Today, at a meeting of the Harris County Flood Resilience Task Force, Vanessa Toro of the County Judge’s Office and Leah Chambers, Principal of consulting firm Outside Voices presented several slides about flooding and flood-mitigation efforts in Harris County that you might find interesting. Their presentation started with a series of slides that illuminated the history of flooding in Harris County; types of flooding; mitigation challenges, and mitigation efforts currently underway.
Historical Flooding and Mitigation
The first four slides address historical flooding and build on each other.
Selected historical milestones show dates and damage from several major storms in the last 20 years.
The next slide shows the major challenges in each epoch.
The third shows major mitigation efforts over time.
The dotted line shows spending by Harris County to help control flooding.
Different Types of Flooding Throughout County
The presentation then went into examples of the different types of flooding we experience. While river and bayou flooding are important to the Lake Houston Area, in other parts of the county, street flooding is a bigger issue. During high intensity rainfalls, water can’t get to the bayous.
Down in the southern part of the county, coastal flooding from storm surge is the main concern.
Each type of flooding requires different mitigation strategies.
For instance:
Flood professionals often address river- and bayou-flooding with detention ponds and channel widening.
Street flooding may require better maintenance of ditches, bigger storm drains and wider storm sewers.
Coastal flooding may require dikes and better building codes that elevate homes higher.
Key Challenges with Flood Mitigation
The presentation then segued into key challenges we face and how the county is trying to address them.
The first slide in this section discussed incomplete knowledge.
For instance, FEMA’s flood maps measure river, bayou, major channel and coastal flooding, but not street flooding, which is a major problem in the inner city. Hopefully, the next generation of flood maps (See MAAPNext) will help address that.
There’s a feeling that large scale infrastructure projects by themselves will not solve our flooding problems. Various groups within the county are looking at ways to supplement them. The engineer’s office is looking at subdivision drainage. Several other groups are collaborating to explore nature based solutions, flood proofing, and more.
The title of the slide above refers to difficulty of coordinating flood-control efforts across complex jurisdictional boundaries.
Different areas have different priorities, needs and timetables. No one understands that better than those who live near county lines. For instance, upstream counties often use lax regulation and enforcement as a way to entice developers – much to the detriment of those who live downstream.
Flood Resilience Efforts Now Underway
While the 2018 flood bond gets all the publicity, it’s certainly not the only Harris County effort underway to mitigate flooding. The slide below shows the variety of efforts.
They include:
The Community Flood Resilience Task Force, a group designed to give voice to communities in developing the next generation of flood mitigation efforts.
MAAPNext to update flood maps, incorporate the more data sources, and make flood-risk easier to understand.
Resilience Actions Inventory, an ongoing effort to catalog resilience initiatives, projects and programs throughout the county.
Infrastructure Resilience Team – an interdepartmental team planning resilience projects. It includes: Flood Control, Engineering, Community Services, Public Health, Emergency Management, and the Toll Road Authority.
New departments, such as the Office of Sustainability and the Deputy County Administrator for Resilience and Infrastructure.
The ongoing Capital Improvement and Maintenance budgets of HCFCD.
All these efforts may not mesh like the gears in a Swiss watch. At least not today. But it’s good to know that efforts are underway on more than one front.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 9/25/2021 based on information from the Harris County Judge’s Office
1788 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/CFRTF-Retreat-Slides-Subset_092521_Page_14.jpg?fit=1500%2C844&ssl=18441500adminadmin2021-09-25 18:20:002021-09-25 18:35:00Update on Harris County Flood Mitigation Efforts
Hurricane Nicholas likely affected the schedule with the twin needs to secure equipment and lower the lake.
Regardless, when I put up a drone today, I found good news. The dredging is now much closer to the east fork than the west.
Dredging has now reached homes in Royal Shores. Looking south toward FM1960and Lake Houston.
Looking east toward the East Fork. Dredging should break through in about another 1000 feet, the width of another six or seven homes.
Assuming the City can maintain a pace of 200 feet per week, that would put crews in the East Fork by the end of October.
Distance dredged in three weeks since last update on August 28th.
Looking west. At present, there appear to be two crews working. Note one still way out near the west fork, widening or deepening the channelnear where they started in mid-July.
This certainly is one of the most beautiful parts of Houston for those who can afford to live with the flood risk.
Proposals for Long-Range Dredging Plan Due Today
A damage map compiled shortly after Harvey showed that 1290 Harris County homes flooded in the East Fork watershed.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/20210923-DJI_0475-2.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=18001200adminadmin2021-09-23 16:39:092021-09-23 19:08:06Dredging Now Closer to East Fork Than West
Tuesday, City of Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Houston Housing and Community Development Director Tom McCasland got into a verbal brawl over alleged improprieties in the distribution of Harvey relief funds.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner photographed in February of 2020.
The Mayor overrode the recommendations of McCasland and his staff, who pointed out that $16.2 million could have created four times the number of affordable units in poorer neighborhoods. Those projects all scored higher in the competition for funding.
General Land Office Response
Brittany Eck, a spokesperson for the Texas General Land Office (GLO), issued a statement within hours. She said, “The GLO is looking into the serious allegations of fraud or corruption regarding projects by the City of Houston’s Harvey Multifamily Program. The GLO is responsible for ensuring all money allocated through the Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) are spent appropriately. These projects and funds are intended to be utilized to aid the greatest number of low-income Texans as possible.”
Eck continued: “As such, we will re-review all requests for funding draws allocated to the City of Houston by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The GLO will coordinate with HUD and other investigative entities to determine what actions should follow regarding these allegations. Fraud has no place in helping Texans recover from disaster.”
She concluded, “Anyone with information relating to potential fraud, waste, and/or abuse is encouraged to report it by calling 1-844-893-8937 or emailing cdr@recovery.texas.gov.”
Mayor’s Response
According to multiple news reports and a press release from the Mayor’s Office, Turner denied specific knowledge of the deal with his former law partner. He claimed there was no impropriety, that McCasland had raised no objections to the deal, and that he (Turner) had the right as Mayor to override McCasland’s objections.
The Mayor also asserted he was trying “to place affordable housing projects throughout the City…” Finally, he claimed he severed all ties with his former law partner before assuming his position as Mayor.
McCasland’s Point of View
McCasland insisted this was not the first time the Mayor’s office interfered. The Houston Chronicle, which broke the story, said “McCasland acknowledged the Mayor has the authority to overturn staff recommendations, but McCasland argued that in this case it represented a subversion of a competitive process to benefit one applicant.
McCasland said he was not alleging fraud, but said the pattern of behavior was emblematic of a broader problem in Turner’s administration, a “do-it-because-I-said-so” management style. McCasland did say that drives out public servants dedicated to integrity and breeds a “culture for corruption.”
Further, the Chronicle article quoted McCasland as saying he briefed the Mayor August 17 and again on August 24.
McCasland said the Clear Lake complex (Huntington at Bay Area) ranked 8th out of 12 proposals, and had the lowest percentage (60%) of its units reserved for low income tenants.
Note McCasland’s comments on page 4. He claims “The outcome of that process was predetermined before the funding opportunity was even issued.”
If you don’t read anything else, skip to the last page. It’s an email from McCasland to the Mayor dated September 17. In it, he summarizes all his objections to the Clear Lake deal. That would seem to contradict the Mayor’s claim that McCasland did not register his objections.
Mayor Fires McCasland
McCasland said to City Council, “I am being forced to participate in a charade that this was a competitive process, when I know it was not a competitive process. That’s the problem here and I’m being forced to ask my teammates to participate in that charade and that is not something that we can do and that is not something that we will do.”
According to those who watched the gripping testimony in City Council, it was like watching someone commit career suicide. By the end of the day, the Mayor issued a terse press release. He denied McCasland’s allegations, said he had lost confidence in McCasland, and that it was time to move on.
Why All of a Sudden?
The big question is this: Why now? McCasland and his embattled department have been under fire for years:
Coming forward when he did – as he did – almost felt like a Law & Order episode in which the DA flipped a witness with a promise of immunity. Some veteran City Hall observers felt McCasland was being unusually frank and fearless for someone at the center of such a huge mess. If there was a pattern of ethics violations, why wait years before objecting to them?
Mayor Likely Overstepped Authority
Both McCasland and the Mayor said the Mayor had the right to overturn staff decisions. But Eck pointed out the Mayor did not have the power to “rewrite” the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) to favor one applicant; any project selected must meet federal regulations.
She said that had the City written the NOFA to favor affluent neighborhoods, and had HUD and the GLO approved it that way, there would be no problem at this point. However, the City did not do that.
From McCasland’s report and the documentation provided, it appears the City’s award went against the scoring system laid out in the published NOFA, resulting in a competition that was not full, fair and open. The result led applicants to believe their projects would be considered against one criterion when other unknown criteria were actually utilized.
We now know the City awarded the project to a former partner of the Mayor in a high-income area…ignoring the posted and approved scoring system. In that regard, the Mayor evidently overstepped his authority.
The GLO has been in touch with HUD, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, Gov. Greg Abbott’s office and the Department of Public Safety, according to Eck.
KTRK’s Ted Oberg said DPS would only be involved to investigate criminal matters.
Brown, who audits City projects, continued, “In the past several months alone, our office has been denied procurement documents required to conduct an audit of the Strategic Procurement Department and were told to stop all work on a financial transparency project that would bring much-needed insight into the city’s spending practices. Taxpayers deserve a city government that is transparent and above reproach. Unfortunately, recent events suggest that the city is falling short of that goal.”
Posted by Bob Rehak on 9/22/2021
1485 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/2020/02/20191017-RJR_3755.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=18001200adminadmin2021-09-22 22:05:092021-09-23 11:27:43Blowup Between Mayor and Housing Director Triggers Fraud Investigation over Harvey Funds
Update on Harris County Flood Mitigation Efforts
Today, at a meeting of the Harris County Flood Resilience Task Force, Vanessa Toro of the County Judge’s Office and Leah Chambers, Principal of consulting firm Outside Voices presented several slides about flooding and flood-mitigation efforts in Harris County that you might find interesting. Their presentation started with a series of slides that illuminated the history of flooding in Harris County; types of flooding; mitigation challenges, and mitigation efforts currently underway.
Historical Flooding and Mitigation
The first four slides address historical flooding and build on each other.
Different Types of Flooding Throughout County
The presentation then went into examples of the different types of flooding we experience. While river and bayou flooding are important to the Lake Houston Area, in other parts of the county, street flooding is a bigger issue. During high intensity rainfalls, water can’t get to the bayous.
Down in the southern part of the county, coastal flooding from storm surge is the main concern.
Each type of flooding requires different mitigation strategies.
For instance:
Key Challenges with Flood Mitigation
The presentation then segued into key challenges we face and how the county is trying to address them.
The first slide in this section discussed incomplete knowledge.
For instance, FEMA’s flood maps measure river, bayou, major channel and coastal flooding, but not street flooding, which is a major problem in the inner city. Hopefully, the next generation of flood maps (See MAAPNext) will help address that.
There’s a feeling that large scale infrastructure projects by themselves will not solve our flooding problems. Various groups within the county are looking at ways to supplement them. The engineer’s office is looking at subdivision drainage. Several other groups are collaborating to explore nature based solutions, flood proofing, and more.
The title of the slide above refers to difficulty of coordinating flood-control efforts across complex jurisdictional boundaries.
Different areas have different priorities, needs and timetables. No one understands that better than those who live near county lines. For instance, upstream counties often use lax regulation and enforcement as a way to entice developers – much to the detriment of those who live downstream.
Flood Resilience Efforts Now Underway
While the 2018 flood bond gets all the publicity, it’s certainly not the only Harris County effort underway to mitigate flooding. The slide below shows the variety of efforts.
They include:
All these efforts may not mesh like the gears in a Swiss watch. At least not today. But it’s good to know that efforts are underway on more than one front.
For a high-resolution PDF of the PowerPoint, click here.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 9/25/2021 based on information from the Harris County Judge’s Office
1788 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Dredging Now Closer to East Fork Than West
On July 9, the City of Houston announced a plan to dredge its way from the West Fork San Jacinto to the East Fork through a narrow channel south of Royal Shores in Kingwood. Since then, I’ve been tracking the progress. Between July 11 and August 28, the dredging moved about 1,200 feet east, or about 200 feet per week. But in the last three and a half weeks, the pace has slowed to less than 150 feet per week.
Dredging Pace Slowed During Nicholas
Hurricane Nicholas likely affected the schedule with the twin needs to secure equipment and lower the lake.
Regardless, when I put up a drone today, I found good news. The dredging is now much closer to the east fork than the west.
Assuming the City can maintain a pace of 200 feet per week, that would put crews in the East Fork by the end of October.
Proposals for Long-Range Dredging Plan Due Today
A damage map compiled shortly after Harvey showed that 1290 Harris County homes flooded in the East Fork watershed.
Since then, a significant mouth bar has built up on the East Fork, potentially putting even more homes at risk.
The submission deadline for vendors to submit their qualifications for the development of a long-range dredging plan is today. Stay tuned for more news as it becomes available.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 9.23.21
1486 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Blowup Between Mayor and Housing Director Triggers Fraud Investigation over Harvey Funds
Tuesday, City of Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Houston Housing and Community Development Director Tom McCasland got into a verbal brawl over alleged improprieties in the distribution of Harvey relief funds.
The trigger was the award of $15 million to build a Clear Lake multi-family housing complex in which the Mayor’s former law partner is a co-developer. (Here is the group’s full application.)
The Mayor overrode the recommendations of McCasland and his staff, who pointed out that $16.2 million could have created four times the number of affordable units in poorer neighborhoods. Those projects all scored higher in the competition for funding.
General Land Office Response
Brittany Eck, a spokesperson for the Texas General Land Office (GLO), issued a statement within hours. She said, “The GLO is looking into the serious allegations of fraud or corruption regarding projects by the City of Houston’s Harvey Multifamily Program. The GLO is responsible for ensuring all money allocated through the Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) are spent appropriately. These projects and funds are intended to be utilized to aid the greatest number of low-income Texans as possible.”
Eck continued: “As such, we will re-review all requests for funding draws allocated to the City of Houston by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The GLO will coordinate with HUD and other investigative entities to determine what actions should follow regarding these allegations. Fraud has no place in helping Texans recover from disaster.”
She concluded, “Anyone with information relating to potential fraud, waste, and/or abuse is encouraged to report it by calling 1-844-893-8937 or emailing cdr@recovery.texas.gov.”
Mayor’s Response
According to multiple news reports and a press release from the Mayor’s Office, Turner denied specific knowledge of the deal with his former law partner. He claimed there was no impropriety, that McCasland had raised no objections to the deal, and that he (Turner) had the right as Mayor to override McCasland’s objections.
The Mayor also asserted he was trying “to place affordable housing projects throughout the City…” Finally, he claimed he severed all ties with his former law partner before assuming his position as Mayor.
McCasland’s Point of View
McCasland insisted this was not the first time the Mayor’s office interfered. The Houston Chronicle, which broke the story, said “McCasland acknowledged the Mayor has the authority to overturn staff recommendations, but McCasland argued that in this case it represented a subversion of a competitive process to benefit one applicant.
McCasland said he was not alleging fraud, but said the pattern of behavior was emblematic of a broader problem in Turner’s administration, a “do-it-because-I-said-so” management style. McCasland did say that drives out public servants dedicated to integrity and breeds a “culture for corruption.”
Further, the Chronicle article quoted McCasland as saying he briefed the Mayor August 17 and again on August 24.
McCasland said the Clear Lake complex (Huntington at Bay Area) ranked 8th out of 12 proposals, and had the lowest percentage (60%) of its units reserved for low income tenants.
Here’s a 77-page document that catalogs nine months of correspondence between McCasland, MST (Mayor Sylvester Turner) and their staffs regarding the controversial project.
Note McCasland’s comments on page 4. He claims “The outcome of that process was predetermined before the funding opportunity was even issued.”
If you don’t read anything else, skip to the last page. It’s an email from McCasland to the Mayor dated September 17. In it, he summarizes all his objections to the Clear Lake deal. That would seem to contradict the Mayor’s claim that McCasland did not register his objections.
Mayor Fires McCasland
McCasland said to City Council, “I am being forced to participate in a charade that this was a competitive process, when I know it was not a competitive process. That’s the problem here and I’m being forced to ask my teammates to participate in that charade and that is not something that we can do and that is not something that we will do.”
According to those who watched the gripping testimony in City Council, it was like watching someone commit career suicide. By the end of the day, the Mayor issued a terse press release. He denied McCasland’s allegations, said he had lost confidence in McCasland, and that it was time to move on.
Why All of a Sudden?
The big question is this: Why now? McCasland and his embattled department have been under fire for years:
Coming forward when he did – as he did – almost felt like a Law & Order episode in which the DA flipped a witness with a promise of immunity. Some veteran City Hall observers felt McCasland was being unusually frank and fearless for someone at the center of such a huge mess. If there was a pattern of ethics violations, why wait years before objecting to them?
Mayor Likely Overstepped Authority
Both McCasland and the Mayor said the Mayor had the right to overturn staff decisions. But Eck pointed out the Mayor did not have the power to “rewrite” the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) to favor one applicant; any project selected must meet federal regulations.
She said that had the City written the NOFA to favor affluent neighborhoods, and had HUD and the GLO approved it that way, there would be no problem at this point. However, the City did not do that.
From McCasland’s report and the documentation provided, it appears the City’s award went against the scoring system laid out in the published NOFA, resulting in a competition that was not full, fair and open. The result led applicants to believe their projects would be considered against one criterion when other unknown criteria were actually utilized.
We now know the City awarded the project to a former partner of the Mayor in a high-income area…ignoring the posted and approved scoring system. In that regard, the Mayor evidently overstepped his authority.
This was not the first time the presence of the Mayor’s former partner in a deal has raised eyebrows and questions. The Houston Chronicle reported in 2018 that several city council members complained about the optics of the partner’s role as a subcontractor for a firm hired to find Harvey victims.
What Next?
The GLO has been in touch with HUD, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, Gov. Greg Abbott’s office and the Department of Public Safety, according to Eck.
KTRK’s Ted Oberg said DPS would only be involved to investigate criminal matters.
Oberg also reported Wednesday that Chris Brown, the city’s controller, said, “This week’s revelations underscore an ongoing pattern concerning procurement processes and a continued lack of transparency at City Hall.”
Brown, who audits City projects, continued, “In the past several months alone, our office has been denied procurement documents required to conduct an audit of the Strategic Procurement Department and were told to stop all work on a financial transparency project that would bring much-needed insight into the city’s spending practices. Taxpayers deserve a city government that is transparent and above reproach. Unfortunately, recent events suggest that the city is falling short of that goal.”
Posted by Bob Rehak on 9/22/2021
1485 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.