11/1/26 – A guest editorial by Paul Cote of Montgomery County Concerned Citizens. Cote was a MUD president for 10 years.Reprinted with permission.Note: Although Cote’s focus is on water affordability, excessive groundwater pumping can also lead to subsidence which exacerbates flooding.
For Montgomery County residents, the message delivered at the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District (LSGCD) Symposium was impossible to ignore: “The cheap water is gone.”
For years, local families were told that our groundwater supply was virtually endless and that local water bills could stay rock-bottom without regional planning. In 2017, State Representative Will Metcalf championed legislation that shifted the LSGCD board from an appointed body of regional representatives to an elected board, backed by campaigns promising to “restore affordable water.” Yet years later, groundwater professionals from across Texas, Montgomery County, and the LSGCD confirmed the opposite: relying on groundwater alone has become one of our community’s most expensive choices.
Picture courtesy of the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation Board Facebook page, using AI for the headline and footer.
The Hidden Cost: How Depleting Groundwater Hits Your Pocketbook
When public officials debate water, the conversation often gets bogged down in technical jargon. But for local homeowners, water affordability is fundamentally a pocketbook issue:
Pumping Faster Than Nature Refills: Montgomery County’s underground aquifers naturally replenish at about 65,000 acre-feet per year; the estimated current annual pumping is over 120,000 acre-feet per year, but it is proposed to allow pumping up to roughly 200,000 acre-feet annually.
Natural Replenishment Rate
Current GW Pumping Rate
Proposed GW Pumping Rate
~65,000 acre-feet / year
~135,000 acre-feet / year
~200,000 acre-feet / year
The Debt Treadmill: Because we pull water out far faster than nature replaces it, underground water levels drop. When neighborhood water wells run dry or burn out prematurely, Municipal Utility Districts (MUDs) and cities must borrow millions of dollars to drill deeper or build emergency fixes.
Paid Through Property Taxes, Not Just Water Bills: These multi-million-dollar emergency repairs are financed through 20- to 30-year voter bonds. Even if your monthly water meter fee appears stable, the cost shows up on your annual property tax bill under the MUD or city debt service rate.
The Cost of Inaction: Over the next decade, continuing down this uncoordinated path exposes Montgomery County taxpayers to a conservative estimate of $2 billion to over $4 billion in emergency well replacements, higher electric pumping bills, and ground-shifting repairs. This estimate is based on a GMA 14 study by LSGCD and the number of wells that cannot be lowered in the aquifer to keep well pumps submerged.
The City of Conroe provides a clear cautionary tale. After struggling with dropping well levels during recent droughts, Conroe had to pause construction and take on hundreds of millions in utility-related debt to secure emergency surface water and repair or replace failing wells. Waiting for an emergency does not save money; it quadruples the bill.
The Governance Gap: What No One is Protecting Our Future Groundwater
At the symposium, attendees were encouraged to set up backyard rain barrels. Collecting rainwater is a great personal conservation habit, but rain barrels cannot supply neighborhood fire hydrants, run schools, or support commercial employers.
The deeper problem is that no single local agency currently protects long-term community groundwater supplies. LSGCD Board President Jim Spigener highlighted this exact governance gap during a public water symposium in November 2023, asking plainly:
“Who’s the entity that can take on making sure Montgomery County has an adequate supply of water? I don’t think it exists right now.” Three years later, no planning entity exists, and no call for action at this symposium.
The LSGCD issues pumping permits, but under state law, it does not build pipelines, finance water treatment plants, or deliver drinking water to homes and businesses. Meanwhile, individual cities, many private water providers, and over 100 independent MUDs are left to fend for themselves in isolated silos.
For instance, while the LSGCD regulates groundwater withdrawal thresholds, it has no mandate or legal authority to finance or build regional surface-water pipelines. At the same time, over 100 individual MUDs across Montgomery County independently manage neighborhood water infrastructure and issue voter-backed debt bonds. Without a formal mechanism linking LSGCD permitting directly to MUD infrastructure planning, each entity operates in isolation, leaving Montgomery County without a central authority responsible for long-term supply resilience.
County leadership at the symposium noted limitations in managing growth under current local control policies. They also highlighted the county’s fragmentation: about 80% of residents live in unincorporated areas with limited capacity to fund large-scale alternative water infrastructure.
Addressing this issue requires systematic tracking of groundwater levels across all regulated production wells to detect emerging vulnerabilities early. A regional triage framework will also prioritize high-risk areas, such as South Montgomery County, for immediate infrastructure support and state funding opportunities.
Without unified leadership or a centralized authority to oversee long-term infrastructure, Montgomery County remains trapped in a fragmented system where water costs continue to rise unchecked. Bridging this governance gap is essential to secure our water future and protect local taxpayers from skyrocketing financial burdens.
A 4-Step Action Plan for Regional Water Security
Keeping future water affordable does not mean abandoning groundwater, nor does it require painful sacrifices. It requires our community to replace finger-pointing with a coordinated, long-range economic roadmap:
Create a Unified County Water Planning Authority: The Texas Legislature should authorize a countywide water authority, similar to successful regional authorities in neighboring counties, such as Harris and Fort Bend Counties, that unites County Commissioners, city officials, MUD directors, Private water providers, and business leaders.
Adopt a Balanced Water Portfolio (“Conjunctive Use”): The most cost-effective water system blends resources. By using treated surface water from Lake Conroe during cooler winter months and resting our groundwater wellfields, we allow underground water levels to stabilize. This prevents well burnouts and protects communities when summer heat spikes.
Recycle Water for Irrigation: Landscape watering accounts for roughly half of our peak summer water demand. Master-planned developments must do so by integrating low-water-use landscaping (xeriscaping) while using recycled, treated community water for parks, medians, and golf courses, preserving drinking-quality water and avoiding the need to float expensive tax bonds for new wells.
Commission a 50-Year Economic Water Cost Study: Rather than guessing what water will cost next year, local leaders must partner on an independent, long-term economic study to identify the lowest-cost supply mix for the next five decades.
Montgomery County’s competitive edge has always been family affordability, good schools, and thriving neighborhoods. When water costs spiral out of control, home values and household budgets take the hit.
We can’t defer securing affordable water or solve it through fragmented efforts. Our county commissioners, city officials, and MUD board members must act now by coming together to establish a unified regional water planning authority and craft a comprehensive, long-term economic strategy. The era of near-free water has ended, and our community’s financial future depends on decisive action from state and local leaders today. Let’s open the dialogue over a mug of coffee in the near future.
How You Can Take Action Today
Community leadership starts with engaged residents. Here are three concrete ways you can help drive regional water solutions:
Attend Your Local MUD & City Council Meetings: Ask your local elected board members about their long-term water supply strategy, well maintenance reserves, and conjunctive use plans.
Contact Your County Commissioner & State Representative: Advocate for legislative support and local inter-agency cooperation to establish a unified Montgomery County Water Planning Authority.
Promote Efficient Neighborhood Water Use: Support HOA landscape policy updates that allow xeriscaping and smart irrigation controls to lower outdoor summer water demand.
Express interest in attending our next MUGs & MUDs Coffee Meetup. For details and to join our mailing list, email: mccc2035@gmail.com.
About Montgomery County Concerned Citizens
Montgomery County Concerned Citizens is a grassroots network of Residents, Municipal Utility Leaders, and public officials dedicated to promoting transparency, accountability, and informed public engagement on water issues that affect Montgomery County’s future. The group serves as a forum for water-related education, discussion, and collaboration among citizens and local leaders.
Mission Statement
Montgomery County Concerned Citizens aims to empower residents through education, encourage active participation in local government, and advocate for responsible water policies that protect the county’s natural resources, infrastructure, and quality of life. The organization works to ensure public decisions are made openly and responsibly, in the best interests of current and future generations of Montgomery County residents.
Posted for Paul Cote, Montgomery County Concerned Citizens
3351 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/LSGCD-Image-e1793572849871.jpeg?fit=1100%2C821&ssl=18211100adminadmin2026-11-01 16:45:462026-11-01 16:52:28The Cheap Water is Gone: Montgomery County’s Water Crisis Demands Leadership
10/31/26 – A quick look at FEMA’s National Flood Hazard Layer Viewer reveals that floodplain maps across Texas, including the San Jacinto River Basin and Houston Area, are updated with stunning irregularity. Some areas are still working off paper maps developed in the early 1980s before the digital age. Other areas show haphazard updates explained by factors, such as:
Lack of a statewide mandate to update maps at regular intervals
Fragmented governance
Lack of funding
Development pressure
Availability of new, more accurate information
Completion of flood-control projects
No clear responsibilities.
See FEMA maps from several portions the Houston Area below. Because of the small type, I’ve superimposed years in larger type to make the effective date of the current map more visible.
Within minutes of Winnie on I-10, flood maps vary by 32 years.High Island also shows areas minutes away from each other with maps decades apart.
Zooming out in the FEMA viewer dims the background and reveals green polygons. Each contains the date of the effective flood map in that particular polygon. I’ve highlighted several at random to the range of representative dates.
Addicks/Barker area on Houston’s west side. Updates range from 2007 to 2021NW Harris and Waller CountiesNE Harris, S Montgomery and W Liberty Counties
But understand that the age of a map is not necessarily the age of the engineering underlying it. A map issued in 2014, for example, might incorporate hydrologic studies performed many years earlier, while only the satellite image has been updated to show the extent of current development.
This creates huge problems for new home buyers. They may be considering a home in a new subdivision shown on a base map. But the floodplain boundaries may reflect engineering performed decades before.
Why Such a Patchwork?
The enormous variability in floodplain map updates across Texas results from a fundamental problem: Texas does not have a unified, regularly scheduled system for updating floodplain maps. Instead, updates depend on a patchwork of federal funding, local initiatives, development pressures, engineering studies, and administrative priorities.
The result? Neighboring communities can operate under floodplain maps developed decades apart, even though they may share the same watershed.
This is particularly troubling in rapidly developing areas, where upstream development can change downstream flood risks long before official maps reflect those changes.
Research indicates causes fall into eight major categories.
1) No Mandatory Statewide Update Schedule
Unlike many public infrastructure systems that undergo periodic inspections or reassessments, FEMA floodplain maps do not have a universal expiration date. A community may continue using an effective Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) that is decades old.
2) Funding Determines Which Maps Get Updates
Floodplain mapping is expensive. Funding comes from several sources with limited resources. They include FEMA, the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB), local governments, and partnerships.
Communities with greater financial resources may get their maps updated before communities with greater needs.
3) Development Changes Flood Risks Faster Than Maps Can Be Updated
This is especially important in the fast growing San Jacinto River Basin. Development can change flood behavior through:
Increased impervious cover and runoff
Loss of natural floodplain storage
Changes in drainage patterns and flow concentration
Channel modifications and encroachments
Changes in the timing and magnitude of peak discharges.
Yet these changes do not automatically trigger map updates.
This creates confusion between actual flood risk and officially recognized flood risk.
4) Different Counties Have Different Capabilities and Priorities
Floodwaters do not recognize county boundaries, but floodplain management responsibilities do. That fragmentation is particularly problematic in watersheds spanning multiple counties.
5) FEMA’s Review Requirement Is Not an Update Requirement
According to ChatGPT, federal law requires FEMA to review flood hazard maps at least once every five years, but it does not require FEMA to replace them every five years.
The Congressional Research Service confirmed this distinction in its October 2026 report on the National Flood Insurance Program.
It also raises a question: How effectively can FEMA evaluate the cumulative effects of development when local land-use and drainage data are incomplete?
6) The Mapping Process Itself Can Take Five Years or Longer
According to the TWDB State Flood Assessment, Section 4.3, the process of updating maps typically takes 63 to 69 months…even before delays involving engineering reviews, consultations, preliminary map publication, public comments, appeals, and final adoption.
By the time new maps become effective, some of the underlying assumptions may already need reconsideration.
7) New Rainfall Standards Do Not Automatically Trigger New Maps
Atlas 14 increased rainfall probabilities in Harris County by 30-40%. But before floodplains could be redrawn:
Engineers had to incorporate revised rainfall estimates into hydrologic models
Updated flood discharges had to be computed and incorporated into the models
Revised floodplain maps must work their way through regulatory adoption processes.
Some counties require developers to use newer rainfall standards while continuing to regulate floodplain development using older FEMA maps.
That means the official floodplain and the floodplain calculated using newer rainfall data can be substantially different. The discrepancy is particularly consequential where development is rapid and drainage systems are already stressed.
8) Newer Flood-Risk Data Exist but Are Not Automatically Incorporated Into Regulatory Maps
Several different versions of flood maps exist. But only FEMA’s is regulatory.
Texas has invested heavily in base-level engineering which TWDB updates every five years. It is labeled “general advisory.”
TWDB also updates a statewide floodplain quilt every five years. But it is for “planning and informational purposes.”
State flood-planning data, also updated on a 5-year cycle, is also for “planning and informational purposes.”
How Serious is the Problem?
In its 2018 State Flood Assessment, TWDB found that only 20% of survey respondents characterized their flood insurance rate maps as “recently updated.” 80% characterized their maps as old, outdated, incomplete, or insufficient.
Flood risks change continuously. Floodplain maps change intermittently. The widening gap between the two can leave homeowners, developers, and local governments making decisions based on yesterday’s flood risks.
The Bigger Problem
Texas maps floodplains by jurisdiction, but floods develop by watershed. No single agency has responsibility for updating the entire river basin’s regulatory maps. This is a governance problem.
Federal law already recognizes the value of watershed-based mapping and reducing inconsistencies between adjacent political subdivisions.
But recognizing a problem and doing something about it are two different things. That’s why this election and the next state legislature will matter so much.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/31/26
3350 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/High-Island-Area-Floodmap-Updates.jpg?fit=1100%2C684&ssl=16841100adminadmin2026-10-31 22:00:402026-10-31 22:01:30Texas Floodplain Maps Updated With Stunning Irregularity
10/30/26 – Earlier this week, Chuck Stilwell of Harris County’s Community Flood Resilience Task Force and Joe Higgs of The Metropolitan Organization made a fascinating presentation to the Task Force about “Resiliency Hubs.”
Most Deaths Occur After the Storms
The presentation began by reviewing both obvious and hidden dangers after storms. The major surprise?
Most deaths occur 5-7 days AFTER a major storm.
Stilwell and Higgs
Power outages have become one of the leading cause of disaster-related deaths in the Gulf Coast region. Why? The effects of heat stress and unpowered medical equipment on unattended, vulnerable people. Recent examples include:
19 of 31 deaths in Hurricane Laura (Aug 2020)
700 deaths in Texas alone in Winter Storm Uri (Feb 2021);
Power Company Trucks mobilizing in Kingwood after Berylin 2024
How Resiliency Hubs Help
Louisiana already has 20 resiliency hubs. Think of a facility owned and operated by an existing organization that provides space for relief services during a storm and/or the power outages that follow.
Example: A church powered by solar or gas generators, which heat/cool them. Churches usually have kitchens. And they know their neighborhoods, including vulnerable populations such as the elderly. They also have support networks that provide services they can tap into. But most important, they have willing and able volunteer groups.
Churches have all the key elements: space, power, and an organization.
Such resiliency hubs won’t replace the George R. Brown Convention Center. But they also don’t cost taxpayer money.
They are neighbors helping neighbors, caring for the most vulnerable within their communities. They can provide immediate relief, transportation, communication and other vital resources until power is back on and people can return to their homes.
Houston Already Has Several Resiliency Hubs
The West Street Recovery organization already maintains six resiliency hubs in NE Houston and one in SE Houston. Many are operated out of homes.
Harris County offers several facilities with independent power.
The Metropolitan Organization (TMO) has funded and started a resiliency hub in Kashmere Gardens at the New Pleasant Grove Baptist Church and has several others in planning.
TMO hopes to provide coordination for existing hubs and develop a network that fills the gaps, especially in vulnerable areas.
Elevators that wouldn’t function in senior centers during Derecho power outages in 2024?
We can’t know when a disaster will strike. But we can plan for when it happens. As John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach said, “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.” Words to LIVE by.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/30/2026
3349 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Power-Company-Trucks-Mobilizing-After-Beryl.jpg?fit=1100%2C619&ssl=16191100adminadmin2026-10-30 18:14:192026-10-30 18:14:20How Resiliency Hubs Increase Survivability in Emergencies
The Cheap Water is Gone: Montgomery County’s Water Crisis Demands Leadership
11/1/26 – A guest editorial by Paul Cote of Montgomery County Concerned Citizens. Cote was a MUD president for 10 years. Reprinted with permission. Note: Although Cote’s focus is on water affordability, excessive groundwater pumping can also lead to subsidence which exacerbates flooding.
For Montgomery County residents, the message delivered at the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District (LSGCD) Symposium was impossible to ignore: “The cheap water is gone.”
For years, local families were told that our groundwater supply was virtually endless and that local water bills could stay rock-bottom without regional planning. In 2017, State Representative Will Metcalf championed legislation that shifted the LSGCD board from an appointed body of regional representatives to an elected board, backed by campaigns promising to “restore affordable water.” Yet years later, groundwater professionals from across Texas, Montgomery County, and the LSGCD confirmed the opposite: relying on groundwater alone has become one of our community’s most expensive choices.
The Hidden Cost: How Depleting Groundwater Hits Your Pocketbook
When public officials debate water, the conversation often gets bogged down in technical jargon. But for local homeowners, water affordability is fundamentally a pocketbook issue:
The City of Conroe provides a clear cautionary tale. After struggling with dropping well levels during recent droughts, Conroe had to pause construction and take on hundreds of millions in utility-related debt to secure emergency surface water and repair or replace failing wells. Waiting for an emergency does not save money; it quadruples the bill.
The Governance Gap: What No One is Protecting Our Future Groundwater
At the symposium, attendees were encouraged to set up backyard rain barrels. Collecting rainwater is a great personal conservation habit, but rain barrels cannot supply neighborhood fire hydrants, run schools, or support commercial employers.
The deeper problem is that no single local agency currently protects long-term community groundwater supplies. LSGCD Board President Jim Spigener highlighted this exact governance gap during a public water symposium in November 2023, asking plainly:
The LSGCD issues pumping permits, but under state law, it does not build pipelines, finance water treatment plants, or deliver drinking water to homes and businesses. Meanwhile, individual cities, many private water providers, and over 100 independent MUDs are left to fend for themselves in isolated silos.
For instance, while the LSGCD regulates groundwater withdrawal thresholds, it has no mandate or legal authority to finance or build regional surface-water pipelines. At the same time, over 100 individual MUDs across Montgomery County independently manage neighborhood water infrastructure and issue voter-backed debt bonds. Without a formal mechanism linking LSGCD permitting directly to MUD infrastructure planning, each entity operates in isolation, leaving Montgomery County without a central authority responsible for long-term supply resilience.
County leadership at the symposium noted limitations in managing growth under current local control policies. They also highlighted the county’s fragmentation: about 80% of residents live in unincorporated areas with limited capacity to fund large-scale alternative water infrastructure.
Addressing this issue requires systematic tracking of groundwater levels across all regulated production wells to detect emerging vulnerabilities early. A regional triage framework will also prioritize high-risk areas, such as South Montgomery County, for immediate infrastructure support and state funding opportunities.
Without unified leadership or a centralized authority to oversee long-term infrastructure, Montgomery County remains trapped in a fragmented system where water costs continue to rise unchecked. Bridging this governance gap is essential to secure our water future and protect local taxpayers from skyrocketing financial burdens.
A 4-Step Action Plan for Regional Water Security
Keeping future water affordable does not mean abandoning groundwater, nor does it require painful sacrifices. It requires our community to replace finger-pointing with a coordinated, long-range economic roadmap:
Montgomery County’s competitive edge has always been family affordability, good schools, and thriving neighborhoods. When water costs spiral out of control, home values and household budgets take the hit.
We can’t defer securing affordable water or solve it through fragmented efforts. Our county commissioners, city officials, and MUD board members must act now by coming together to establish a unified regional water planning authority and craft a comprehensive, long-term economic strategy. The era of near-free water has ended, and our community’s financial future depends on decisive action from state and local leaders today. Let’s open the dialogue over a mug of coffee in the near future.
How You Can Take Action Today
Community leadership starts with engaged residents. Here are three concrete ways you can help drive regional water solutions:
Promote Efficient Neighborhood Water Use: Support HOA landscape policy updates that allow xeriscaping and smart irrigation controls to lower outdoor summer water demand.
Express interest in attending our next MUGs & MUDs Coffee Meetup. For details and to join our mailing list, email: mccc2035@gmail.com.
About Montgomery County Concerned Citizens
Montgomery County Concerned Citizens is a grassroots network of Residents, Municipal Utility Leaders, and public officials dedicated to promoting transparency, accountability, and informed public engagement on water issues that affect Montgomery County’s future. The group serves as a forum for water-related education, discussion, and collaboration among citizens and local leaders.
Mission Statement
Montgomery County Concerned Citizens aims to empower residents through education, encourage active participation in local government, and advocate for responsible water policies that protect the county’s natural resources, infrastructure, and quality of life. The organization works to ensure public decisions are made openly and responsibly, in the best interests of current and future generations of Montgomery County residents.
Posted for Paul Cote, Montgomery County Concerned Citizens
3351 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Texas Floodplain Maps Updated With Stunning Irregularity
10/31/26 – A quick look at FEMA’s National Flood Hazard Layer Viewer reveals that floodplain maps across Texas, including the San Jacinto River Basin and Houston Area, are updated with stunning irregularity. Some areas are still working off paper maps developed in the early 1980s before the digital age. Other areas show haphazard updates explained by factors, such as:
See FEMA maps from several portions the Houston Area below. Because of the small type, I’ve superimposed years in larger type to make the effective date of the current map more visible.
Zooming out in the FEMA viewer dims the background and reveals green polygons. Each contains the date of the effective flood map in that particular polygon. I’ve highlighted several at random to the range of representative dates.
But understand that the age of a map is not necessarily the age of the engineering underlying it. A map issued in 2014, for example, might incorporate hydrologic studies performed many years earlier, while only the satellite image has been updated to show the extent of current development.
This creates huge problems for new home buyers. They may be considering a home in a new subdivision shown on a base map. But the floodplain boundaries may reflect engineering performed decades before.
Why Such a Patchwork?
The enormous variability in floodplain map updates across Texas results from a fundamental problem: Texas does not have a unified, regularly scheduled system for updating floodplain maps. Instead, updates depend on a patchwork of federal funding, local initiatives, development pressures, engineering studies, and administrative priorities.
The result? Neighboring communities can operate under floodplain maps developed decades apart, even though they may share the same watershed.
This is particularly troubling in rapidly developing areas, where upstream development can change downstream flood risks long before official maps reflect those changes.
Research indicates causes fall into eight major categories.
1) No Mandatory Statewide Update Schedule
Unlike many public infrastructure systems that undergo periodic inspections or reassessments, FEMA floodplain maps do not have a universal expiration date. A community may continue using an effective Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) that is decades old.
2) Funding Determines Which Maps Get Updates
Floodplain mapping is expensive. Funding comes from several sources with limited resources. They include FEMA, the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB), local governments, and partnerships.
Communities with greater financial resources may get their maps updated before communities with greater needs.
3) Development Changes Flood Risks Faster Than Maps Can Be Updated
This is especially important in the fast growing San Jacinto River Basin. Development can change flood behavior through:
Yet these changes do not automatically trigger map updates.
4) Different Counties Have Different Capabilities and Priorities
Floodwaters do not recognize county boundaries, but floodplain management responsibilities do. That fragmentation is particularly problematic in watersheds spanning multiple counties.
5) FEMA’s Review Requirement Is Not an Update Requirement
According to ChatGPT, federal law requires FEMA to review flood hazard maps at least once every five years, but it does not require FEMA to replace them every five years.
The Congressional Research Service confirmed this distinction in its October 2026 report on the National Flood Insurance Program.
It also raises a question: How effectively can FEMA evaluate the cumulative effects of development when local land-use and drainage data are incomplete?
6) The Mapping Process Itself Can Take Five Years or Longer
According to the TWDB State Flood Assessment, Section 4.3, the process of updating maps typically takes 63 to 69 months…even before delays involving engineering reviews, consultations, preliminary map publication, public comments, appeals, and final adoption.
By the time new maps become effective, some of the underlying assumptions may already need reconsideration.
7) New Rainfall Standards Do Not Automatically Trigger New Maps
Atlas 14 increased rainfall probabilities in Harris County by 30-40%. But before floodplains could be redrawn:
Some counties require developers to use newer rainfall standards while continuing to regulate floodplain development using older FEMA maps.
That means the official floodplain and the floodplain calculated using newer rainfall data can be substantially different. The discrepancy is particularly consequential where development is rapid and drainage systems are already stressed.
8) Newer Flood-Risk Data Exist but Are Not Automatically Incorporated Into Regulatory Maps
Several different versions of flood maps exist. But only FEMA’s is regulatory.
How Serious is the Problem?
In its 2018 State Flood Assessment, TWDB found that only 20% of survey respondents characterized their flood insurance rate maps as “recently updated.” 80% characterized their maps as old, outdated, incomplete, or insufficient.
The Bigger Problem
Texas maps floodplains by jurisdiction, but floods develop by watershed. No single agency has responsibility for updating the entire river basin’s regulatory maps. This is a governance problem.
Federal law already recognizes the value of watershed-based mapping and reducing inconsistencies between adjacent political subdivisions.
But recognizing a problem and doing something about it are two different things. That’s why this election and the next state legislature will matter so much.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/31/26
3350 Days since Hurricane Harvey
How Resiliency Hubs Increase Survivability in Emergencies
10/30/26 – Earlier this week, Chuck Stilwell of Harris County’s Community Flood Resilience Task Force and Joe Higgs of The Metropolitan Organization made a fascinating presentation to the Task Force about “Resiliency Hubs.”
Most Deaths Occur After the Storms
The presentation began by reviewing both obvious and hidden dangers after storms. The major surprise?
Power outages have become one of the leading cause of disaster-related deaths in the Gulf Coast region. Why? The effects of heat stress and unpowered medical equipment on unattended, vulnerable people. Recent examples include:
How Resiliency Hubs Help
Louisiana already has 20 resiliency hubs. Think of a facility owned and operated by an existing organization that provides space for relief services during a storm and/or the power outages that follow.
Example: A church powered by solar or gas generators, which heat/cool them. Churches usually have kitchens. And they know their neighborhoods, including vulnerable populations such as the elderly. They also have support networks that provide services they can tap into. But most important, they have willing and able volunteer groups.
Churches have all the key elements: space, power, and an organization.
Such resiliency hubs won’t replace the George R. Brown Convention Center. But they also don’t cost taxpayer money.
They are neighbors helping neighbors, caring for the most vulnerable within their communities. They can provide immediate relief, transportation, communication and other vital resources until power is back on and people can return to their homes.
Houston Already Has Several Resiliency Hubs
The West Street Recovery organization already maintains six resiliency hubs in NE Houston and one in SE Houston. Many are operated out of homes.
Harris County offers several facilities with independent power.
The Metropolitan Organization (TMO) has funded and started a resiliency hub in Kashmere Gardens at the New Pleasant Grove Baptist Church and has several others in planning.
TMO hopes to provide coordination for existing hubs and develop a network that fills the gaps, especially in vulnerable areas.
To see the full presentation, click here.
We Need More Resiliency Hubs
No major storms struck us this year. But don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security. Who can forget the:
We can’t know when a disaster will strike. But we can plan for when it happens. As John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach said, “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.” Words to LIVE by.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/30/2026
3349 Days since Hurricane Harvey