3/9/2026 – On Tuesday 3/10/26, the UnionPacific Railroad (UPRR) will install new controllers for the Northpark Drive crossing gates. That means the rail crossing AND the Loop 494 intersection with Northpark will be under manual control for most of the day beginning at approximately 8 AM.
TXDoT, UPRR, the City of Houston, and TIRZ-10/LHRA representatives will be onsite to supervise the operation.
Watch for Flagmen and Police
In place of the railroad crossing gates, two flagmen, two motorcycle police officers, and four other police officers will shuttle traffic through the intersection and across the tracks.
Exercise extreme caution and be prepared for sudden stops. Especially if you haven’t had your morning coffee yet.
Ralph De Leon, project manager for the Northpark Expansion project, expected the operation could go 6 to 8 hours.
The “cabinet” that will house the controller has already been installed and energized. See red circle on the right below. UPRR needs to move the electronics from the old cabinet on the left to the new one on the right.
Old cabinet (l) is blocking new surface lanes which run across concrete inserts in tracks.
Next, Harper Brothers Construction will finish the new surface lanes across the tracks (see below).
The new surface lanes will connect across those concrete inserts in the tracks. The bridge will cover the center over the tracks and Loop 494.
Additionally, work on temporary signals for the two new feeder roads will begin on March 16th.
Other Northpark News
Excavation of Entry Ponds Restarting
The dirt crew will continue the excavation and grading of the north detention pond for the next two weeks with cement stabilization occurring once final grade is achieved. Then they will install the pond liner and move to the south pond.
Looking E from over US59. More excavation will start on north entry pond (L) first. South pond (R) will go next.
Bridge Construction
Excavation of the retaining wall footings will continue next week east of the railroad tracks. Embankment operations for the bridge header will begin after the retaining wall footings have been poured, and the retaining wall panels have begun being set.
Looking E from over UPRR Tracks. 6-lane bridge will go in center. Two surface lanes for turning traffic will go on either side of bridge.Excavation work has already started on footings for bridge retaining wall. See lower L to upper Center.
A structures crew will mobilize to the project beginning next week to pour the retaining wall footings, then set and build the retaining walls on the east side of the rail tracks.
Medians: Watch Your Tires
Crews are installing “curb pins” in the median of Northpark east side of the railroad tracks. The pins will hold the curbs that separate eastbound from westbound traffic. Do not try to cross between barrels or you could puncture your tires. Cross only at marked crossing locations.
Anderson Road
On March 9th, Anderson Road (the road next to the tracks that splits off south of Northpark) will return to its final configuration. The temporary asphalt placed previously will be removed and the final grading of the ditch will be completed.
Surface Lanes Near UPRR Tracks
The paving crew will continue to work on the paving in front of Extra Space Storage to finish the westbound paving up to the UPRR right of way and in the center of Northpark in front of Sun Auto. See below.
Sun Auto on left. Please patronize local businesses during construction.
Starting on March 23, the paving crew will mobilize to the UPRR ROW to focus on the 4 quadrants of paving up to the UPRR tracks until completed.
A small storm sewer crew will work on the final storm sewer items until the next phase when the UPRR crossings and signals are completed, and traffic is moved to the permanent railroad crossings.
Sidewalks
The sidewalk crew will pave from Russel Palmer to Northpark Christian Church on the outbound side. Then they will pave sidewalk from Marco’s Pizza up to King’s Mill.
Streetlights/Signals
The streetlight crew will continue working on drilling luminaire foundations and luminaire poles.
First of many new street lights started going up along Northpark last week.
The permanent signal work at Russel Palmer Road will begin the week of March 9.
Supports for Bridge
Also starting the week of March 9, the drilling subcontractor will begin drilling the 30″ shafts for the bridge retaining walls. They will also pour concrete for the drill shafts.
3/8/26 – The “Levee Effect” is a term coined decades ago in flood mitigation. Some call it the “Safe Development Paradox.” It explains how total flood damage can rise even though flood probability decreases.
The Basic Mechanism
Think of the word “levee” in this case as synonymous with several forms of flood-control infrastructure including levees, reservoirs, and channelization.
After they are built, flood risk appears to be reduced. Land behind the protection becomes more attractive for development. And property values rise.
As population and infrastructure grow in the protected area, exposure to flooding increases. Then, when an extreme flood exceeds the design capacity, damage is far larger than before the protection existed.
Flooded homes once thought protected by Addicks Reservoir.
The federal government established the Mississippi River Commission in 1879 to deepen the river channel, improve navigation, prevent major flooding, and increase river-based commerce. Against the advice of experts, the commission recommended raising extensive levees along its channels to contain the flow.
After levee construction, large areas of historic floodplain became urbanized. Agricultural and urban investment skyrocketed.
Then came the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States. It inundated 27,000 square miles up to 30 feet over the course of several months in early 1927. About 500 people died and more than 630,000 people were affected.
The river below Memphis reached a width of 80 miles. But Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana were hardest hit. The flooding triggered a great migration from the south to large cities in the north and midwest.
Levees enabled urbanization of flood basins. Today, millions live below river level. Some areas have only a 100-year level of flood protection. Economic exposure reportedly exceeds $100 billion dollars.
Levees let large areas below sea level urbanize. When the levees failed in 2005, so much population and infrastructure had accumulated in the protected basin that the consequences quickly became catastrophic.
Eighty percent of New Orleans, as well as large areas in neighboring parishes, flooded. An estimated 100,000 to 150,000 people remained in the City, despite mandatory evacuation orders.
1,392 people died and damage reached $125 billion. That ties it with Harvey for the costliest tropical cyclone ever in the Atlantic basin.
Video on Levee Effect
This 6-minute, 47-second YouTube video illustrates the levee effect and shows how it can make floods worse by opening up floodplains and wetlands to development. It also shows how levees provide protection…up to a point. But when a storm exceeds that level, the consequences can become catastrophic quickly. It contains a mixture of footage from real-life flood events and table-top models.
Transforming Risk
Levees and other flood-mitigation infrastructure shift risk from frequent, low-impact “nuisance” floods to rare, catastrophic, high-impact events.
They hide the underlying risk by preventing small, regular floods that would otherwise remind people of the danger. And that can make the consequences of a major event far greater.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Flooded-Homes-Addicks-Reservoir.jpg?fit=1200%2C765&ssl=17651200adminadmin2026-03-08 22:00:342026-03-08 22:06:35The Levee Effect: How Flood Damage Can Rise as Flood Probability Decreases
3/7/26 – On 3/5/26 at the Humble Civic Center, the San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA) held the first of three meetings to discuss its Joint Reservoir Operations Study. In several respects, the meeting was a wake-up call:
During Q&A, SJRA learned how impatient the downstream public is for flood-mitigation solutions – 8.5 years after Hurricane Harvey.
Public comments showed that PTSD from flooding still lingers.
The average age of attendees appeared to be in their sixties. Younger homeowners and newcomers to the region who have no memory of flooding were largely absent.
Several comments by speakers suggested upstream residents around Lake Conroe are still resistant to the idea of any “pre-release.”
SJRA has no formal pre-release program anymore. As one speaker said, “There are no designated dates or amounts or anything like that. But we work very closely with City of Houston. They make decisions on what we’d like to do.”
Theory of Pre-Release
The idea behind “pre-release” is to release water ahead of a storm, so a reservoir, such as Lake Conroe or Lake Houston, has additional capacity to absorb incoming floodwater. That can shave flood peaks by spreading out releases over longer periods.
SJRA’s Water Resources and Flood Management Division Manager Matt Barrett, PE, said…
“One of the main objectives of the study is to determine if there are any benefits to pre-releases from Lake Conroe and Lake Houston.”
Studies around the world have proven that pre-releases do have benefits … in certain conditions.
California Department of Water Resources found that “weather-informed reservoir operations” at Lake Oroville and New Bullards Bar Reservoir can further reduce flood risk for communities along the Yuba and Feather rivers during extreme atmospheric river storm events and potentially benefit water supply during drier periods.
Also in California, the Army Corps of Engineers found that “forecast-informed reservoir operations” could increase water supply without increasing flood risk.
In the Delaware River Basin, a “flexible flow management program” mitigates flooding impacts immediately downstream of reservoirs.
A peer-reviewed Journal of Hydrology case study on the Bavarian Danube concluded that coordinated operation of reservoirs in river basins has great potential to improve flood mitigation.
City of Houston Experience
And experience in the San Jacinto River Basin since Harvey has also proven pre-releases have benefits. The City of Houston Public Works Department has documented numerous instances when pre-releases helped prevent downstream flooding, according to Dave Martin, former Houston Mayor Pro Tem.
Pushback from Lake Conroe Association
But pre-release is politically unpopular with Lake Conroe residents. The Lake Conroe Association (LCA) constantly speaks out against it in SJRA board meetings, lawsuits, community meetings, and complaints to the TCEQ. While LCA articulates its concerns as a loss of valuable water, the concerns stem from perceived impacts on recreation and property values.
Iterations of Lake Conroe Pre-Release Strategies
As a result, SJRA has modified its pre-release protocol several times since Harvey.
SJRA then restricted the amounts and durations of the lowering.
Currently, SJRA lowers Lake Conroe on an as-needed basis – days or hours before major storms. They call the strategy “Active Storm Management.”
The City of Houston owns two-thirds of the water in Lake Conroe and can call for as much as it wants, any time it wants. SJRA reportedly would prefer the City continues calling for the water, so that it doesn’t have to take the heat from the Lake Conroe Association.
Clearly, Active Storm Management is a compromise between upstream and downstream interests. But how does SJRA know when and how much to release before a storm. That depends on weather and the certainty of forecasts. How much rain will fall where? How fast? And how much will run off?
Another Study Objective: Forecasting Tool
That’s where another objective of the Joint Reservoir Operations Study comes in: development of a forecasting tool.
Objectives of Joint Reservoir Operations Study
See more details about the forecasting tool below.
The question in my mind is not IF pre-lease is feasible, but WHEN. Clearly, there are some cases where pre-release from Lake Conroe alone does not make sense, i.e., when a storm approaches from the south, as Harvey did and Lake Houston (without its new flood gates) could not release water fast enough to keep up with any release from Conroe. That would just make flooding worse.
But in other situations, i.e., when a storm approaches from the north or northwest, it might make sense – especially after Lake Houston receives its new floodgates. Then you would not be stacking floodwaters from different directions on top of each other.
Scope of Work Associated with Study
The Joint Reservoir Operations Study will also look at past releases from both Lake Houston and Lake Conroe, and use lessons learned to help inform the Lake Houston Gate Operations Policy.
With the data collected, SJRA will develop models that reflect the addition of new gates for the Lake Houston Dam. Then they will evaluate 20 different pre-release scenarios, such as the possibilities mentioned above.
As of this meeting, SJRA had not yet determined which scenarios they would evaluate. However, they will evaluate the consequences on water supply in both lakes.
The worry: if the forecast is wrong and a storm veers away, pre-releases could negatively impact water supply.
Finally, the study will determine the best ways to communicate pre-releases to stakeholders.
The Flow-Forecasting Tool mentioned above will incorporate data from multiple sources, including rainfall, a network of more than 70 stream gages, outflow from Lake Conroe and a model of the watershed. It will inform both gate operations and local officials.
To see the entire presentation, click here. It will help you understand some of the constraints on dam operations including:
Governance of the reservoirs.
Components of Lake Houston Water Supply Operations
Historical floods
Proposed improvements to the Lake Houston Dam
Runoff from sub-watersheds
Differences between water-supply and flood-control reservoirs; Lakes Conroe and Houston are both water-supply reservoirs
Construction differences between the two dams
Next Meetings and More Information
As the study progresses throughout the year, SJRA will hold two more public meetings. A mid-year meeting will be held at Lake Conroe to review progress. And SJRA hopes to reveal the results of the study in The Woodlands before the end of the year.
Even if you can’t make the meetings, SJRA welcomes public comments on the study, flood-risk locations and flood impacts.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/7/26
3112 Days since Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Lake-Conroe-Lake-Houston-Joint-Reservoir-Operations-Study-Public-Meeting-No.-1_Page_20-copy.jpg?fit=1650%2C943&ssl=19431650adminadmin2026-03-07 10:43:212026-03-07 21:54:39SJRA Joint-Reservoir Operations Study Meeting: A Wake-up Call
Northpark Rail Crossing, 494 Intersection Under Manual Control Tuesday
3/9/2026 – On Tuesday 3/10/26, the UnionPacific Railroad (UPRR) will install new controllers for the Northpark Drive crossing gates. That means the rail crossing AND the Loop 494 intersection with Northpark will be under manual control for most of the day beginning at approximately 8 AM.
TXDoT, UPRR, the City of Houston, and TIRZ-10/LHRA representatives will be onsite to supervise the operation.
Watch for Flagmen and Police
In place of the railroad crossing gates, two flagmen, two motorcycle police officers, and four other police officers will shuttle traffic through the intersection and across the tracks.
Exercise extreme caution and be prepared for sudden stops. Especially if you haven’t had your morning coffee yet.
Ralph De Leon, project manager for the Northpark Expansion project, expected the operation could go 6 to 8 hours.
The “cabinet” that will house the controller has already been installed and energized. See red circle on the right below. UPRR needs to move the electronics from the old cabinet on the left to the new one on the right.
Next, Harper Brothers Construction will finish the new surface lanes across the tracks (see below).
Additionally, work on temporary signals for the two new feeder roads will begin on March 16th.
Other Northpark News
Excavation of Entry Ponds Restarting
The dirt crew will continue the excavation and grading of the north detention pond for the next two weeks with cement stabilization occurring once final grade is achieved. Then they will install the pond liner and move to the south pond.
Bridge Construction
Excavation of the retaining wall footings will continue next week east of the railroad tracks. Embankment operations for the bridge header will begin after the retaining wall footings have been poured, and the retaining wall panels have begun being set.
A structures crew will mobilize to the project beginning next week to pour the retaining wall footings, then set and build the retaining walls on the east side of the rail tracks.
Medians: Watch Your Tires
Crews are installing “curb pins” in the median of Northpark east side of the railroad tracks. The pins will hold the curbs that separate eastbound from westbound traffic. Do not try to cross between barrels or you could puncture your tires. Cross only at marked crossing locations.
Anderson Road
On March 9th, Anderson Road (the road next to the tracks that splits off south of Northpark) will return to its final configuration. The temporary asphalt placed previously will be removed and the final grading of the ditch will be completed.
Surface Lanes Near UPRR Tracks
The paving crew will continue to work on the paving in front of Extra Space Storage to finish the westbound paving up to the UPRR right of way and in the center of Northpark in front of Sun Auto. See below.
Starting on March 23, the paving crew will mobilize to the UPRR ROW to focus on the 4 quadrants of paving up to the UPRR tracks until completed.
A small storm sewer crew will work on the final storm sewer items until the next phase when the UPRR crossings and signals are completed, and traffic is moved to the permanent railroad crossings.
Sidewalks
The sidewalk crew will pave from Russel Palmer to Northpark Christian Church on the outbound side. Then they will pave sidewalk from Marco’s Pizza up to King’s Mill.
Streetlights/Signals
The streetlight crew will continue working on drilling luminaire foundations and luminaire poles.
The permanent signal work at Russel Palmer Road will begin the week of March 9.
Supports for Bridge
Also starting the week of March 9, the drilling subcontractor will begin drilling the 30″ shafts for the bridge retaining walls. They will also pour concrete for the drill shafts.
For More Information
For more information, see the project page on the LHRA website and the three-week lookahead schedule.
To ask questions in person, come to the TIRZ board meeting this Thursday March 12 at 8am at the Kingwood Community Center.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/9/2026
3114 Days since Harvey
The Levee Effect: How Flood Damage Can Rise as Flood Probability Decreases
3/8/26 – The “Levee Effect” is a term coined decades ago in flood mitigation. Some call it the “Safe Development Paradox.” It explains how total flood damage can rise even though flood probability decreases.
The Basic Mechanism
Think of the word “levee” in this case as synonymous with several forms of flood-control infrastructure including levees, reservoirs, and channelization.
After they are built, flood risk appears to be reduced. Land behind the protection becomes more attractive for development. And property values rise.
As population and infrastructure grow in the protected area, exposure to flooding increases. Then, when an extreme flood exceeds the design capacity, damage is far larger than before the protection existed.
Classic Examples
Mississippi River Levee System
The federal government established the Mississippi River Commission in 1879 to deepen the river channel, improve navigation, prevent major flooding, and increase river-based commerce. Against the advice of experts, the commission recommended raising extensive levees along its channels to contain the flow.
After levee construction, large areas of historic floodplain became urbanized. Agricultural and urban investment skyrocketed.
Then came the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States. It inundated 27,000 square miles up to 30 feet over the course of several months in early 1927. About 500 people died and more than 630,000 people were affected.
The river below Memphis reached a width of 80 miles. But Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana were hardest hit. The flooding triggered a great migration from the south to large cities in the north and midwest.
Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley, California
Levees enabled urbanization of flood basins. Today, millions live below river level. Some areas have only a 100-year level of flood protection. Economic exposure reportedly exceeds $100 billion dollars.
New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina
Levees let large areas below sea level urbanize. When the levees failed in 2005, so much population and infrastructure had accumulated in the protected basin that the consequences quickly became catastrophic.
Eighty percent of New Orleans, as well as large areas in neighboring parishes, flooded. An estimated 100,000 to 150,000 people remained in the City, despite mandatory evacuation orders.
1,392 people died and damage reached $125 billion. That ties it with Harvey for the costliest tropical cyclone ever in the Atlantic basin.
Video on Levee Effect
This 6-minute, 47-second YouTube video illustrates the levee effect and shows how it can make floods worse by opening up floodplains and wetlands to development. It also shows how levees provide protection…up to a point. But when a storm exceeds that level, the consequences can become catastrophic quickly. It contains a mixture of footage from real-life flood events and table-top models.
Transforming Risk
Levees and other flood-mitigation infrastructure shift risk from frequent, low-impact “nuisance” floods to rare, catastrophic, high-impact events.
They hide the underlying risk by preventing small, regular floods that would otherwise remind people of the danger. And that can make the consequences of a major event far greater.
For More Information
See these scholarly articles:
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/8/2026
3113 Days since Hurricane Harvey
SJRA Joint-Reservoir Operations Study Meeting: A Wake-up Call
3/7/26 – On 3/5/26 at the Humble Civic Center, the San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA) held the first of three meetings to discuss its Joint Reservoir Operations Study. In several respects, the meeting was a wake-up call:
Theory of Pre-Release
The idea behind “pre-release” is to release water ahead of a storm, so a reservoir, such as Lake Conroe or Lake Houston, has additional capacity to absorb incoming floodwater. That can shave flood peaks by spreading out releases over longer periods.
SJRA’s Water Resources and Flood Management Division Manager Matt Barrett, PE, said…
Findings in Other River Basins
Studies around the world have proven that pre-releases do have benefits … in certain conditions.
California Department of Water Resources found that “weather-informed reservoir operations” at Lake Oroville and New Bullards Bar Reservoir can further reduce flood risk for communities along the Yuba and Feather rivers during extreme atmospheric river storm events and potentially benefit water supply during drier periods.
Also in California, the Army Corps of Engineers found that “forecast-informed reservoir operations” could increase water supply without increasing flood risk.
In the Delaware River Basin, a “flexible flow management program” mitigates flooding impacts immediately downstream of reservoirs.
A peer-reviewed Journal of Hydrology case study on the Bavarian Danube concluded that coordinated operation of reservoirs in river basins has great potential to improve flood mitigation.
City of Houston Experience
And experience in the San Jacinto River Basin since Harvey has also proven pre-releases have benefits. The City of Houston Public Works Department has documented numerous instances when pre-releases helped prevent downstream flooding, according to Dave Martin, former Houston Mayor Pro Tem.
Pushback from Lake Conroe Association
But pre-release is politically unpopular with Lake Conroe residents. The Lake Conroe Association (LCA) constantly speaks out against it in SJRA board meetings, lawsuits, community meetings, and complaints to the TCEQ. While LCA articulates its concerns as a loss of valuable water, the concerns stem from perceived impacts on recreation and property values.
Iterations of Lake Conroe Pre-Release Strategies
As a result, SJRA has modified its pre-release protocol several times since Harvey.
The City of Houston owns two-thirds of the water in Lake Conroe and can call for as much as it wants, any time it wants. SJRA reportedly would prefer the City continues calling for the water, so that it doesn’t have to take the heat from the Lake Conroe Association.
Clearly, Active Storm Management is a compromise between upstream and downstream interests. But how does SJRA know when and how much to release before a storm. That depends on weather and the certainty of forecasts. How much rain will fall where? How fast? And how much will run off?
Another Study Objective: Forecasting Tool
That’s where another objective of the Joint Reservoir Operations Study comes in: development of a forecasting tool.
See more details about the forecasting tool below.
The question in my mind is not IF pre-lease is feasible, but WHEN. Clearly, there are some cases where pre-release from Lake Conroe alone does not make sense, i.e., when a storm approaches from the south, as Harvey did and Lake Houston (without its new flood gates) could not release water fast enough to keep up with any release from Conroe. That would just make flooding worse.
But in other situations, i.e., when a storm approaches from the north or northwest, it might make sense – especially after Lake Houston receives its new floodgates. Then you would not be stacking floodwaters from different directions on top of each other.
Scope of Work Associated with Study
The Joint Reservoir Operations Study will also look at past releases from both Lake Houston and Lake Conroe, and use lessons learned to help inform the Lake Houston Gate Operations Policy.
With the data collected, SJRA will develop models that reflect the addition of new gates for the Lake Houston Dam. Then they will evaluate 20 different pre-release scenarios, such as the possibilities mentioned above.
As of this meeting, SJRA had not yet determined which scenarios they would evaluate. However, they will evaluate the consequences on water supply in both lakes.
The worry: if the forecast is wrong and a storm veers away, pre-releases could negatively impact water supply.
Finally, the study will determine the best ways to communicate pre-releases to stakeholders.
The Flow-Forecasting Tool mentioned above will incorporate data from multiple sources, including rainfall, a network of more than 70 stream gages, outflow from Lake Conroe and a model of the watershed. It will inform both gate operations and local officials.
To see the entire presentation, click here. It will help you understand some of the constraints on dam operations including:
Next Meetings and More Information
As the study progresses throughout the year, SJRA will hold two more public meetings. A mid-year meeting will be held at Lake Conroe to review progress. And SJRA hopes to reveal the results of the study in The Woodlands before the end of the year.
For more information, see LCLHJointOps.com.
Even if you can’t make the meetings, SJRA welcomes public comments on the study, flood-risk locations and flood impacts.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/7/26
3112 Days since Harvey