Twenty-two months after learning it would receive $750 million from the US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Texas General Land Office (GLO) for Harvey Flood Mitigation, Harris County Commissioners finally approved a Method of Distribution (MOD) for the money on 3/14/23.
The MOD must be approved by the GLO and HUD before the county can begin spending the money. However, the plan virtually ignores flood risk and public comments.
What Happened to Flood-Risk Reduction?
The basic purpose of the HUD money, administered by GLO, is to reduce flood risk. The word “risk” appears 490 times in the MOD submission. Only one problem!
The proposed project scoring matrices never mention “risk,” at least not directly.
The plan contains one scoring matrix for Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) Projects and another for Partnership Projects.
HCFCD Projects
For the portion of the money going to the Harris County Flood-Control District, the MOD bases funding on:
LMI (Low-to-Moderate Income) Population Percentage (35 points)
Social Vulnerability (30 points)
Population (15 points)
Repetitive Flood Loss (20 points)
Unfortunately, giving weight to damages as opposed to risk, gives the same weight to areas that have already been mitigated as it does to areas that have not received a penny.
The MOD also says distribution of flood-control funds will be governed by the Equity Prioritization Framework (even though it doesn’t explain how). The 2022 version of that Framework gives 20% weight in scoring projects to “Existing Conditions.” Existing Conditions refer to the capacity of a channel to manage flood events of different intensities. But that’s as close as the MOD comes to addressing flood risk in project scoring.
Watersheds with a majority LMI population have roughly a billion dollars worth of uncompleted 2018 flood bond projects. With roughly a half billion of the $750 million going to HCFCD, the LMI and SVI requirements put on that portion of the money virtually guarantee that none will be left for more affluent watersheds.
So even though HUD and GLO rules allow 50% of the money to be spent in more affluent watersheds, the criteria adopted by Commissioner’s Court will likely preclude any of the money going there.
Partnership Projects
The portion of the money going to Partnership Projects has slightly different criteria. But that matrix also includes NO references to flood risk. It scores projects based on:
Project Readiness (20 points)
Percent LMI Population (25 points)
Project Efficiency (cost per person and building benefitted) (20 points)
Ancillary Benefits (environmental, economic, quality of life) (10 points)
Partner Contribution (25 points)
Nowhere did the plan provide direct comparisons of flood risk so that areas with the highest risk could be addressed first. Neither did the plan address flood severity. Thus, areas already mitigated that got one inch of flooding will rank as high as unmitigated areas that got 20 feet.
Chart showing feet above flood stage of 33 gages of misc. bayous in Harris County during Harvey.
Virtually No One Happy
The Harris County Community Resilience Flood Task Force submitted a letter strongly prioritizing flood-risk reduction. That got ignored as were most of the 235 pages of other public comments submitted.
Virtually no one seemed happy with the plan or the fairness of the distribution of money.
The county did not bother to respond directly to those who took the time to study the plan and submit comments. However, it did provide responses within the plan itself.
To paraphrase one of the generic responses: “Thank you for your comment. Here’s what we’re going to do. The GLO encourages regional and countywide investments in flood mitigation. But we’re prioritizing population in low income and socially vulnerable areas.”
Typical comment and response to proposed MOD.Name of commenter redacted.
Harris County has already spent $1.7 billion on flood mitigation since Harvey – the vast majority of it in LMI areas. There’s no hint of spreading the $750 million around to other areas.
Transparency Issues Also a Problem
The Harris County Community Services Department (CSD) will manage this money. But CSD has a serious transparency problem.
The MOD portion of the website hasn’t been updated for six weeks, even though much has changed since then.
Potential partners have complained about being in the dark.
Two weeks ago, the interim director promised to put out a call for partner projects. But the website still hasn’t announced the opportunities yet.
CSD still has not posted the plan approved by commissioners.
CSD’s lack of transparency was a major theme in the hundreds of pages of public comments.
What Next for Flood-Bond Projects in Outlying Areas?
With virtually all of the HUD money going to LMI areas, and with not enough money left in the flood bond to finish all the projects, Judge Lina Hidalgo and Commissioners Rodney Ellis and Adrian Garcia owe us an explanation. How do they intend to fulfill the County’s promise to voters who approved the 2018 Flood Bond thinking they would get something out of it?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/29/2023
2038 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/KingwoodGreens-e1551452236612.jpg?fit=1500%2C1038&ssl=110381500adminadmin2023-03-29 15:35:402023-03-29 16:22:20$750 Million Flood Plan Ignores Flood Risk, Public
On 3/22/23, I attended a lunchtime seminar on flood-mitigation best practices hosted by FEMA Region 3 (Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC). The topics covered included building hazard-mitigation plans, resiliency hubs, and flood awareness programs.
The seminar showed dozens of excellent thought-provoking ideas – too many to list in one post. But three in the last category (awareness) really jumped out at me. I will share them below.
It Was How Deep!
This bright display below in a little pocket park shows the depth of flooding during historical and statistical (i.e., 100-year and 500-year) floods. The historical floods go back to 1937.
Image courtesy of FEMA
That will certainly keep people from forgetting.
How Deep Could It Get at My Home or Business?
Flood Depth Grids are a related idea. They go far beyond the types of flood maps we currently rely on that show flood frequency zones, like the 100-year (1% annual chance) flood zone. These answer the question, “How deep would the water get in a 100-year flood?” In this case, 2.88 feet of water would invade the building shown beneath the pointer.
Image courtesy of FEMA
This gives people additional useful information they can use to protect their homes and businesses from flood losses. For instance, how high do I need to elevate my home? Or how high do I need to elevate critical machinery used in my business? That’s far more useful than just knowing whether you’re in a zone that has a 1% annual chance of flooding.
How Much Damage Could I Expect?
The flood-mitigation best practice took that flood-depth information to the next level. It answers the question, “If we get a 100-year flood, how much damage would it do to my structure?”
The screen capture below shows a highlighted home on the right. The box on the left shows the assessed value of that home. And at the bottom in blue, it shows the estimated damage in dollars to that structure based on a flood that deep.
Image Courtesy of FEMA
Good or Bad for Property Values
Not everyone will like these ideas. Some might say they could affect property values negatively. But they also could affect property values positively. How? By giving people valuable information they need to protect themselves.
For instance, some people may feel they don’t need flood insurance. Two thirds of the people flooded in Harvey felt that way. But seeing those brightly colored markers dangling at the height of a basketball hoop could motivate you to get flood insurance. And that could protect your neighborhood from abandoned, derelict homes like we still see all over Houston five years after Harvey. All said, I’d personally rather know than not know.
These best practices could help in another way, too – by motivating home and business owners to keep up the pressure on political leaders to mitigate flood risk. Going a few years without a flood can lull people into believing their risk has been mitigated when it hasn’t.
Personalizing Risk
Getting a couple feet of water in my house sounds bad. But losing $168,700 dollars in the process really grabs my attention!
If you saved $200 dollars per month, it would take 500 months (41.6 years) to save just $100,000. During that time, you would have a 34.2% chance of experiencing a hundred year flood. Yep! More than one in three! Check out this flood risk calculator by the National Weather Service.
That kind of knowledge makes people think much harder about how much flood risk they take on.
MAAPnext Will Provide Similar Information
Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) currently has an ongoing effort called MAAPnext. It will provide similar information to residents in Harris County.
However, FEMA is reportedly still vetting all the LIDAR data and calculations. FEMA should release the new information sometime this year. They will not pin a date down closer than that.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/27/23
2036 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230322-Screenshot-2023-03-22-at-10.50.28-AM.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=16751200adminadmin2023-03-27 18:32:562023-03-27 18:32:57Three Flood-Mitigation Best Practices That Could Help Houston Region
Jeff Lindner, Harris County’s Meteorologist, has produced an excellent 20-minute video that explains flooding in Southeast Texas and how you can increase your situational awareness during extreme weather events. It’s now on YouTube and is called “Understanding Flooding in Southeast Texas.”
By Jeff Lindner, Harris County Meteorologist
Brief Outline of Video
The video begins with a description of things that make this area unique – namely extreme rainfall on flat topography.
Then Lindner begins by reminding us of extreme rainfalls, such as Tropical Storm Claudette in 1979 which set the U.S. 24-hour rainfall record – 43 inches in one day! To put that in perspective, it took Hurricane Harvey FOUR days to dump 47.4 inches.
Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 dumped 28.5 inches in just 12-hours. It turns out that…
Six of the ten wettest tropical cyclones ever to strike the US mainland struck Southeast Texas!
Jeff Lindner, Harris County Meteorologist
Video is signed for hearing impaired
Then the video:
Defines watersheds, describes local watersheds, and explains how water flows throughout Harris and surrounding counties
Discusses ponding and sheet-flow flooding, unrelated to watersheds
Explains how streets are designed as part of the floodwater retention system
Talks about the Harris County Flood Warning System and the distribution of gages in surrounding counties
Digs into some of the System’s features, such as Near-Real-Time Inundation Mapping
Tells you how sign up for Notification Alerts and explains different types of alerts you can set
Reviews the limitations of home insurance and flood insurance policies.
Who Can Benefit from Watching?
Many types of people can benefit from watching this video:
People new to the area
Young people
Anyone buying property or new homes
Long-term residents who have had close calls during previous floods
Those without flood insurance or those considering buying it.
Regarding insurance, Lindner reminds us that it takes 30-days for flood insurance to go into effect and that you can’t buy flood insurance when there’s a named storm in the Gulf. So the time to buy it is well before hurricane season, which starts on June 1.
It’s also important to remember that flooding can happen in non-tropical storms that occur in virtually any month of the year. Tax Day and Memorial Day storms are good examples. The Tax Day storm dumped 23.5 inches of rain in 12-hours!
Of the 154,170 estimated homes that flooded across Harris County during Harvey, only 36% had active flood insurance policies in place the day before the storm struck…64% did not have flood insurance.
If you think that government disaster relief will make you whole soon after a flood, think again. Five and a half years after Harvey, people are still waiting for aid or in the process of rebuilding their homes.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/26/2023
2035 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Screenshot-2023-03-26-at-2.02.12-PM.png?fit=1614%2C798&ssl=17981614adminadmin2023-03-26 14:23:452023-03-26 14:23:47Intro to Flooding in Southeast Texas
$750 Million Flood Plan Ignores Flood Risk, Public
Twenty-two months after learning it would receive $750 million from the US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Texas General Land Office (GLO) for Harvey Flood Mitigation, Harris County Commissioners finally approved a Method of Distribution (MOD) for the money on 3/14/23.
The MOD must be approved by the GLO and HUD before the county can begin spending the money. However, the plan virtually ignores flood risk and public comments.
What Happened to Flood-Risk Reduction?
The basic purpose of the HUD money, administered by GLO, is to reduce flood risk. The word “risk” appears 490 times in the MOD submission. Only one problem!
The proposed project scoring matrices never mention “risk,” at least not directly.
The plan contains one scoring matrix for Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) Projects and another for Partnership Projects.
HCFCD Projects
For the portion of the money going to the Harris County Flood-Control District, the MOD bases funding on:
Unfortunately, giving weight to damages as opposed to risk, gives the same weight to areas that have already been mitigated as it does to areas that have not received a penny.
The MOD also says distribution of flood-control funds will be governed by the Equity Prioritization Framework (even though it doesn’t explain how). The 2022 version of that Framework gives 20% weight in scoring projects to “Existing Conditions.” Existing Conditions refer to the capacity of a channel to manage flood events of different intensities. But that’s as close as the MOD comes to addressing flood risk in project scoring.
Watersheds with a majority LMI population have roughly a billion dollars worth of uncompleted 2018 flood bond projects. With roughly a half billion of the $750 million going to HCFCD, the LMI and SVI requirements put on that portion of the money virtually guarantee that none will be left for more affluent watersheds.
So even though HUD and GLO rules allow 50% of the money to be spent in more affluent watersheds, the criteria adopted by Commissioner’s Court will likely preclude any of the money going there.
Partnership Projects
The portion of the money going to Partnership Projects has slightly different criteria. But that matrix also includes NO references to flood risk. It scores projects based on:
Nowhere did the plan provide direct comparisons of flood risk so that areas with the highest risk could be addressed first. Neither did the plan address flood severity. Thus, areas already mitigated that got one inch of flooding will rank as high as unmitigated areas that got 20 feet.
Virtually No One Happy
The Harris County Community Resilience Flood Task Force submitted a letter strongly prioritizing flood-risk reduction. That got ignored as were most of the 235 pages of other public comments submitted.
Virtually no one seemed happy with the plan or the fairness of the distribution of money.
The county did not bother to respond directly to those who took the time to study the plan and submit comments. However, it did provide responses within the plan itself.
To paraphrase one of the generic responses: “Thank you for your comment. Here’s what we’re going to do. The GLO encourages regional and countywide investments in flood mitigation. But we’re prioritizing population in low income and socially vulnerable areas.”
Harris County has already spent $1.7 billion on flood mitigation since Harvey – the vast majority of it in LMI areas. There’s no hint of spreading the $750 million around to other areas.
Transparency Issues Also a Problem
The Harris County Community Services Department (CSD) will manage this money. But CSD has a serious transparency problem.
CSD’s lack of transparency was a major theme in the hundreds of pages of public comments.
What Next for Flood-Bond Projects in Outlying Areas?
With virtually all of the HUD money going to LMI areas, and with not enough money left in the flood bond to finish all the projects, Judge Lina Hidalgo and Commissioners Rodney Ellis and Adrian Garcia owe us an explanation. How do they intend to fulfill the County’s promise to voters who approved the 2018 Flood Bond thinking they would get something out of it?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/29/2023
2038 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Three Flood-Mitigation Best Practices That Could Help Houston Region
On 3/22/23, I attended a lunchtime seminar on flood-mitigation best practices hosted by FEMA Region 3 (Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC). The topics covered included building hazard-mitigation plans, resiliency hubs, and flood awareness programs.
The seminar showed dozens of excellent thought-provoking ideas – too many to list in one post. But three in the last category (awareness) really jumped out at me. I will share them below.
It Was How Deep!
This bright display below in a little pocket park shows the depth of flooding during historical and statistical (i.e., 100-year and 500-year) floods. The historical floods go back to 1937.
That will certainly keep people from forgetting.
How Deep Could It Get at My Home or Business?
Flood Depth Grids are a related idea. They go far beyond the types of flood maps we currently rely on that show flood frequency zones, like the 100-year (1% annual chance) flood zone. These answer the question, “How deep would the water get in a 100-year flood?” In this case, 2.88 feet of water would invade the building shown beneath the pointer.
This gives people additional useful information they can use to protect their homes and businesses from flood losses. For instance, how high do I need to elevate my home? Or how high do I need to elevate critical machinery used in my business? That’s far more useful than just knowing whether you’re in a zone that has a 1% annual chance of flooding.
How Much Damage Could I Expect?
The flood-mitigation best practice took that flood-depth information to the next level. It answers the question, “If we get a 100-year flood, how much damage would it do to my structure?”
The screen capture below shows a highlighted home on the right. The box on the left shows the assessed value of that home. And at the bottom in blue, it shows the estimated damage in dollars to that structure based on a flood that deep.
Good or Bad for Property Values
Not everyone will like these ideas. Some might say they could affect property values negatively. But they also could affect property values positively. How? By giving people valuable information they need to protect themselves.
For instance, some people may feel they don’t need flood insurance. Two thirds of the people flooded in Harvey felt that way. But seeing those brightly colored markers dangling at the height of a basketball hoop could motivate you to get flood insurance. And that could protect your neighborhood from abandoned, derelict homes like we still see all over Houston five years after Harvey. All said, I’d personally rather know than not know.
These best practices could help in another way, too – by motivating home and business owners to keep up the pressure on political leaders to mitigate flood risk. Going a few years without a flood can lull people into believing their risk has been mitigated when it hasn’t.
Personalizing Risk
Getting a couple feet of water in my house sounds bad. But losing $168,700 dollars in the process really grabs my attention!
If you saved $200 dollars per month, it would take 500 months (41.6 years) to save just $100,000. During that time, you would have a 34.2% chance of experiencing a hundred year flood. Yep! More than one in three! Check out this flood risk calculator by the National Weather Service.
That kind of knowledge makes people think much harder about how much flood risk they take on.
MAAPnext Will Provide Similar Information
Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) currently has an ongoing effort called MAAPnext. It will provide similar information to residents in Harris County.
However, FEMA is reportedly still vetting all the LIDAR data and calculations. FEMA should release the new information sometime this year. They will not pin a date down closer than that.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/27/23
2036 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Intro to Flooding in Southeast Texas
Jeff Lindner, Harris County’s Meteorologist, has produced an excellent 20-minute video that explains flooding in Southeast Texas and how you can increase your situational awareness during extreme weather events. It’s now on YouTube and is called “Understanding Flooding in Southeast Texas.”
Brief Outline of Video
The video begins with a description of things that make this area unique – namely extreme rainfall on flat topography.
Then Lindner begins by reminding us of extreme rainfalls, such as Tropical Storm Claudette in 1979 which set the U.S. 24-hour rainfall record – 43 inches in one day! To put that in perspective, it took Hurricane Harvey FOUR days to dump 47.4 inches.
Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 dumped 28.5 inches in just 12-hours. It turns out that…
Then the video:
Who Can Benefit from Watching?
Many types of people can benefit from watching this video:
Regarding insurance, Lindner reminds us that it takes 30-days for flood insurance to go into effect and that you can’t buy flood insurance when there’s a named storm in the Gulf. So the time to buy it is well before hurricane season, which starts on June 1.
It’s also important to remember that flooding can happen in non-tropical storms that occur in virtually any month of the year. Tax Day and Memorial Day storms are good examples. The Tax Day storm dumped 23.5 inches of rain in 12-hours!
Of the 154,170 estimated homes that flooded across Harris County during Harvey, only 36% had active flood insurance policies in place the day before the storm struck…64% did not have flood insurance.
If you think that government disaster relief will make you whole soon after a flood, think again. Five and a half years after Harvey, people are still waiting for aid or in the process of rebuilding their homes.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/26/2023
2035 Days since Hurricane Harvey