4/13/26 – Since Hurricane Harvey in 2017, I’ve documented how numerous factors contribute to flooding. Individually, none is unique. You see them in operation everywhere around the world. But collectively, their impacts can “stack” in a way that degrades margins of safety and resilience – in some areas more than others.
US59 Bridge over San Jacinto West Fork during Hurricane Harvey, where numerous flood factors converged.
Progressively Eroding Margins of Safety
Driving a vehicle makes a good analogy. A lonely highway. Rain-slick pavement. The dead of night. Bald tires. Too much speed. A tight curve. And a tired driver loses control.
In respect to flooding, the Lake Houston Area has:
A killer hurricane. Stalls over the Houston Area. The highest rainfall totals in the history of North America. Drainage channels clogged with sediment. A dam that can’t let water out fast enough. Homes built too close to water. Power gone. Communication out. Evacuation routes under water. And millions of people trying to flee. Simultaneously.
It’s not Hollywood; it’s Harvey.
Safety … Within Reason
We like to think of OUR safety as an “absolute.” Government and science will protect us, right? Wrong!
How much risk are we willing to live with? Said another way, “How much can we afford?” Engineers could design drainage systems that protect us from 100,000-year storms. But could we afford them? Probably not.
So, we look at probabilities and we compromise. We design systems to handle more than we expect. And they work great. Until the unexpected happens. Then we pray that everything doesn’t go wrong all at once. That our backup systems work.
And when they don’t, we’re left with that stale bag of potato chips in the back of the cupboard, rotting wallboard, and the kindness of strangers.
Systems Optimized for Competing Interests
We optimize communities to serve many different interests. Not just ours. And not just flood resilience. For instance, homes must be affordable, not just flood-safe. So, builders lobby for regulations that reduce their costs. And that may mean putting homes on smaller lots closer together, which…
Increases the percentage of impervious cover in a development
Speeds up runoff
Creates faster, higher flood peaks
And of course, to make new streets, you need sand for the concrete. So, fast-growing areas set up systems that let miners extract sand from floodways where it’s plentiful and pure.
But of course, that’s only a problem for people who live downstream. Until someone else does the same thing farther upstream.
Results: A Balancing Act
Here in the Lake Houston Area, we have a system where runoff is increasing, conveyance is decreasing, and control is fragmented—all at the same time. This combination is rare and particularly unstable.
But of course, it’s not all bad. Good people fight every day to keep you safe.
We have:
Harris County Flood Control District, widening and maintaining ditches, building stormwater detention basins, and maintaining thousands of miles of channels
Houston Mayor John Whitmire, Council Member Fred Flickinger, Houston Public Works Department and Coastal Water Authority, working to add more gates to the Lake Houston Dam
Thousands of first responders, honing rescue skills for the day they hope will never come
Armies of engineers, working to design drainage systems to keep you safe
Public servants like Harris County’s meteorologist Jeff Lindner, monitoring weather and maintaining flood warning systems 24/7/365 to warn you of severe weather
4/12/26 – Numerous human and geologic factors drive flood risk. Where they exist in combination, flood risk degrades the most.
One of the most important “lessons learned” since Hurricane Harvey has been how A) extreme population growth in B) a flat river basin with C) a constrained outlet … combine to increase flood risk.
Extreme Population Growth in Region
Worldwide, urbanization and impervious cover (concrete, rooftops) represent the single most consistent, anthropogenic (man-made) driver of flooding worldwide. And…
According to U.S. Census Bureau figures released in January 2026, Texas ranked as the fastest growing state in the U.S. last year. And within Texas, Harris County grew more than any other county, adding an estimated 48,695 people – a 1% gain. Harris County’s population now tops 5 million people.
But the areas around Harris County are all growing rapidly, too – at least in percentage terms. Upstream from the Lake Houston Area:
Waller County grew by 5.7%
Liberty County grew by 4.4%
Montgomery County grew by 4%.
The U.S. grew only about 0.5% overall from 2024–2025. So these counties are outliers as is Texas itself. Since 2020, Texas has added more residents than any other state, with approximately 2.6 million new residents.
When you look closely at the numbers, there’s a clear bifurcation. Giant metro areas, such as Houston, lead in absolute population growth. But small, fast-developing fringe counties lead in percentage growth.
Why This Matters: Impervious cover
Waller, Liberty and Montgomery Counties lie right upstream from Harris County within the upstream San Jacinto River Basin. They rank among the fastest growing counties in the fastest growing state. That confirms rapid upstream urbanization in the watershed, which puts continued pressure on the San Jacinto West and East Forks.
Meanwhile, Harris County leads the nation in absolute growth. That means:
Just as concerning, to accommodate this growing population, we see floodplain encroachment throughout the watershed. For instance, right now, Scarborough and the Texas General Land Office are trying to develop more than 5,000 of the most flood-prone acres in southeast Texas near the confluence of Spring Creek and the San Jacinto West Fork.
Scarborough Area in center from FEMA’s Flood Hazard Layer Viewer based on pre-Atlas 14 data.
Land that once might have been dedicated to parks for flood control has become too valuable for that. Land owners want to catch the development gravy train.
Proposed Signorelli Development “Crossing at the Commons of Lake Houston.” Dotted lines represent floodplains and floodway. Original residents were promised this would be land for recreation.Signorelli fought the City of Houston all the way to the Supreme Court of Texas for ten years for the right to build on this land.
Fragmented Governance Complicates Growth Factor
Fragmented governance also complicates the issue. Take, for instance, the Scarborough land that borders Harris County. If the land gets developed, Harris County would face increased flood risk while Montgomery County would reap benefits from expanding its tax base. So, the two counties have opposing interests.
Another example: Montgomery County gives tax breaks to sand mines along the San Jacinto that help fuel all this upstream growth. But sediment from those same mines washes downriver and gets deposited in the headwaters of Lake Houston. That sediment reduces conveyance and increases flood risk for the people in Harris County.
Drainage from the 2,500 square mile upper San Jacinto River Basin all flows through Lake Houston.
And extremely low gradients throughout this funnel means water moves slower and lingers longer. That increases the chances of peaks from different tributaries stacking on top of each other.
And finally, other bottlenecks exist, too. Like the FM 1960 Causeway and the Lake Houston Dam with its four small gates. They have a combined release capacity of just 10,000 cubic feet per second – one fifteenth the release capacity of Lake Conroe’s gates.
For More Information
See the Lessons Page of this web site. It condenses the major lessons learned from researching more than 3,000 posts since Harvey into a sort of quick guide.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 4/12/2026
3148 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/2025/11/20251103-Layered-Maps.jpg?fit=1100%2C563&ssl=15631100adminadmin2026-04-12 19:49:332026-04-12 19:49:34Extreme Growth in Flatland With Constrained Drainage
6/11/26 – Those seeking to understand flooding in the Lake Houston Area need to understand the placement and construction of the dam within the larger San Jacinto River Basin. Lake Houston is what hydrologists call a “terminal reservoir.”
Flood risk in the Lake Houston area is governed less by any single upstream factor and more by how all upstream factors converge at one critical place. And that critical place (the Lake Houston Dam) has extremely limited flood-gate capacity to lower the lake in advance of approaching storms.
Lake Houston gates (l) can release 10,000 cubic feet per second (CFS). Lake Conroe gates (r) can release 150,000 CFS.
How All Risk Factors Converge in Terminal Reservoirs
As a terminal reservoir, Lake Houston backstops everything that happens anywhere upstream. A terminal reservoir is a reservoir located at (or very near) the downstream end of a watershed, such as the San Jacinto River Basin. It receives the cumulative inflows from all upstream tributaries before water exits to a larger receiving body, like a bay or Gulf of Mexico.
Lake Houston is the tip of a funnel draining more than 2,500 square miles from seven counties. That’s an area 50% larger than all of Harris County itself. See below.
Percentages represent sub-watershed’s portion of acreage within Lake Houston’s drainage area which includes parts of seven counties. Lake Conroe controls only 13% of the drainage area.
Because of Lake Houston’s location, peak flows from multiple tributaries (East Fork, West Fork, Caney Creek, Peach Creek, Luce Bayou, Spring Creek, Cypress Creek, Lake Creek, etc.) can stack on top of each other.
During a storm, if peak flows from those tributaries arrive at different times, they may be manageable.
But if peaks arrive simultaneously, as they likely would in a large storm like Harvey, they create an exponential spike in water levels. And that can create catastrophic flooding in a terminal reservoir with limited gate capacity.
Terminal reservoirs catch more than water. They also trap sediment from all uncontrolled upstream tributaries. Those include the mining corridors along the West Fork, East Fork and Caney Creek.
This leads to the progressive loss of storage volume behind the Lake Houston dam. That reduces flood-buffering capacity over time. It also increases reliance on dredging.
This is a much bigger issue in the Lake Houston Area than in Lake Conroe. Lake Houston traps sediment from an area seven times larger than Lake Conroe does.
Sediment from 87% of the river basin ultimately ends up in Lake Houston.
Plus, the largest sources of sediment are between the two lakes. Virtually all sand mines in the river basin are downstream from Lake Conroe and upstream from Lake Houston.
Low Gradient and Urbanization Increase Flood Risk
The low gradient in our flat coastal plain, also means that this terminal reservoir can back water up into tributaries, such as Bens Branch, where 12 people died at an assisted living facility for seniors during Harvey.
Urbanization compounds all these risks. Incremental upstream development in Montgomery, Waller and Liberty counties creates a cumulative increase in runoff volume and speed which amplifies peaks at the terminal location.
In other posts, I showed how even if each upstream development project meets the “no-net-runoff-increase” mandate locally, a system-level effect still concentrates peak flows at the terminal reservoir.
Peak flows in Lake Houston watershed during Hurricane Harvey.400,000 CFS went over Lake Houston Dam.
The 400,000 CFS going over the Lake Houston Dam during Harvey created a wall of water 11 feet high. The volume was five times more than the volume of water going over Niagra Falls on an average day.
Implications
In summary, Lake Houston is the control point for a 2,500 square mile watershed. Lake Conroe controls only 13% of upstream drainage. Lake Houston controls 100%. The entire drainage area flows through this one control point with little help.
This heightens sensitivity to timing (when flood peaks arrive) and coordination (with Lake Conroe). Other than Lake Conroe, there is NO redundancy built into the system.
Sediment accumulation is not only inevitable, it is accelerated – by sand mining and rapid upstream development. This limits the buffering capacity of the lake for flood-control purposes. Sediment management is not optional. Safety requires it. Luckily, State Representative Charles Cunningham was able to start a Lake Houston Area Dredging and Maintenance District in the 2025 legislature.
The design of the Lake Houston dam also limits flexibility for flood management. Lake Houston has a 3,100-foot wide spillway but extremely limited gate capacity – 1/15th the capacity of Lake Conroe’s gates.
That limits pre-release capacity. It takes days in advance of a storm to lower Lake Houston enough to absorb anticipated incoming stormwater. But storms can veer away during that time. Yet millions of people depend on water from Lake Houston.
So dam managers must be extremely cautious about pre-releasing water. Before they open the gates, they must be sure the storm will replenish any water discharged.
Conclusion
Thus, gate capacity has outsized importance for flood safety. That’s why Houston Public Works and the Coastal Water Authority have studied the best way to add more gates to the dam ever since Harvey. But they haven’t yet finalized a design.
Meanwhile, people live with the flood risk of a terminal reservoir with limited gate capacity and little upstream help from other reservoirs.
For information about other factors that create flood risk, see the Lessons Page of this website.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 4/11/26
3147 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/2021/07/Gates-Side-by-Side.jpg?fit=1200%2C400&ssl=14001200adminadmin2026-04-11 12:15:012026-04-11 12:23:21How A Terminal Reservoir with Limited Gate Capacity Increases Flood Risk
How “Stacking Effect” Erodes Margins of Safety
4/13/26 – Since Hurricane Harvey in 2017, I’ve documented how numerous factors contribute to flooding. Individually, none is unique. You see them in operation everywhere around the world. But collectively, their impacts can “stack” in a way that degrades margins of safety and resilience – in some areas more than others.
Progressively Eroding Margins of Safety
Driving a vehicle makes a good analogy. A lonely highway. Rain-slick pavement. The dead of night. Bald tires. Too much speed. A tight curve. And a tired driver loses control.
In respect to flooding, the Lake Houston Area has:
Now, Add 30-40% More Rain than Expected
A killer hurricane. Stalls over the Houston Area. The highest rainfall totals in the history of North America. Drainage channels clogged with sediment. A dam that can’t let water out fast enough. Homes built too close to water. Power gone. Communication out. Evacuation routes under water. And millions of people trying to flee. Simultaneously.
Safety … Within Reason
We like to think of OUR safety as an “absolute.” Government and science will protect us, right? Wrong!
How much risk are we willing to live with? Said another way, “How much can we afford?” Engineers could design drainage systems that protect us from 100,000-year storms. But could we afford them? Probably not.
So, we look at probabilities and we compromise. We design systems to handle more than we expect. And they work great. Until the unexpected happens. Then we pray that everything doesn’t go wrong all at once. That our backup systems work.
And when they don’t, we’re left with that stale bag of potato chips in the back of the cupboard, rotting wallboard, and the kindness of strangers.
Systems Optimized for Competing Interests
We optimize communities to serve many different interests. Not just ours. And not just flood resilience. For instance, homes must be affordable, not just flood-safe. So, builders lobby for regulations that reduce their costs. And that may mean putting homes on smaller lots closer together, which…
And of course, to make new streets, you need sand for the concrete. So, fast-growing areas set up systems that let miners extract sand from floodways where it’s plentiful and pure.
But of course, that’s only a problem for people who live downstream. Until someone else does the same thing farther upstream.
Results: A Balancing Act
Here in the Lake Houston Area, we have a system where runoff is increasing, conveyance is decreasing, and control is fragmented—all at the same time. This combination is rare and particularly unstable.
But of course, it’s not all bad. Good people fight every day to keep you safe.
We have:
It’s all a balancing act.
For More Information
To learn more about how we can protect margins of safety, see the Lessons Page of this website.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 4/13/2026
3149 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Extreme Growth in Flatland With Constrained Drainage
4/12/26 – Numerous human and geologic factors drive flood risk. Where they exist in combination, flood risk degrades the most.
One of the most important “lessons learned” since Hurricane Harvey has been how A) extreme population growth in B) a flat river basin with C) a constrained outlet … combine to increase flood risk.
Extreme Population Growth in Region
Worldwide, urbanization and impervious cover (concrete, rooftops) represent the single most consistent, anthropogenic (man-made) driver of flooding worldwide. And…
According to U.S. Census Bureau figures released in January 2026, Texas ranked as the fastest growing state in the U.S. last year. And within Texas, Harris County grew more than any other county, adding an estimated 48,695 people – a 1% gain. Harris County’s population now tops 5 million people.
But the areas around Harris County are all growing rapidly, too – at least in percentage terms. Upstream from the Lake Houston Area:
The U.S. grew only about 0.5% overall from 2024–2025. So these counties are outliers as is Texas itself. Since 2020, Texas has added more residents than any other state, with approximately 2.6 million new residents.
When you look closely at the numbers, there’s a clear bifurcation. Giant metro areas, such as Houston, lead in absolute population growth. But small, fast-developing fringe counties lead in percentage growth.
Why This Matters: Impervious cover
Waller, Liberty and Montgomery Counties lie right upstream from Harris County within the upstream San Jacinto River Basin. They rank among the fastest growing counties in the fastest growing state. That confirms rapid upstream urbanization in the watershed, which puts continued pressure on the San Jacinto West and East Forks.
Meanwhile, Harris County leads the nation in absolute growth. That means:
Just as concerning, to accommodate this growing population, we see floodplain encroachment throughout the watershed. For instance, right now, Scarborough and the Texas General Land Office are trying to develop more than 5,000 of the most flood-prone acres in southeast Texas near the confluence of Spring Creek and the San Jacinto West Fork.
Land that once might have been dedicated to parks for flood control has become too valuable for that. Land owners want to catch the development gravy train.
Fragmented Governance Complicates Growth Factor
Fragmented governance also complicates the issue. Take, for instance, the Scarborough land that borders Harris County. If the land gets developed, Harris County would face increased flood risk while Montgomery County would reap benefits from expanding its tax base. So, the two counties have opposing interests.
Another example: Montgomery County gives tax breaks to sand mines along the San Jacinto that help fuel all this upstream growth. But sediment from those same mines washes downriver and gets deposited in the headwaters of Lake Houston. That sediment reduces conveyance and increases flood risk for the people in Harris County.
Infrastructure Bottlenecks and Peak Stacking
Drainage from all this extreme upstream growth feeds into a bottleneck with a constrained outlet – Lake Houston.
And extremely low gradients throughout this funnel means water moves slower and lingers longer. That increases the chances of peaks from different tributaries stacking on top of each other.
And finally, other bottlenecks exist, too. Like the FM 1960 Causeway and the Lake Houston Dam with its four small gates. They have a combined release capacity of just 10,000 cubic feet per second – one fifteenth the release capacity of Lake Conroe’s gates.
For More Information
See the Lessons Page of this web site. It condenses the major lessons learned from researching more than 3,000 posts since Harvey into a sort of quick guide.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 4/12/2026
3148 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.
How A Terminal Reservoir with Limited Gate Capacity Increases Flood Risk
6/11/26 – Those seeking to understand flooding in the Lake Houston Area need to understand the placement and construction of the dam within the larger San Jacinto River Basin. Lake Houston is what hydrologists call a “terminal reservoir.”
Flood risk in the Lake Houston area is governed less by any single upstream factor and more by how all upstream factors converge at one critical place. And that critical place (the Lake Houston Dam) has extremely limited flood-gate capacity to lower the lake in advance of approaching storms.
How All Risk Factors Converge in Terminal Reservoirs
As a terminal reservoir, Lake Houston backstops everything that happens anywhere upstream. A terminal reservoir is a reservoir located at (or very near) the downstream end of a watershed, such as the San Jacinto River Basin. It receives the cumulative inflows from all upstream tributaries before water exits to a larger receiving body, like a bay or Gulf of Mexico.
Lake Houston is the tip of a funnel draining more than 2,500 square miles from seven counties. That’s an area 50% larger than all of Harris County itself. See below.
Because of Lake Houston’s location, peak flows from multiple tributaries (East Fork, West Fork, Caney Creek, Peach Creek, Luce Bayou, Spring Creek, Cypress Creek, Lake Creek, etc.) can stack on top of each other.
During a storm, if peak flows from those tributaries arrive at different times, they may be manageable.
But if peaks arrive simultaneously, as they likely would in a large storm like Harvey, they create an exponential spike in water levels. And that can create catastrophic flooding in a terminal reservoir with limited gate capacity.
Six years ago, the SJRA’s River Basin Master Drainage Plan recommended 10 areas for additional upstream regional detention. But not one has even been bid.
Sediment Trap for the River Basin
Terminal reservoirs catch more than water. They also trap sediment from all uncontrolled upstream tributaries. Those include the mining corridors along the West Fork, East Fork and Caney Creek.
This leads to the progressive loss of storage volume behind the Lake Houston dam. That reduces flood-buffering capacity over time. It also increases reliance on dredging.
This is a much bigger issue in the Lake Houston Area than in Lake Conroe. Lake Houston traps sediment from an area seven times larger than Lake Conroe does.
Plus, the largest sources of sediment are between the two lakes. Virtually all sand mines in the river basin are downstream from Lake Conroe and upstream from Lake Houston.
Low Gradient and Urbanization Increase Flood Risk
The low gradient in our flat coastal plain, also means that this terminal reservoir can back water up into tributaries, such as Bens Branch, where 12 people died at an assisted living facility for seniors during Harvey.
Urbanization compounds all these risks. Incremental upstream development in Montgomery, Waller and Liberty counties creates a cumulative increase in runoff volume and speed which amplifies peaks at the terminal location.
In other posts, I showed how even if each upstream development project meets the “no-net-runoff-increase” mandate locally, a system-level effect still concentrates peak flows at the terminal reservoir.
The 400,000 CFS going over the Lake Houston Dam during Harvey created a wall of water 11 feet high. The volume was five times more than the volume of water going over Niagra Falls on an average day.
Implications
In summary, Lake Houston is the control point for a 2,500 square mile watershed. Lake Conroe controls only 13% of upstream drainage. Lake Houston controls 100%. The entire drainage area flows through this one control point with little help.
This heightens sensitivity to timing (when flood peaks arrive) and coordination (with Lake Conroe). Other than Lake Conroe, there is NO redundancy built into the system.
Sediment accumulation is not only inevitable, it is accelerated – by sand mining and rapid upstream development. This limits the buffering capacity of the lake for flood-control purposes. Sediment management is not optional. Safety requires it. Luckily, State Representative Charles Cunningham was able to start a Lake Houston Area Dredging and Maintenance District in the 2025 legislature.
The design of the Lake Houston dam also limits flexibility for flood management. Lake Houston has a 3,100-foot wide spillway but extremely limited gate capacity – 1/15th the capacity of Lake Conroe’s gates.
That limits pre-release capacity. It takes days in advance of a storm to lower Lake Houston enough to absorb anticipated incoming stormwater. But storms can veer away during that time. Yet millions of people depend on water from Lake Houston.
So dam managers must be extremely cautious about pre-releasing water. Before they open the gates, they must be sure the storm will replenish any water discharged.
Conclusion
Thus, gate capacity has outsized importance for flood safety. That’s why Houston Public Works and the Coastal Water Authority have studied the best way to add more gates to the dam ever since Harvey. But they haven’t yet finalized a design.
Meanwhile, people live with the flood risk of a terminal reservoir with limited gate capacity and little upstream help from other reservoirs.
For information about other factors that create flood risk, see the Lessons Page of this website.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 4/11/26
3147 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.