According to Harris County Meteorologist Jeff Lindner, Beryl is the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record since 1851. It beats out hurricane Emily (2005), which became a Category 5 on July 17.
Beryl is now moving through the central Caribbean Sea toward Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
Status Overview as of 8 AM 7/2/24
Based on NOAA aircraft data, hurricane force winds (75mph) extend outward 40 miles from the center. Tropical storm force winds (40mph) extend outward 125 miles from the center.
Beryl is moving toward the west-northwest near 22 mph.
On the forecast track, the center of Beryl will move quickly across the southeastern and central Caribbean Sea today. It should pass near Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands on Thursday.
Weakening should begin later today, but Beryl is still expected to be near major hurricane intensity as it passes Jamaica and the Caymans.
Intensity Forecast Uncertain
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) cautions that Beryl’s intensity forecast is rather uncertain. Model guidance indicates that the hurricane will begin to weaken later today as Beryl encounters moderate-to-strong vertical wind shear. Later on, factors such as:
Possible interaction with the Jamaican elevated terrain
Dry air intrusions
Structure of the vertical wind shear
…will all play a role in the rate of weakening.
As Beryl approaches the Yucatan, models show quite a wide range of solutions – from a strong tropical storm to a major hurricane. However, the NHC forecast shows Beryl reaching the Yucatan as a hurricane in about 72 hours and emerging as a tropical storm into the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday.
Track Shifted North
Beryl has tracked slightly north of predictions during the last 12 hours. This is likely due to the much stronger intensity of the hurricane.
Overall the direction has been trending north over the last 24 hours. Beryl is being steered by a strong high pressure ridge to the north. A W to WNW motion through the next 72 hours is likely. That will likely bring core of the hurricane to the eastern Yucatan early Friday morning.
Beryl will cross into the southern Gulf of Mexico by early this weekend. At that time, the current ridge of high pressure over the southern plains will be breaking down and moving east. Low pressure should replace it, pulling Beryl a little more to north, compared to the current track.
However, there is also uncertainty with the track in the Gulf of Mexico. It is difficult to tell how organized Beryl will be when it emerges from the Yucatan. It is also difficult to predict how quickly the southern plains high will break down.
Such factors also will affect the forward speed of the hurricane.
Due to Beryl’s high forward speed, it could drop a foot of rain on Jamaica. But as it slows in the Gulf…
Lindner urges people along the Texas and Louisiana coast to monitor Beryl’s progress closely. NHC is now updating information on Beryl every few hours on this page.
For those who need a refresher course in hurricane preparation, ReduceFlooding’s Links page contains advice from 19 authoritative sources.
Where HCFCD Spending Goes
Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) spending data obtained via a Freedom of Information Act Request shows that countywide:
For details, see below.
Modest Rebound Compared to 1Q24
The chart below shows HCFCD spending in 27 quarters since Hurricane Harvey. It shows a dramatic uptick between 2018 and 2021, followed by an even more dramatic decline through the first quarter of 2023. Since then, spending has averaged slightly more than $60 million per quarter, about half of the peak in 2021.
What accounts for the lower totals recently?
The 2018 Flood Bond was considered a 10-year project. We are now almost 6 years into the bond, which was approved on the first anniversary of Harvey, but the money is only about 40% spent. That means projects are moving slower than originally anticipated. And that gives inflation a chance to gobble up a higher percentage of them.
More Money Now Going to Land Acquisition and Construction
On a positive note, more projects are moving off the drawing boards and into construction. You can see this trend most clearly by comparing two pie charts that show spending broken down by project phase. The first shows spending since Harvey and the second shows spending during the last quarter.
Looking back at the last 27 quarters, HCFCD spent 76% of its funds on right-of-way acquisition and construction. But during the last quarter, those combined percentages jumped to 85% – up 9%.
Meanwhile, feasibility studies and preliminary engineering reviews fell from 8% to 3% during the comparable periods.
Perhaps we’re starting to mitigate more than ruminate.
The following table may make it easier for you to compare percentages if you are viewing this on a phone.
Spending in Watersheds with Majority LMI Populations
The percentage of LMI residents in a watershed helps determine eligibility for flood-mitigation grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Harris County has 23 watersheds. Of those, 8 have a majority of LMI residents.
Regardless, since Harvey, those 8 received almost as much money as the other 15 put together.
Looking only at the last quarter, that trend has moderated somewhat.
But on a per watershed basis, the 8 LMI watersheds still each receive an average of 5.5% of the budget. Meanwhile, the 15 other watersheds each receive an average of 3.7%.
This is largely a function of the weighting given to LMI-majority projects in Harris County’s equity prioritization project scoring formula.
Spending by Watershed: A Study in Extremes
Comparing bar graphs of spending by watershed shows extreme differences between the highs and lows that are getting wider.
Note also the disappearance of the middle ground.
During the second quarter, the entire San Jacinto Watershed – the county’s largest – received less than $400,000 of support…while moving up from 13th place to 11th.
Harris County watersheds in the upper San Jacinto River Basin include Spring, Cypress, Willow, Little Cypress, Luce and San Jacinto. They all funnel through the Lake Houston Area.
Since Harvey, they have received about 20% of HCFCD spending. But they drain an area about 50% larger than where the rest of the other 80% of the money went.
And as we saw in May, that can have a huge impact on flood damage.
I wish HCFCD spending flowed to the Lake Houston Area as fast as the water.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/5/2024
2502 Days since Hurricane Harvey
How May 2024 Flood Compared to Harvey
Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) briefed the County’s Community Resilience Flood Task Force on how the extent of the May 2024 flood compared to Hurricane Harvey. In places, inundation matched Harvey. And in others it came close or fell short.
See the inundation map below. In my opinion, it dramatizes three things:
Anytime
As the map above shows, major rain can fall outside of a hurricane season. In fact, May is usually the third wettest month of the year in Houston, exceeded only by June and October.
Of seven major storms to strike this area since 2016, four have happened outside of hurricane season.
Anywhere
The worst rainfall in the early May floods happened at the very top of the San Jacinto river basin in the upper portions of the East and West Forks. Parts of those watersheds received almost 20 inches of rain.
In Huntsville, Harvey dumped only 2 more inches of rain than a training band of thunderstorms in May 2024. The map above shows the results.
Cypress, Spring and Lake Creeks, which originate on the west side, received roughly a quarter to a third of the rain that fell to the north during early May.
However, during Harvey, the rainfall distribution was the opposite of the map above. Huntsville received about 17 inches while areas to the south received more than 40.
Flood-Mitigation Measures
The inundation map above shows the importance of another location-related variable: upstream stormwater detention. Note how much more blue you see on the West Fork than on the East Fork which is predominantly green. The West Fork has a dam at Lake Conroe which partially blocked the heaviest flows. The East Fork has no dams.
But the East Fork and Luce Bayou do have the sprawling Colony Ridge Development. And Colony Ridge, especially the first 12,000 acres, has only a minuscule amount of stormwater detention. The development is now 50% larger than Manhattan.
Development usually increases the speed and volume of runoff. Developers normally use detention basins to limit post-development runoff to pre-development rates, so that they don’t increase flooding.
But for the most part, that didn’t happen in Colony Ridge. And that contributed to flooding downstream.
The inundation map above should be a wakeup call. Of 16 major flood-mitigation projects identified in the San Jacinto River Basin Master Drainage Study, not one has even gotten to the drawing boards, much less off them – after four years.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/3/24
2500 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.
Beryl Becomes Earliest Cat 5 Hurricane Ever
7/2/24 – Beryl has become an incredibly intense hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 165 MPH and a central pressure of 935mb. See this Infrared Satellite Loop at Tropical Tidbits. This is an unprecedented hurricane event for July.
According to Harris County Meteorologist Jeff Lindner, Beryl is the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record since 1851. It beats out hurricane Emily (2005), which became a Category 5 on July 17.
Beryl is now moving through the central Caribbean Sea toward Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
Status Overview as of 8 AM 7/2/24
Based on NOAA aircraft data, hurricane force winds (75mph) extend outward 40 miles from the center. Tropical storm force winds (40mph) extend outward 125 miles from the center.
Beryl is moving toward the west-northwest near 22 mph.
On the forecast track, the center of Beryl will move quickly across the southeastern and central Caribbean Sea today. It should pass near Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands on Thursday.
Weakening should begin later today, but Beryl is still expected to be near major hurricane intensity as it passes Jamaica and the Caymans.
Intensity Forecast Uncertain
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) cautions that Beryl’s intensity forecast is rather uncertain. Model guidance indicates that the hurricane will begin to weaken later today as Beryl encounters moderate-to-strong vertical wind shear. Later on, factors such as:
…will all play a role in the rate of weakening.
As Beryl approaches the Yucatan, models show quite a wide range of solutions – from a strong tropical storm to a major hurricane. However, the NHC forecast shows Beryl reaching the Yucatan as a hurricane in about 72 hours and emerging as a tropical storm into the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday.
Track Shifted North
Beryl has tracked slightly north of predictions during the last 12 hours. This is likely due to the much stronger intensity of the hurricane.
Overall the direction has been trending north over the last 24 hours. Beryl is being steered by a strong high pressure ridge to the north. A W to WNW motion through the next 72 hours is likely. That will likely bring core of the hurricane to the eastern Yucatan early Friday morning.
Beryl will cross into the southern Gulf of Mexico by early this weekend. At that time, the current ridge of high pressure over the southern plains will be breaking down and moving east. Low pressure should replace it, pulling Beryl a little more to north, compared to the current track.
However, there is also uncertainty with the track in the Gulf of Mexico. It is difficult to tell how organized Beryl will be when it emerges from the Yucatan. It is also difficult to predict how quickly the southern plains high will break down.
Such factors also will affect the forward speed of the hurricane.
Due to Beryl’s high forward speed, it could drop a foot of rain on Jamaica. But as it slows in the Gulf…
Lindner urges people along the Texas and Louisiana coast to monitor Beryl’s progress closely. NHC is now updating information on Beryl every few hours on this page.
For those who need a refresher course in hurricane preparation, ReduceFlooding’s Links page contains advice from 19 authoritative sources.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/2/24
2499 Days since Hurricane Harvey