Ever wonder where your tax and flood-bond dollars go? Harris County Flood Control District shows all its active projects on one page. You can review those projects in tabular form or on a map. You can even click on links to learn more about each project. Or explore it in depth by going to its related “watershed” page.
Active maintenance (orange) and capital (purple) flood mitigation projects in Harris Countyas of 1/4/22 shown against backdrop of precinct boundaries adopted on 10/28/21.Purple = P1, Green = P2, Red = P3, Yellow = P4.
Paragon of Transparency
HCFCD’s Active Projects page is a paragon of government transparency. You can even switch out base maps to see where the projects fall in terms of the old or new precinct boundaries approved on October 28, 2021.
One side benefit of the two base maps is that they give you a clear, unambiguous view of the redistricting boundaries.
Zoom far enough in on the map and you can even see your street, home, and the drainage features around you (streams, channels, storm sewers, etc).
Physically seeing work in progress is difficult. Construction zones are dangerous and often fenced off or hidden behind trees. They’re also so large that seeing them from an entrance at ground level is almost impossible.
The good news: the projects almost always include hike and bike trails, like the one below, which you can enjoy upon completion.
However, if you want to monitor work in progress, your best bet is a drone.
Good News from Commissioners Court Today
Commissioner Tom Ramsey introduced a motion to affirm Commissioners’ intentions to complete all projects in the flood bond. Despite several previous attempts to cancel projects and change bond priorities, commissioners voted unanimously to complete the entire bond package. Ramsey will be the new commissioner for the Lake Houston Area if the Ellis-3 redistricting plan survives court challenges. See the sprawling red area on the map above.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/4/2022
1589 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/HCFCD-Actived-Project-Map-12.21.jpg?fit=1200%2C793&ssl=17931200adminadmin2022-01-04 16:43:232022-01-04 16:48:56How to Find HCFCD’s Active Projects in Your Area
The Preserve at Woodridge is a novel single-family-home rental development going in off Woodridge Parkway between St. Martha Church and Kingwood Park High School. As with Woodridge Village, on the other side of the high school, the developer claimed the property was in no known flood zone. Even though it’s just outside the pre-Atlas 14 flood zones for Ben’s Branch, those zones are based on 40% less rainfall than the current standard for the Kingwood Area.
The Developer’s plansshow this note about floodplains on virtually every page.Atlas 14 was implemented in 2018.
A major drainage ditch also runs along one side of the development and contributes to flooding along Northpark Drive almost annually. I owned property on the other side of that ditch for 20 years and can attest to frequent flooding.
And even though runoff calculations are based on Atlas 14 estimates, those estimates are based on Conroe’s rainfall which gets about 10% less than Kingwood (48 vs. 53 inches).
The ditch in question was developed for what is now the high school. The earliest photo of it in Google Earth dates to 1995. Around 2008, the ditch was extended to handle drainage from Woodridge Forest. The developer’s plans do not specify the capacity of the ditch as far as I can see.
Hundreds of homeowners next to Woodridge Village in Elm Grove, North Kingwood Forest, Sherwood Trails and Porter subsequently flooded twice in May and September of 2019. They wound up suing Perry Homes, its subsidiaries and contractors, including LJA. Those cases recently settled.
The area immediately south of the Preserve at Woodridge includes approximately 40 businesses along Northpark Drive, the high school, St. Martha’s school, two churches, and dozens of homes in North Woodland Hills.
Let’s hope the engineers got this one right. Claiming “no floodplains” based on pre-Atlas 14 data and an old ditch whose level of service has diminished over time does not inspire confidence. How do they know for sure it won’t flood? But that’s not the only worry.
Rental Homes As Small as Studio Apartments
Guefen, the developer says it plans to build 131 homes on the 17 acres you see below. But the detention pond takes up five acres. That makes about 11 homes per acre of usable land with about 5 feet between many homes. You can see how close they are in the photo below.
First foundations going in (lower left). Photo taken on 12/31/2021.
Reverse angle shot shows 5 acre detention pond on 17 acre development. Ditch in foreground joins Ben’s Branch north of Northpark Drive.
Foundation forms in NW corner of subdivision along Woodridge Parkway.See corresponding plans below.Note how three of these homes could fit in the back yard of the home in the upper right corner of the photo.
Five of the eight homes above will have access only by sidewalks, not streets.
The same holds true for most of the homes in the subdivision.
In case of an emergency, that firetruck may be parking 250 feet away from some homes. That’s almost the length of a football field.
According to RentCafe.com, the average size of an apartment in Houston is 881 square feet. These detached rental homes will range in size from 668 square feet to 1,255 square feet. At the low end of that range, the square footage is about that of most studio apartments. For those of you who have never lived in one, a studio apartment hasone big common area that triples as a living room, bedroom, and kitchen. Only the bathroom has walls.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/3/22
1588 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/2022/01/20211231-DJI_0273.jpg?fit=1200%2C799&ssl=17991200adminadmin2022-01-03 19:47:362022-01-04 07:37:53Preserve At Woodridge Claims No Flood Zone; Shades of LJA?
It’s always nice to start the new year by looking at the big picture. And big pictures don’t get much bigger than this. The image below comes from NOAA’s Global Data Explorer. It shows sea surface temperature anomalies in the Pacific and Atlantic. Reds show areas with warmer than normal temperatures. Blues are cooler.
Sea surface temperature anomalies from 12/20/21 to 12/26/21. Source: NOAA.
Degrees of Variation
The dark red areas are a whopping 4-5 degrees Celsius above normal. The dark blues are 3-4 degrees Celsius below normal. It takes 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit to equal 1 degree Celsius. So in terms of the temperature scale that most people in the US use, that’s up to 9 degrees warmer and 7.2 degrees cooler – a 16.2 degree spread.
This helps to explain the record warm December we just had. Houston is in that band of red that stretches across the northern hemisphere. Also notice how red the Gulf of Mexico is.
According to the EPA, an increase in sea surface temperatures can lead to an increase in the amount of atmospheric water vapor over the oceans. “This water vapor feeds weather systems that produce precipitation, increasing the risk of heavy rain and snow.” And we just had extreme snowfalls from the Sierras to the Rockies.
Role of Ocean Currents
Ocean currents help distribute this moisture around the world. According to NOAA, “almost all rain that falls on land starts off in the ocean.”
“Ocean currents act much like a conveyor belt, transporting warm water and precipitation from the equator toward the poles and cold water from the poles back to the tropics,” says NOAA. “Thus, ocean currents regulate global climate, helping to counteract the uneven distribution of solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface. Without currents in the ocean, regional temperatures would be more extreme—super hot at the equator and frigid toward the poles—and much less of Earth’s land would be habitable.”
Cyclical Variation
Sea surface temperatures vary in cyclical, but irregular patterns (roughly every 3-6 years). Right now, we are under the influence of a La Niña pattern, that recurs every few years and can last as long as two years. This page on NOAA’s site explains what causes the changes. They often start with ocean currents veering off course for a period of time or stronger than normal trade winds.
How to Find HCFCD’s Active Projects in Your Area
Ever wonder where your tax and flood-bond dollars go? Harris County Flood Control District shows all its active projects on one page. You can review those projects in tabular form or on a map. You can even click on links to learn more about each project. Or explore it in depth by going to its related “watershed” page.
Paragon of Transparency
HCFCD’s Active Projects page is a paragon of government transparency. You can even switch out base maps to see where the projects fall in terms of the old or new precinct boundaries approved on October 28, 2021.
One side benefit of the two base maps is that they give you a clear, unambiguous view of the redistricting boundaries.
Zoom far enough in on the map and you can even see your street, home, and the drainage features around you (streams, channels, storm sewers, etc).
As of today HCFCD has 64 active projects.
In case you want to see how the map changes from time to time, you can even download a PDF, such as this one from December 2021. Save it for future comparison.
Monitoring Work in Progress
Physically seeing work in progress is difficult. Construction zones are dangerous and often fenced off or hidden behind trees. They’re also so large that seeing them from an entrance at ground level is almost impossible.
The good news: the projects almost always include hike and bike trails, like the one below, which you can enjoy upon completion.
However, if you want to monitor work in progress, your best bet is a drone.
Good News from Commissioners Court Today
Commissioner Tom Ramsey introduced a motion to affirm Commissioners’ intentions to complete all projects in the flood bond. Despite several previous attempts to cancel projects and change bond priorities, commissioners voted unanimously to complete the entire bond package. Ramsey will be the new commissioner for the Lake Houston Area if the Ellis-3 redistricting plan survives court challenges. See the sprawling red area on the map above.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/4/2022
1589 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Preserve At Woodridge Claims No Flood Zone; Shades of LJA?
The Preserve at Woodridge is a novel single-family-home rental development going in off Woodridge Parkway between St. Martha Church and Kingwood Park High School. As with Woodridge Village, on the other side of the high school, the developer claimed the property was in no known flood zone. Even though it’s just outside the pre-Atlas 14 flood zones for Ben’s Branch, those zones are based on 40% less rainfall than the current standard for the Kingwood Area.
A major drainage ditch also runs along one side of the development and contributes to flooding along Northpark Drive almost annually. I owned property on the other side of that ditch for 20 years and can attest to frequent flooding.
And even though runoff calculations are based on Atlas 14 estimates, those estimates are based on Conroe’s rainfall which gets about 10% less than Kingwood (48 vs. 53 inches).
The ditch in question was developed for what is now the high school. The earliest photo of it in Google Earth dates to 1995. Around 2008, the ditch was extended to handle drainage from Woodridge Forest. The developer’s plans do not specify the capacity of the ditch as far as I can see.
LJA Parallels?
LJA, the engineer for Woodridge Village a block east also claimed “no floodplains.” That claim turned out to be tragically wrong. There were flood plains. They just hadn’t been mapped, like the ditch in question. And LJA used pre-Atlas 14 data in its calculations.
Hundreds of homeowners next to Woodridge Village in Elm Grove, North Kingwood Forest, Sherwood Trails and Porter subsequently flooded twice in May and September of 2019. They wound up suing Perry Homes, its subsidiaries and contractors, including LJA. Those cases recently settled.
The area immediately south of the Preserve at Woodridge includes approximately 40 businesses along Northpark Drive, the high school, St. Martha’s school, two churches, and dozens of homes in North Woodland Hills.
Let’s hope the engineers got this one right. Claiming “no floodplains” based on pre-Atlas 14 data and an old ditch whose level of service has diminished over time does not inspire confidence. How do they know for sure it won’t flood? But that’s not the only worry.
Rental Homes As Small as Studio Apartments
Guefen, the developer says it plans to build 131 homes on the 17 acres you see below. But the detention pond takes up five acres. That makes about 11 homes per acre of usable land with about 5 feet between many homes. You can see how close they are in the photo below.
In case of an emergency, that firetruck may be parking 250 feet away from some homes. That’s almost the length of a football field.
According to RentCafe.com, the average size of an apartment in Houston is 881 square feet. These detached rental homes will range in size from 668 square feet to 1,255 square feet. At the low end of that range, the square footage is about that of most studio apartments. For those of you who have never lived in one, a studio apartment has one big common area that triples as a living room, bedroom, and kitchen. Only the bathroom has walls.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/3/22
1588 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.
Big Picture
It’s always nice to start the new year by looking at the big picture. And big pictures don’t get much bigger than this. The image below comes from NOAA’s Global Data Explorer. It shows sea surface temperature anomalies in the Pacific and Atlantic. Reds show areas with warmer than normal temperatures. Blues are cooler.
Degrees of Variation
The dark red areas are a whopping 4-5 degrees Celsius above normal. The dark blues are 3-4 degrees Celsius below normal. It takes 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit to equal 1 degree Celsius. So in terms of the temperature scale that most people in the US use, that’s up to 9 degrees warmer and 7.2 degrees cooler – a 16.2 degree spread.
This helps to explain the record warm December we just had. Houston is in that band of red that stretches across the northern hemisphere. Also notice how red the Gulf of Mexico is.
According to the EPA, an increase in sea surface temperatures can lead to an increase in the amount of atmospheric water vapor over the oceans. “This water vapor feeds weather systems that produce precipitation, increasing the risk of heavy rain and snow.” And we just had extreme snowfalls from the Sierras to the Rockies.
Role of Ocean Currents
Ocean currents help distribute this moisture around the world. According to NOAA, “almost all rain that falls on land starts off in the ocean.”
“Ocean currents act much like a conveyor belt, transporting warm water and precipitation from the equator toward the poles and cold water from the poles back to the tropics,” says NOAA. “Thus, ocean currents regulate global climate, helping to counteract the uneven distribution of solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface. Without currents in the ocean, regional temperatures would be more extreme—super hot at the equator and frigid toward the poles—and much less of Earth’s land would be habitable.”
Cyclical Variation
Sea surface temperatures vary in cyclical, but irregular patterns (roughly every 3-6 years). Right now, we are under the influence of a La Niña pattern, that recurs every few years and can last as long as two years. This page on NOAA’s site explains what causes the changes. They often start with ocean currents veering off course for a period of time or stronger than normal trade winds.
The World Meteorological Association gives this La Niña an 80% chance of lasting through this spring before returning to normal (neutral) conditions.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/1/22
1586 Days since Hurricane Harvey