Homebuyers beware. Flood risk is a shifting target.
This morning, I began reading more than 100 pages of legal briefs in the appeal of the upstream Addicks and Barker awards. I could not help but think how hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and untold heartbreak could have been averted with more due diligence on the part of all involved – buyers, developers and the Army Corps.
Background of Case
For those new to the area, Addicks and Barker are two reservoirs on Houston’s west side. The Army Corps built them back in the 1930s to protect downtown Houston and the ship channel. However, the Corps did not buy all the land inside the reservoirs that was subject to flooding. Later, developers started building on that land. And people bought the homes despite the risks.
During Harvey, hundreds of homes built inside the reservoirs flooded. Residents sued the Corps and won. But the Corps is now appealing the case.
In 2022, a judge ruled in favor of the residents and awarded them more than half a billion in damages. The damages included repair costs, replacement of belongings, and compensation for value lost in their property. But facing hundreds of millions of dollars in payouts, the government isn’t giving up easily. It appealed.
The case has taken more than six years to get to this point and it is far from over. No telling what the legal fees have cost both sides. Or whether plaintiffs will ever see a penny.
This should serve as a lesson to everyone buying a home and to their real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and surveyors.
Tools to Help You Avoid Becoming a Flood Victim
Although tools to identify flood risk may not have been commonly available and readily understandable when the plaintiffs bought homes inside the reservoirs, such tools do exist now.
They both show the extent of potential flooding in this area, but each has different strengths. And they show slightly different results. That should raise some cautions if you think of risk as a black-or-white issue.
Use USGS National Map for Elevations, Slopes, Contours
You can layer these maps and vary their transparency. But the real magic of the USGS National Map is in the measurement tool for elevation profiling. Below is an example.
After activating the elevation profile tool, I drew a line from a residential neighborhood inside the Barker Reservoir, across the dam, to an area outside the reservoir. I chose an area in the southwest corner of the reservoir that flooded during Harvey. It showed this.
Note elevation changes on right where line crosses the dam (gray bar). Homes above the gray are inside reservoir.
The red X shows the height of the dam (108 feet) in the elevation profile. The brown area in the elevation-profile box shows the elevation of the dam, homes, streets and drainage channels.
Homes are generally 6-8 feet BELOW the height of the dam. That should be a giant red flag for anyone considering buying a house inside the reservoir.
Next, zooming out, I turned on the hydro layer. The red circle below, indicated the approximate area and location of the map above.
Note how the flood pool of the reservoir extends beyond the entire neighborhood shown above.
FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer Viewer for Floodplain Information
FEMA actually uses the elevation information from the USGS national map. But FEMA superimposes floodplains to show flood risk in several zones.
Note difference in two maps above in their bottom left corners. FEMA shows some homes inside the reservoir that are outside of mapped flood zones. Aqua = 100-year and tan = 500-year floodplains.
The difference noted above raises an important point. FEMA’s maps are estimates of the probability of unknown future events based on the frequency of extremely rare past events. Those estimates may not have been in effect when the neighborhood in question was built around the time of Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. Maps based on Allison weren’t adopted until around 2007 and are still in effect today.
Harris County Flood Control and FEMA update flood maps periodically when new monster storms come along and surpass past rainfall probability estimates. For instance, FEMA is working on new flood maps based on Harvey, but has not yet released them.
So, if you’re thinking of betting your life savings on a home in a risky area, the best things to do are these:
Ask yourself, “Can I afford to lose everything?” Many families in the reservoirs did.
Consult an independent engineer without any financial incentive in the purchase, i.e., making the deal go though.
Evaluate a variety of homes, not just one. And look closely at the safety margins.
If a home is two feet above the 100-year floodplain, look for one that’s higher. Things change regularly, usually in one direction.
Make “flood avoidance” more important than kitchen appliances in your purchase decision.
A Cautionary Tale Based on Personal Experience
Back in the early 1980s, I owned a house in Dallas near a creek that an engineer and the city certified were 2-feet above the 100-year floodplain. The home flooded within two years, due to rapid, insufficiently mitigated growth upstream.
Several years later, when I bought a house in Kingwood, I looked at ten homes and bought the one on the highest ground. More than 30 years later, all nine of the others flooded during Harvey even though they were all reportedly above the 100-year flood plain.
For a thorough description of why flood risk is a moving target, read this post – Why Do We Flood?
After two years of drought, it’s easy to become complacent about flood risk. Don’t. Ask anyone who has flooded. They will tell you. Your life can change overnight. So homebuyers beware.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/21/2023
2244 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Barker-Hydro.jpg?fit=1200%2C842&ssl=18421200adminadmin2023-10-21 18:33:462023-10-21 18:57:57Homebuyers Beware: Flood Risk is Shifting Target
Harris County Flood Control, SJRA, and the Cities of Humble and Houston using funding provided in part by the Texas Water Development Board are searching for sediment solutions in the Upper San Jacinto River Basin. Their major scientific study includes all or parts of seven counties: Harris, Montgomery, Waller, Grimes, Walker, San Jacinto and Liberty – all land draining into Lake Houston.
From Technical Memorandum 1 of the Upper San Jacinto River Basin Regional Sedimentation Study.
The high-level goal: to better manage sediment in the river basin. Sediment reduces both floodway conveyance and the storage capacity of Lake Houston. Both contribute to the frequency and severity of flooding.
Among other things, the study partners hope to prioritize sediment hot spots so they can develop sediment solutions and recommendations.
I hope they look at Colony Ridge. It exemplifies a major hot spot and points the way to an obvious sediment solution – better enforcement of existing regulations.
Scope and Status of Sediment Study
The study is now about half complete. With much of the fieldwork complete, the partners will next focus on modeling, hotspot identification, area prioritization and sediment solutions, according to Matt Barrett, Water Resources and Flood Management Division Manager atSJRA.
To date, the study has examined a variety of factors:
Sediment Solutions Must Address Development Practices
Erosion occurs naturally. But poor development practices can accelerate the rate of erosion unnaturally.
Regulations in Liberty County call for backslope interceptor swales to prevent sheet flow over the sides of ditches. I have yet to see one such system anywhere in the 30+ square miles of Colony Ridge. What you typically see is this.
All that sediment washes downstream where it reduces the carrying capacity of rivers and the storage capacity of Lake Houston.
Liberty County regulations also call for planting grass on the side slopes of ditches and detention basins. The grass reduces erosion, too. But you don’t see much grass on those side slopes either.
Compare the ditch above with the ditch below in Harris County to see how grass and backslope interceptor swales can reduce erosion.
Small swales behind main slopes capture sheet flow heading toward the ditch. Pipes then take runoff to the bottom of ditch, thus reducing erosion on side slopes.
Here’s Colony Ridge again.
Three-mile-long Colony Ridge drainage ditch has no grass or backslope interceptor swales.
Address the Elephant in the Room Before the Next Disaster
Ironically, both Liberty and Harris County have almost identical regulations for erosion control. Harris County enforces them; Liberty County doesn’t.
Enforcement of development regulations is the elephant in the room.
So, as the SJRA and its partners search for sediment solutions, here’s one simple recommendation. Enforce regulations already on the books.
Colony Ridge and other developments that skirt regulations represent a disaster waiting to happen. Unfortunately, it will probably take a disaster, such as Harvey, to cause leaders to take action. But by then, it will be too late.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/20/23
2242 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/2023/10/20231006-RJR_6038-1.jpg?fit=1100%2C733&ssl=17331100adminadmin2023-10-20 14:08:222023-10-20 17:39:42Search For Sediment Solutions Should Lead Straight to Colony Ridge
Ten days ago, the entire Republican Congressional Delegation from Texas asked State Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate Colony Ridge, the controversial development in Liberty County. Today, he responded with a scathing letter that kicked Colony Ridge criticism up quite a few notches. Paxton also sent the letter to Governor Greg Abbott; Dade Phelan, Speaker of the Texas House; and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.
Neighboring communities have also complained about crime, traffic, destruction of roads, and rapidly growing burdens on the Plum Grove Volunteer Fire Department.
Too Much Chaos to be Tolerated
Paxton asks whether a settlement the size of Colony Ridge should have been allowed to grow that large without annexation or incorporation. By some estimates, Colony Ridge now has upwards of 40,000 people. If accurate, that would make it larger than the three largest cities in Liberty County combined!
Paxton says, “…this unincorporated settlement has drawn far too many people and enabled far too much chaos for the current arrangement to be tolerated by the state.” Boom.
Colony Ridge Business Model Caters to Cross-Border Settlement
Then Paxton talks about the business model used by Colony Ridge. “Texas has seen a growing trend of real estate developers buying huge quantities of undeveloped land, creating primitive subdivisions, and selling the bare lots in a practice often paired with offering minimal-down-payment, high-interest owner-financed loans,” he says.
“These loans require little identity verification. Lax development codes for unincorporated areas mean residents can crowd onto a property and the residential population can expand quickly.”
Paxton continues, “This form of real estate development and financing has created an attractive opportunity for noncitizens to cross the border and settle in Texas, with fast-growing developments the size of entire cities forcing nearby areas to struggle to adapt to—and even subsidize—the influx of new residents enriching the developers.
Unmanageable Size
“The scale of the Colony Ridge development has proved unmanageable for effective law enforcement and other key standards of acceptable governance,” he says. “Violent crime, drug trafficking, environmental deterioration, public disturbances, infrastructure overuse, and other problems have plagued the area and nearby towns.”
Distorting the Intent of Municipal Management Districts
In the next page and a half of Paxton’s letter, he details how the developers, with the help of State Senator Ernest Bailes and Senator Robert Nichols, perverted the intent of Texas Local Government Code which deals with the creation of Municipal Management Districts (MMDs).
MMDs were intended to revitalize and beautify already developed urban commercial areas. They were not intended to develop raw land, according to Paxton.
The Colony Ridge MMD controlled by the developer started with 5 acres then annexed tens of thousands of acres – also owned by the developer.
“…the managers of this district function as the unelected, unaccountable leaders of a city that is inhabited by an unknown population including unvetted foreign aliens and whose unsustainable growth is protected by a specific state carve-out,” says Paxton.
“The burden displaced onto the surrounding areas to subsidize public services needed by those residing in Colony Ridge is significant.”
Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General
Criticism of Two Texas Lawmakers
He adds, “I am beyond disappointed in Senator Nichols and Representative Bailes for apparently working to enrich specific developers at enormous expense to the rest of the public and reducing the quality of life for their own constituents.”
“It [Colony Ridge] is a sprawling, highly populated settlement that will soon outpace the population of many cities in Texas yet is ungoverned by any meaningful authority other than the developers whose primary interest is selling more property to new residents.”
Attacks Those Trying to Downplay Colony Ridge Problems
Paxton concludes by attacking journalists and politicians trying to downplay the problems caused by Colony Ridge. He says, “…the people of Texas … never assented to the creation of a sprawling unincorporated, ungoverned zone…”
Paxton does not mention this transaction specifically, but it falls under “enriching developers at the expense of the public.”
Note that the developer runs the MMD mentioned above. Also note how in these MMD board meeting minutes, the developer set the tax rate on his customers, gives his brother a $9.9 million paving contract and approves a reimbursement agreement for “the developer.”
The purpose of an MMD is to promote the public interest. But the developer is using his position as MMD president to defray his own costs. In a transaction that certainly raised my eyebrows, he and his board awarded a contract worth almost $10 million to Liberty Paving, a company controlled by his brother’s T-Rex Management Inc.
The developer has asserted that Colony Ridge is like any other community. All these photos below were taken on 10/6/2023, one day after the developer took several state legislators on a guided tour of the nicer areas in the development near the Grand Parkway – as the northern entrance flooded.
The neighborhood swimming pool.Note tarp for roof and trees growing in another pool.Colony Ridge residents often operate businesses from their homes.
Paxton’s letter points out that in 2019, “the developer insisted extra state funding was needed to accommodate the growth of residents because the area had so little commercial tax revenue.” No wonder those commercial taxes are down.
A backyard AC recycling business? A backyard car repair business?Used car lot in the front yard? Or car rental agency?A Google search says these containers can hold chemicals, food and water.I am not sure what these held but the volume certainly goes beyond the needs of one family. Perhaps someone is smuggling in fresh water.
Next up: Will the Texas legislature take any meaningful action in its special session? Come back soon as the Austin action unfolds.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/19/23
2242 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/2023/10/20231006-RJR_2514.jpg?fit=1100%2C733&ssl=17331100adminadmin2023-10-19 16:49:122023-10-19 23:05:15Paxton Letter Kicks Colony Ridge Concerns Up a Notch or Ten
Homebuyers Beware: Flood Risk is Shifting Target
Homebuyers beware. Flood risk is a shifting target.
This morning, I began reading more than 100 pages of legal briefs in the appeal of the upstream Addicks and Barker awards. I could not help but think how hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and untold heartbreak could have been averted with more due diligence on the part of all involved – buyers, developers and the Army Corps.
Background of Case
For those new to the area, Addicks and Barker are two reservoirs on Houston’s west side. The Army Corps built them back in the 1930s to protect downtown Houston and the ship channel. However, the Corps did not buy all the land inside the reservoirs that was subject to flooding. Later, developers started building on that land. And people bought the homes despite the risks.
In 2022, a judge ruled in favor of the residents and awarded them more than half a billion in damages. The damages included repair costs, replacement of belongings, and compensation for value lost in their property. But facing hundreds of millions of dollars in payouts, the government isn’t giving up easily. It appealed.
The case has taken more than six years to get to this point and it is far from over. No telling what the legal fees have cost both sides. Or whether plaintiffs will ever see a penny.
This should serve as a lesson to everyone buying a home and to their real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and surveyors.
Tools to Help You Avoid Becoming a Flood Victim
Although tools to identify flood risk may not have been commonly available and readily understandable when the plaintiffs bought homes inside the reservoirs, such tools do exist now.
Two of the easiest to use are the USGS National Map and FEMA’s National Flood Hazard Layer Viewer.
They both show the extent of potential flooding in this area, but each has different strengths. And they show slightly different results. That should raise some cautions if you think of risk as a black-or-white issue.
Use USGS National Map for Elevations, Slopes, Contours
USGS excels at mapping elevations, slopes and contours. This post explains how to use the National Map. Backgrounds include:
You can layer these maps and vary their transparency. But the real magic of the USGS National Map is in the measurement tool for elevation profiling. Below is an example.
After activating the elevation profile tool, I drew a line from a residential neighborhood inside the Barker Reservoir, across the dam, to an area outside the reservoir. I chose an area in the southwest corner of the reservoir that flooded during Harvey. It showed this.
The red X shows the height of the dam (108 feet) in the elevation profile. The brown area in the elevation-profile box shows the elevation of the dam, homes, streets and drainage channels.
Next, zooming out, I turned on the hydro layer. The red circle below, indicated the approximate area and location of the map above.
FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer Viewer for Floodplain Information
FEMA actually uses the elevation information from the USGS national map. But FEMA superimposes floodplains to show flood risk in several zones.
The difference noted above raises an important point. FEMA’s maps are estimates of the probability of unknown future events based on the frequency of extremely rare past events. Those estimates may not have been in effect when the neighborhood in question was built around the time of Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. Maps based on Allison weren’t adopted until around 2007 and are still in effect today.
Harris County Flood Control and FEMA update flood maps periodically when new monster storms come along and surpass past rainfall probability estimates. For instance, FEMA is working on new flood maps based on Harvey, but has not yet released them.
So, if you’re thinking of betting your life savings on a home in a risky area, the best things to do are these:
A Cautionary Tale Based on Personal Experience
Back in the early 1980s, I owned a house in Dallas near a creek that an engineer and the city certified were 2-feet above the 100-year floodplain. The home flooded within two years, due to rapid, insufficiently mitigated growth upstream.
Several years later, when I bought a house in Kingwood, I looked at ten homes and bought the one on the highest ground. More than 30 years later, all nine of the others flooded during Harvey even though they were all reportedly above the 100-year flood plain.
For a thorough description of why flood risk is a moving target, read this post – Why Do We Flood?
After two years of drought, it’s easy to become complacent about flood risk. Don’t. Ask anyone who has flooded. They will tell you. Your life can change overnight. So homebuyers beware.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/21/2023
2244 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Search For Sediment Solutions Should Lead Straight to Colony Ridge
Harris County Flood Control, SJRA, and the Cities of Humble and Houston using funding provided in part by the Texas Water Development Board are searching for sediment solutions in the Upper San Jacinto River Basin. Their major scientific study includes all or parts of seven counties: Harris, Montgomery, Waller, Grimes, Walker, San Jacinto and Liberty – all land draining into Lake Houston.
The high-level goal: to better manage sediment in the river basin. Sediment reduces both floodway conveyance and the storage capacity of Lake Houston. Both contribute to the frequency and severity of flooding.
Among other things, the study partners hope to prioritize sediment hot spots so they can develop sediment solutions and recommendations.
I hope they look at Colony Ridge. It exemplifies a major hot spot and points the way to an obvious sediment solution – better enforcement of existing regulations.
Scope and Status of Sediment Study
The study is now about half complete. With much of the fieldwork complete, the partners will next focus on modeling, hotspot identification, area prioritization and sediment solutions, according to Matt Barrett, Water Resources and Flood Management Division Manager atSJRA.
To date, the study has examined a variety of factors:
The Colony Ridge area receives some of the highest rainfall totals and highest intensity rains in the river basin.
Colony Ridge also ranks among the most erodible areas in the entire river basin.
So, you would hope that a development 50% larger than Manhattan, which is decimating forests and filling in wetlands would receive some scrutiny.
Sediment Solutions Must Address Development Practices
Erosion occurs naturally. But poor development practices can accelerate the rate of erosion unnaturally.
Regulations in Liberty County call for backslope interceptor swales to prevent sheet flow over the sides of ditches. I have yet to see one such system anywhere in the 30+ square miles of Colony Ridge. What you typically see is this.
Liberty County regulations also call for planting grass on the side slopes of ditches and detention basins. The grass reduces erosion, too. But you don’t see much grass on those side slopes either.
Compare the ditch above with the ditch below in Harris County to see how grass and backslope interceptor swales can reduce erosion.
Here’s Colony Ridge again.
Address the Elephant in the Room Before the Next Disaster
Ironically, both Liberty and Harris County have almost identical regulations for erosion control. Harris County enforces them; Liberty County doesn’t.
So, as the SJRA and its partners search for sediment solutions, here’s one simple recommendation. Enforce regulations already on the books.
Colony Ridge and other developments that skirt regulations represent a disaster waiting to happen. Unfortunately, it will probably take a disaster, such as Harvey, to cause leaders to take action. But by then, it will be too late.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/20/23
2242 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.
Paxton Letter Kicks Colony Ridge Concerns Up a Notch or Ten
Ten days ago, the entire Republican Congressional Delegation from Texas asked State Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate Colony Ridge, the controversial development in Liberty County. Today, he responded with a scathing letter that kicked Colony Ridge criticism up quite a few notches. Paxton also sent the letter to Governor Greg Abbott; Dade Phelan, Speaker of the Texas House; and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.
Burden on Surrounding Communities
Paxton’s letter echoes many of the criticisms made in the media recently about Colony Ridge. But then he goes far beyond those.
After discussing illegal immigration, he addresses the impact of the development on Cleveland ISD and neighboring communities.
While Paxton does not cite these specific examples, they represent the types of concerns neighbors have complained about for years.
Neighboring communities have also complained about crime, traffic, destruction of roads, and rapidly growing burdens on the Plum Grove Volunteer Fire Department.
Too Much Chaos to be Tolerated
Paxton asks whether a settlement the size of Colony Ridge should have been allowed to grow that large without annexation or incorporation. By some estimates, Colony Ridge now has upwards of 40,000 people. If accurate, that would make it larger than the three largest cities in Liberty County combined!
Paxton says, “…this unincorporated settlement has drawn far too many people and enabled far too much chaos for the current arrangement to be tolerated by the state.” Boom.
Colony Ridge Business Model Caters to Cross-Border Settlement
Then Paxton talks about the business model used by Colony Ridge. “Texas has seen a growing trend of real estate developers buying huge quantities of undeveloped land, creating primitive subdivisions, and selling the bare lots in a practice often paired with offering minimal-down-payment, high-interest owner-financed loans,” he says.
“These loans require little identity verification. Lax development codes for unincorporated areas mean residents can crowd onto a property and the residential population can expand quickly.”
Paxton continues, “This form of real estate development and financing has created an attractive opportunity for noncitizens to cross the border and settle in Texas, with fast-growing developments the size of entire cities forcing nearby areas to struggle to adapt to—and even subsidize—the influx of new residents enriching the developers.
Unmanageable Size
“The scale of the Colony Ridge development has proved unmanageable for effective law enforcement and other key standards of acceptable governance,” he says. “Violent crime, drug trafficking, environmental deterioration, public disturbances, infrastructure overuse, and other problems have plagued the area and nearby towns.”
Distorting the Intent of Municipal Management Districts
In the next page and a half of Paxton’s letter, he details how the developers, with the help of State Senator Ernest Bailes and Senator Robert Nichols, perverted the intent of Texas Local Government Code which deals with the creation of Municipal Management Districts (MMDs).
MMDs were intended to revitalize and beautify already developed urban commercial areas. They were not intended to develop raw land, according to Paxton.
The Colony Ridge MMD controlled by the developer started with 5 acres then annexed tens of thousands of acres – also owned by the developer.
“…the managers of this district function as the unelected, unaccountable leaders of a city that is inhabited by an unknown population including unvetted foreign aliens and whose unsustainable growth is protected by a specific state carve-out,” says Paxton.
Criticism of Two Texas Lawmakers
He adds, “I am beyond disappointed in Senator Nichols and Representative Bailes for apparently working to enrich specific developers at enormous expense to the rest of the public and reducing the quality of life for their own constituents.”
“It [Colony Ridge] is a sprawling, highly populated settlement that will soon outpace the population of many cities in Texas yet is ungoverned by any meaningful authority other than the developers whose primary interest is selling more property to new residents.”
Attacks Those Trying to Downplay Colony Ridge Problems
Paxton concludes by attacking journalists and politicians trying to downplay the problems caused by Colony Ridge. He says, “…the people of Texas … never assented to the creation of a sprawling unincorporated, ungoverned zone…”
To see the complete text of Paxton’s letter, click here.
$9.9 Million Paving Contract
Paxton does not mention this transaction specifically, but it falls under “enriching developers at the expense of the public.”
Note that the developer runs the MMD mentioned above. Also note how in these MMD board meeting minutes, the developer set the tax rate on his customers, gives his brother a $9.9 million paving contract and approves a reimbursement agreement for “the developer.”
The purpose of an MMD is to promote the public interest. But the developer is using his position as MMD president to defray his own costs. In a transaction that certainly raised my eyebrows, he and his board awarded a contract worth almost $10 million to Liberty Paving, a company controlled by his brother’s T-Rex Management Inc.
Normally, paving would be the developer’s cost.
Unpublished Pics of Colony Ridge
The developer has asserted that Colony Ridge is like any other community. All these photos below were taken on 10/6/2023, one day after the developer took several state legislators on a guided tour of the nicer areas in the development near the Grand Parkway – as the northern entrance flooded.
Paxton’s letter points out that in 2019, “the developer insisted extra state funding was needed to accommodate the growth of residents because the area had so little commercial tax revenue.” No wonder those commercial taxes are down.
Next up: Will the Texas legislature take any meaningful action in its special session? Come back soon as the Austin action unfolds.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/19/23
2242 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.