This week, FEMA awarded $3.3 million for the design, engineering and environmental permitting (Phase I) of additional gates for the Lake Houston dam. Under the 75:25 matching terms of the grant, local sources including the City and Harris County will contribute approximately another million bringing the total available for Phase 1 to $4.375 million.
FEMA notified Congressman Dan Crenshaw regarding the award who then notified Houston Council Member Dave Martin. The award comes through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP).
Construction Funding Also Committed But Will Require Confirmation of Cost/Benefit Ratio
FEMA also committed funds for construction, but release of those funds is contingent on confirmation of the cost/benefit analysis after completion of Phase I.
The total award for the City of Houston Lake Houston Dam Spillway Improvement Project Phases I and II comes to $47,170,953.
Of that amount, the Federal share comes to $35,378,214.75 and the Non-Federal Share totals $11,792,738.25. City and Harris County shares of the Non-Federal portion have not yet been determined according to Martin’s office.
Lake Houston Area and Downstream Residents Protected
Congressman Crenshaw announced, “Today, FEMA approved $3.3 million for Phase 1 of the gates at the Lake Houston Dam. These gates will increase the flow out of Lake Houston significantly. This money will ensure that the final design will not impact downstream residents and will provide the anticipated relief to the Lake Houston area. Increasing the conveyance will have positive impacts for the entire San Jacinto watershed including the East Fork and the West Fork. For a community that feels the burden of flooding too often, this is a huge win.”
Mr. Martin has worked to obtain the grant for nearly two years. Martin also played a role in dredging. As part of his press release on the gates, Martin noted that the Army Corps is now half-finished with the 500,000 cubic yards that it intends to remove from the mouth bar between Kings Point and Atascocita Point.
Crenshaw and Martin say they will continue to fight for the removal of even more material from the mouth-bar. They also thanked Governor Abbott, TDEM Chief Kidd, State Senator Creighton, Representative Huberty, Houston Mayor Turner, and Houston Chief Resiliency Officer Costello for their help on the Lake Houston Spillway Dam project.
Martin said, “The Lake Houston Dam gates give us the ability to proactively release water from Lake Houston in an expeditious fashion if needed during an emergency.”
State Role in Two-Step Process
Funding is awarded directly to the State of Texas Division of Emergency Management (our version of FEMA) and will be transferred to Houston in two steps. Phase I gets the project rolling. Once the City successfully completes permitting, engineering, design, and environmental assessment, it will provide a new cost/benefit analysis and to FEMA for review.
This is standard procedure. The initial grant is based on ballpark estimates. With the actual design in hand, the City can more closely estimate the costs.
Assuming FEMA approves renewed cost/benefit analysis, the State will release the additional funds to the City for construction (phase II).
Three-Year Project
The City has not yet chosen an engineering company to design the gates. Nor is it clear how many gates will be added or where they will be located. All that will be part of Phase I.
Martin says the two phases together should take three years once money is received, though an extension may be possible if needed.
Other Grants Also Announced
FEMA also awarded three other grants impacting City Council District E, according to Martin:
Lonestar College’s Kingwood Campus won two public assistance grants for Emergency Protective Measures amounting to $6,276,131.22 and $2,502,914.79.
Clear Creek Independent School District won a public assistance grant for Emergency Protective Measures amounting to $1,303,060.49.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/2/2019
703 Days after Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/LakeHoustonDam-e1775832315715.jpg?fit=1100%2C593&ssl=15931100adminadmin2019-08-02 16:06:402019-08-02 20:43:43City of Houston Receives $3.3 Million FEMA Grant for Design and Permitting of Additional Gates For Lake Houston Dam
As this hurricane season heats up, you may want to read this article in the Texas Tribune about the Ike Dike or Texas Coastal Barrier. It’s a story about a flood mitigation effort that started in 2008, shortly after Hurricane Ike. I remember this storm vividly. I photographed the damage on the Bolivar Peninsula days after the storm. Despite the massive destruction it caused, nothing has yet been done to prevent a recurrence.
Remembering Ike
For those who don’t remember, Ike was a Cat 4 storm that weakened over Cuba, emerged into the Gulf, and came onshore at the northeast end of Galveston as a Cat 2. Ike came right up the center of Galveston Bay. The eye passed over the Lake Houston area.
Ike caused massive damage everywhere, killed more than a hundred people in Texas, and leveled thousands of homes on the Bolivar.
I remember vividly that evening watching giant pine trees bent 90 degrees, looking up at the stars the next minute and seeing those same pine trees bent 90 degrees in the other direction a few minutes later – ninety miles inland! When I emerged from my storm shelter the next morning, power was out everywhere. It would remain out for 13 days because of all the trees down on power lines.
Ike Dike Proposed to Protect Industry
Almost immediately, people began talking about an Ike Dike to protect the refining and petrochemical industry lining the western shores of the Bay. Had Ike come in a little west of where it did, those plants would have borne the direct brunt of the dirty side of the storm. How bad was the destruction on the dirty side? See the sequence of pictures below. It starts with two images from Google Earth. One taken a week before Ike. One taken days after.
Before and After Images from Google Earth of the Bolivar
Bolivar Peninsula on 9/3/2008, was covered with beach homes, some of which were occupied year round.Bolivar Peninsula immediately after Ike. Streets are superimposed over the image in Google Earth. Those things that look like roofs are really slabs. See below.
Images Taken on the Ground Days After Ike
The storm surge from Ike tore sewers and water lines right out of the ground.From this location, not one home was left standing as far as the eye could see.People had a hard time even finding their streets. Storm surge carried them away, too.People spray painted addresses on slabs for insurance adjusters…if there was a slab to find.Mardi gras beads stuck in this tree…a sad reminder of happier times.Destruction on the Bolivar Peninsula after Hurricane Ike was complete. Even though homes had been elevated, it wasn’t enough to survive the storm surge.
Ike Storm Surge Reached 20 Miles Inland
The storm surge swept homes off their foundations 12 miles inland along FM1985. The surge reached the southern edge of Winnie on I-10, approximately 20 miles inland. I remember looking up at utility poles on the northern edge of Anahuac National Wildlife refuge and seeing seaweed in the telephone lines.
What Same Area Looks Like Today
Eleven years later, here’s an image showing the same area in the Google Earth images above.
Ike would have been a golden opportunity to turn this area into a national seashore. Not so much today. They’re BA-AAAACK, as they say in the horror movies.
Lessons Not Learned
I guess people’s love of nature is stronger than their fear of it. The Ike Dike is still a distant dream. And taxpayers are still subsidizing vacation homes on the edge of oblivion with Federally funded flood insurance.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/3/2019
703 Days since Hurricane Harvey and 3975 days since Hurricane Ike
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Hurricane-Ike-358-e1746218969261.jpg?fit=1100%2C732&ssl=17321100adminadmin2019-08-02 01:03:172019-08-02 01:09:00Hurricane Ike: Sometimes the Lesson Learned is That We Haven’t Learned the Lesson
Montgomery County commissioners will consider changing flood mitigation requirements for new developments at their regular August 27 meeting. Commissioners will hear public testimony and consider approving a revision to the Montgomery County Drainage Criteria Manual. The change would close a loophole that allows developers to substitute “flood routing studies” for detention ponds in new Montgomery County developments.
How Developers Use Flood Routing Studies
Flood routing studies calculate when runoff from a new development will hit a river during a major rain event. If results show that the runoff will reach the river before the crest of a flood, developers may not need to build detention ponds. The idea: it’s not adding to the peak, so why run up costs needlessly?
Why Flood Routing Studies are Inadequate
In principle, that sounds good. However, routing studies almost always contain flawed assumptions according to Jeff Johnson, Montgomery County’s Engineer.
First, they don’t consider the cumulative effects of other developments. Second, they are almost always based on outdated hydrologic models. And third, they assume “ideal” storm conditions.
“If you start with a brand new hydrologic model,” says Johnson, “the modeling a developer does could theoretically be accurate.” But his/her runoff changes the model. That runoff rarely gets incorporated into the model that the next developer uses. “So the next developer is dealing with outdated assumptions,” says Johnson. Same way with the third and fourth developers, etc. They all keep going back to the original model, even though they know it has been changed by previous developments. Said another way, additional runoff is not added to the model on which subsequent developers base their calculations. So they all show no consequences when the cumulative effects can be large.
Another problem. They all base calculations on ideal assumptions. Johnson estimated that only a small percentage of storms conformed with ideal conditions. For one example, calculations are valid only if rain stops before the flood reaches its peak.
Shortage of Detention Leads to Downstream Flooding
As a result, there’s not enough detention upstream to protect downstream residents during a major storm.
Many developers like the flawed assumptions behind the routing studies. They justify building less detention, which costs developers time and money. And with less detention, they can develop and sell more lots per acre. So they reduce costs and increase income.
But when that happens, somebody downstream pays the price. “They’re not being responsible,” said Johnson. “This is a public safety issue.”
One flood expert that I interviewed for this article said, “Only good things come from more detention.”
City of Houston Public Works Director Agrees
As if to punctuate Johnson’s point, shortly after my interview with him, I attended a talk by City of Houston Publics Work Director Carol Haddock. Haddock emphasized that flooding today largely stems from problems inherited from legacy infrastructure. “We’re living with infrastructure developed before we knew what we now know about flooding,” said Haddock.
Haddock argued for both higher drainage and detention capacity. They will help accommodate future floods and future development – while protecting people and property downstream, she argued.
Projected MoCo Growth Underscores Need to Close Development Loophole
Getting drainage and detention right is crucial, not just for families downstream in northern Harris County, but also for families in Montgomery County itself. The New Caney ISD (NCISD) is projected to grow substantially in the next few years. The NCISD just completed a demographic update from Population and Survey Analysts (PASA). (Caution: 58 meg download.) Page 6 of the study shows that the District expects to grow by more than 19,000 housing units in the next 10 years. That’s almost as large as Kingwood. And it doesn’t even include commercial space.
A graphic from a Caldwell Brokerage brochure shows some of the major current and planned developments in the area between the Woodlands and Kingwoodwith the number of homes.
In the previous 5 years, the NCISD had the second highest percent change in school district enrollment in the region at a whopping 30.3%. Only Alvin had a higher increase at 31.6%.
PASA graphic comparing 5-year growth rates in area school district enrollments.
PASA predicts the new commercial area near 45 and 99 will have as much square footage as downtown Austin. And, further upstream, Conroe was the fastest growing City in America in 2017.
Fortunately, the new San Jacinto River Basin Survey will update hydrologic models. But with projected growth like this, they will become outdated as soon as they are complete. All the more reason to move away from the flood routing paradigm of development and require more on-site detention. ASAP.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Growth-NCISD.jpg?fit=856%2C1160&ssl=11160856adminadmin2019-07-31 22:56:442019-07-31 23:00:03MoCo Will Consider Requiring More Detention for New Developments in August 27 Meeting
City of Houston Receives $3.3 Million FEMA Grant for Design and Permitting of Additional Gates For Lake Houston Dam
This week, FEMA awarded $3.3 million for the design, engineering and environmental permitting (Phase I) of additional gates for the Lake Houston dam. Under the 75:25 matching terms of the grant, local sources including the City and Harris County will contribute approximately another million bringing the total available for Phase 1 to $4.375 million.
FEMA notified Congressman Dan Crenshaw regarding the award who then notified Houston Council Member Dave Martin. The award comes through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP).
Construction Funding Also Committed But Will Require Confirmation of Cost/Benefit Ratio
FEMA also committed funds for construction, but release of those funds is contingent on confirmation of the cost/benefit analysis after completion of Phase I.
Of that amount, the Federal share comes to $35,378,214.75 and the Non-Federal Share totals $11,792,738.25. City and Harris County shares of the Non-Federal portion have not yet been determined according to Martin’s office.
Lake Houston Area and Downstream Residents Protected
Congressman Crenshaw announced, “Today, FEMA approved $3.3 million for Phase 1 of the gates at the Lake Houston Dam. These gates will increase the flow out of Lake Houston significantly. This money will ensure that the final design will not impact downstream residents and will provide the anticipated relief to the Lake Houston area. Increasing the conveyance will have positive impacts for the entire San Jacinto watershed including the East Fork and the West Fork. For a community that feels the burden of flooding too often, this is a huge win.”
Mr. Martin has worked to obtain the grant for nearly two years. Martin also played a role in dredging. As part of his press release on the gates, Martin noted that the Army Corps is now half-finished with the 500,000 cubic yards that it intends to remove from the mouth bar between Kings Point and Atascocita Point.
Crenshaw and Martin say they will continue to fight for the removal of even more material from the mouth-bar. They also thanked Governor Abbott, TDEM Chief Kidd, State Senator Creighton, Representative Huberty, Houston Mayor Turner, and Houston Chief Resiliency Officer Costello for their help on the Lake Houston Spillway Dam project.
State Role in Two-Step Process
Funding is awarded directly to the State of Texas Division of Emergency Management (our version of FEMA) and will be transferred to Houston in two steps. Phase I gets the project rolling. Once the City successfully completes permitting, engineering, design, and environmental assessment, it will provide a new cost/benefit analysis and to FEMA for review.
This is standard procedure. The initial grant is based on ballpark estimates. With the actual design in hand, the City can more closely estimate the costs.
Assuming FEMA approves renewed cost/benefit analysis, the State will release the additional funds to the City for construction (phase II).
Three-Year Project
The City has not yet chosen an engineering company to design the gates. Nor is it clear how many gates will be added or where they will be located. All that will be part of Phase I.
Other Grants Also Announced
FEMA also awarded three other grants impacting City Council District E, according to Martin:
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/2/2019
703 Days after Hurricane Harvey
Hurricane Ike: Sometimes the Lesson Learned is That We Haven’t Learned the Lesson
As this hurricane season heats up, you may want to read this article in the Texas Tribune about the Ike Dike or Texas Coastal Barrier. It’s a story about a flood mitigation effort that started in 2008, shortly after Hurricane Ike. I remember this storm vividly. I photographed the damage on the Bolivar Peninsula days after the storm. Despite the massive destruction it caused, nothing has yet been done to prevent a recurrence.
Remembering Ike
For those who don’t remember, Ike was a Cat 4 storm that weakened over Cuba, emerged into the Gulf, and came onshore at the northeast end of Galveston as a Cat 2. Ike came right up the center of Galveston Bay. The eye passed over the Lake Houston area.
Ike caused massive damage everywhere, killed more than a hundred people in Texas, and leveled thousands of homes on the Bolivar.
I remember vividly that evening watching giant pine trees bent 90 degrees, looking up at the stars the next minute and seeing those same pine trees bent 90 degrees in the other direction a few minutes later – ninety miles inland! When I emerged from my storm shelter the next morning, power was out everywhere. It would remain out for 13 days because of all the trees down on power lines.
Ike Dike Proposed to Protect Industry
Almost immediately, people began talking about an Ike Dike to protect the refining and petrochemical industry lining the western shores of the Bay. Had Ike come in a little west of where it did, those plants would have borne the direct brunt of the dirty side of the storm. How bad was the destruction on the dirty side? See the sequence of pictures below. It starts with two images from Google Earth. One taken a week before Ike. One taken days after.
Before and After Images from Google Earth of the Bolivar
Images Taken on the Ground Days After Ike
Ike Storm Surge Reached 20 Miles Inland
The storm surge swept homes off their foundations 12 miles inland along FM1985. The surge reached the southern edge of Winnie on I-10, approximately 20 miles inland. I remember looking up at utility poles on the northern edge of Anahuac National Wildlife refuge and seeing seaweed in the telephone lines.
What Same Area Looks Like Today
Ike would have been a golden opportunity to turn this area into a national seashore. Not so much today. They’re BA-AAAACK, as they say in the horror movies.
Lessons Not Learned
I guess people’s love of nature is stronger than their fear of it. The Ike Dike is still a distant dream. And taxpayers are still subsidizing vacation homes on the edge of oblivion with Federally funded flood insurance.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/3/2019
703 Days since Hurricane Harvey and 3975 days since Hurricane Ike
MoCo Will Consider Requiring More Detention for New Developments in August 27 Meeting
Montgomery County commissioners will consider changing flood mitigation requirements for new developments at their regular August 27 meeting. Commissioners will hear public testimony and consider approving a revision to the Montgomery County Drainage Criteria Manual. The change would close a loophole that allows developers to substitute “flood routing studies” for detention ponds in new Montgomery County developments.
How Developers Use Flood Routing Studies
Flood routing studies calculate when runoff from a new development will hit a river during a major rain event. If results show that the runoff will reach the river before the crest of a flood, developers may not need to build detention ponds. The idea: it’s not adding to the peak, so why run up costs needlessly?
Why Flood Routing Studies are Inadequate
In principle, that sounds good. However, routing studies almost always contain flawed assumptions according to Jeff Johnson, Montgomery County’s Engineer.
“If you start with a brand new hydrologic model,” says Johnson, “the modeling a developer does could theoretically be accurate.” But his/her runoff changes the model. That runoff rarely gets incorporated into the model that the next developer uses. “So the next developer is dealing with outdated assumptions,” says Johnson. Same way with the third and fourth developers, etc. They all keep going back to the original model, even though they know it has been changed by previous developments. Said another way, additional runoff is not added to the model on which subsequent developers base their calculations. So they all show no consequences when the cumulative effects can be large.
Another problem. They all base calculations on ideal assumptions. Johnson estimated that only a small percentage of storms conformed with ideal conditions. For one example, calculations are valid only if rain stops before the flood reaches its peak.
Shortage of Detention Leads to Downstream Flooding
As a result, there’s not enough detention upstream to protect downstream residents during a major storm.
Many developers like the flawed assumptions behind the routing studies. They justify building less detention, which costs developers time and money. And with less detention, they can develop and sell more lots per acre. So they reduce costs and increase income.
But when that happens, somebody downstream pays the price. “They’re not being responsible,” said Johnson. “This is a public safety issue.”
One flood expert that I interviewed for this article said, “Only good things come from more detention.”
City of Houston Public Works Director Agrees
As if to punctuate Johnson’s point, shortly after my interview with him, I attended a talk by City of Houston Publics Work Director Carol Haddock. Haddock emphasized that flooding today largely stems from problems inherited from legacy infrastructure. “We’re living with infrastructure developed before we knew what we now know about flooding,” said Haddock.
Haddock argued for both higher drainage and detention capacity. They will help accommodate future floods and future development – while protecting people and property downstream, she argued.
Projected MoCo Growth Underscores Need to Close Development Loophole
Getting drainage and detention right is crucial, not just for families downstream in northern Harris County, but also for families in Montgomery County itself. The New Caney ISD (NCISD) is projected to grow substantially in the next few years. The NCISD just completed a demographic update from Population and Survey Analysts (PASA). (Caution: 58 meg download.) Page 6 of the study shows that the District expects to grow by more than 19,000 housing units in the next 10 years. That’s almost as large as Kingwood. And it doesn’t even include commercial space.
In the previous 5 years, the NCISD had the second highest percent change in school district enrollment in the region at a whopping 30.3%. Only Alvin had a higher increase at 31.6%.
PASA predicts the new commercial area near 45 and 99 will have as much square footage as downtown Austin. And, further upstream, Conroe was the fastest growing City in America in 2017.
Fortunately, the new San Jacinto River Basin Survey will update hydrologic models. But with projected growth like this, they will become outdated as soon as they are complete. All the more reason to move away from the flood routing paradigm of development and require more on-site detention. ASAP.
Register Your Opinion
Expect developers to testify against closing the “flood routing study” loophole. You can testify for closing it, however. Montgomery County Commissioners will hear public testimony at their regular meeting on August 27th. The meeting starts at 9:30. Montgomery County has special sign-up procedures for citizens who wish to testify; make sure you sign up beforehand. Check the agenda beforehand to plan your time. You can also register your opinion with county commissioners via phone or email.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/31/2019
701 Days since Hurricane Harvey