Last Monday, Gabriel Haddad, the Romerica developer who wants to put up 25-50 story high rises and 5,000 condos near the floodway of the West Fork, told a packed audience at the Kingwood Community Center that he would construct his buildings on stilts.
Of course, he also wants to put 150,000 cubic yards of fill in wetlands and streams which is why he’s applying for the Army Corps permit. But put that aside for the moment.
Catching Debris and Creating Backwater
Stilts may be the best answer when building near floodways. They can reduce the net impact on flooding compared to fill. However, they still have their drawbacks…as these pictures show. For instance, stilts, stairs and anything below a building will catch debris being washed downstream and back water up.
Debris washed downstream caught on stairs. Photo by Melissa Balcom.All the trees caught in the bridge supports for the old 59 bridge reportedly formed a “dam” during Harvey that backed water up into Humble businesses. Ask Humble Mayor Merle Aaron about his feelings on the subject. Debris caught under bridges during Harvey. Photos by David Seitzinger.Stilts didn’t help thousands of homes on the Bolivar Peninsula during Hurricane Ike. They have to be high enough to elevate the home above the flood. More than a 100 people died on Bolivar who failed to evacuate before Ike. They thought their elevated homes would keep them safe.
Evacuation Routes Flooded
The next three pictures show one of the planned evacuation routes, Hamblen Road. As you can see, connecting Woodland Hills to Hamblen might help with normal traffic, but it would not help at all during a flood.
Hamblen Road during the Tax Day Flood of 2016. Photo by Melissa Balcom. Note height of street lights.
Hamblen Road during the Memorial Day flood of 2016. “This is when we thought things were as bad as they would ever get!” said Melissa Balcom who lives between Hamblen and the West Fork of the San Jacinto.
Same area on Hamblen during Harvey. Compare street lights in the background. The brick wall on the left is completely submerged.
“The water is actually even deeper than it appears because those street lights are on a hill that lines the side of Hamblen,” said Melissa Balcom, who took these photos. “The water is so deep you can’t even see the white brick fence that lines Hamblen. It completely covers it! That’s one of the reasons why making Hamblen a cut through street is so ridiculous.”
Horror Movie in the Making
When I asked Mr. Haddad how he planned to evacuate 15,000 people by boat if there were ever another midnight release from the Conroe dam without warning, he said that people could shelter in place.
Imagine being in a high rise…in August, when the water comes up, the power goes out, the toilets overflow, the AC fails, the humidity hits 99%, and you can’t open the windows. That may be a Navy Seal’s idea of luxury living, but not mine. I’ll pass, thank you!
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/24/2019
572 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Hurricane-Ike-329-e1746218830424.jpg?fit=1100%2C737&ssl=17371100adminadmin2019-03-23 21:30:352019-03-23 21:31:46Stilts Not Always Answer, Evac Not Always Possible For High Rises Near Floodway
Want to change the economics of floodplain development? Deny flood insurance to anyone who builds new structures within a floodway. Grandfather structures that already exist. But don’t sell flood insurance policies to anyone who wants to, for instance, buy a new condo in a high-rise in the floodway of the west fork of the San Jacinto. And don’t sell a commercial policy to the 50-story hotel next door.
Respect the Rivers
Harvey was a wake up call. It taught us to start respecting rivers by giving them the distance deserve. It’s time for taxpayers to stop encouraging risky developments with taxpayer subsidized flood insurance. When investors, mortgage lenders and buyers can’t get that insurance, they will turn their backs. It will be much harder to build such harebrained ideas.
Siding from home washed downstream during Harvey. Photo by Dan Monks.
Stop Subsidizing Risky Behavior
This isn’t such a radical notion. Most private insurers peg the price of insurance to risk. More risk, higher price. It’s simple. At a certain point, when behavior becomes too risky, you can’t get insurance at any price. Right now, people can get flood insurance anywhere because it’s subsidized by taxpayers. Artificially low rates encourage floodplain development and discourage conservation.
So we have a developer trying to build 3.2 million square feet next to an area where the county is simultaneously buying out homes that have flooded repetitively.
By weeding such high-risk developers out of the pool, the cost of flood insurance should come down for people who give rivers the respect they deserve and build a reasonable distance away.
Start Encouraging Conservation with Economic Incentives
For those who want waterfront views, and those who are willing and able to lose everything, go ahead. No one’s stopping you. Just don’t expect taxpayers to subsidize your insurance through the National Flood Insurance Plan. If developers, lenders, investors and buyers couldn’t get flood insurance on newly built floodway homes, demand for such homes would likely fall. Thus, developers would have an economic disincentive to buy that cheap floodplain land. Owners would leave it in timber or grass. And we could give them even bigger tax breaks for doing do. Take the tax rate on timber land in floodways down to zero.
Smarter Land Use Policies = Fewer Flooded Homes
More floodplain land might remain in the hands of Mother Nature. More natural green space would slow rain from getting to rivers and provide more natural retention. Less development in floodways and flood plains just might reduce flooding further from the river, too.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/23/2019
571 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/siding.jpg?fit=1885%2C1060&ssl=110601885adminadmin2019-03-23 17:27:342019-03-23 17:29:18Simple Policy Proposal to Change Economics of Floodplain Development
Jim Blackburn, a professor at Rice University noted for his work in predicting and modeling the effects of severe storms, has released an except from a larger paper that he is preparing with Amy Jaffe of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Houston ship channel, chemical plant and tank farm.
Refining Capacity Vs. Surge Height
The report begins by outlining the importance of these areas for national security. For instance, this Bay and Ship Channel are home to eight major refiners and more than 200 chemical plants that provide 12% of U.S. refining capacity, 27% of the nation’s jet fuel, 13% of the nation’s gasoline, and 25% of the nation’s ethylene and propylene.
Blackburn and Jaffe note that the largest surges recorded up the Houston Ship Channel to date were from Hurricane Ike in 2008 and Carla in 1961. Neither of those storms generated more than about 13 to 14 feet of surge, a level that can generally be accommodated by industry.
Modeling Surge Damage from Future Storms
The authors then play “what if.” What if the winds were 15 mph stronger and extended out a few miles farther? The “what if” scenarios are based on recent storms such as Hurricanes Irma and Maria (Category 4 and 5 storms) with hurricane force winds extending 80 miles out from the center. Such storms could generate surges in the range of 22 to 25 feet in the ship channel. Those are NOT levels that industry could handle with existing dikes.
An associate of Blackburn’s, Dr. Jamie Padgett of Rice’s SSPEED Center, predicts that some percentage of storage tanks would fail. They would either be lifted off their foundations, crushed by water or penetrated by debris. Dr. Padgett’s team estimated that a 24-foot surge event could lead to the release of at least 90 million gallons of oil and hazardous substances. It could threaten the US economy and raise concerns about the availability of transportation fuel.
Confined in Galveston Bay and its surrounding wetlands, such spills could also turn into an environmental debacle that lasts for decades. Far fetched? Consider what happened this week when a fire erupted in a few storage tanks at one facility in Deer Park. It shut down the entire city for close to a week.
Significantly, the modeled surge event does not include the effects of sea-level rise or climate change.
Inability to Deal with Mitigation
Blackburn and Jaffe then shift their focus to mitigation strategies such as the Ike Dike and the Galveston Bay Park Plan. I will not review those here; they have received much coverage in other venues. And the report contains far more detail than any summary could.
The authors conclude by saying, “A major threat exists to the refining and chemical industrial complex that is based around Galveston Bay. This issue has not received the attention that it should from a national security perspective, from a national economic stability perspective and from an environmental risk perspective. The SSPEED Center’s experience in modeling and planning to protect the channel highlights the disconnect between past observations and future likely events being encountered everyday throughout the world with our changing climate. We are facing situations that differ from the past, but we seemingly lack the institutional ability or fortitude to address these future risks and avoid the national security consequences that are foreseen and forewarned.”
“What If” We Actually Came to Grips with Flood Mitigation?
Whether you believe in climate change or not, it worries me to think about what would happen if a storm like Maria came up the throat of Galveston Bay like Ike did. We had two storms in the last decade (Ike and Harvey) that wiped out major portions of the region. The possibilities are not remote that another could strike before we prepare for it. I wish someone had done this kind of analysis with a rainfall event like Harvey before Harvey hit. Think how different life might be right now.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/22/2019
570 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Refinery_01.jpg?fit=1500%2C811&ssl=18111500adminadmin2019-03-21 22:43:062019-03-21 22:43:39Storm Surge and the Houston Ship Channel: A National Security Issue?
Stilts Not Always Answer, Evac Not Always Possible For High Rises Near Floodway
Last Monday, Gabriel Haddad, the Romerica developer who wants to put up 25-50 story high rises and 5,000 condos near the floodway of the West Fork, told a packed audience at the Kingwood Community Center that he would construct his buildings on stilts.
Of course, he also wants to put 150,000 cubic yards of fill in wetlands and streams which is why he’s applying for the Army Corps permit. But put that aside for the moment.
Catching Debris and Creating Backwater
Stilts may be the best answer when building near floodways. They can reduce the net impact on flooding compared to fill. However, they still have their drawbacks…as these pictures show. For instance, stilts, stairs and anything below a building will catch debris being washed downstream and back water up.
Evacuation Routes Flooded
The next three pictures show one of the planned evacuation routes, Hamblen Road. As you can see, connecting Woodland Hills to Hamblen might help with normal traffic, but it would not help at all during a flood.
“The water is actually even deeper than it appears because those street lights are on a hill that lines the side of Hamblen,” said Melissa Balcom, who took these photos. “The water is so deep you can’t even see the white brick fence that lines Hamblen. It completely covers it! That’s one of the reasons why making Hamblen a cut through street is so ridiculous.”
Horror Movie in the Making
When I asked Mr. Haddad how he planned to evacuate 15,000 people by boat if there were ever another midnight release from the Conroe dam without warning, he said that people could shelter in place.
Imagine being in a high rise…in August, when the water comes up, the power goes out, the toilets overflow, the AC fails, the humidity hits 99%, and you can’t open the windows. That may be a Navy Seal’s idea of luxury living, but not mine. I’ll pass, thank you!
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/24/2019
572 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Simple Policy Proposal to Change Economics of Floodplain Development
Want to change the economics of floodplain development? Deny flood insurance to anyone who builds new structures within a floodway. Grandfather structures that already exist. But don’t sell flood insurance policies to anyone who wants to, for instance, buy a new condo in a high-rise in the floodway of the west fork of the San Jacinto. And don’t sell a commercial policy to the 50-story hotel next door.
Respect the Rivers
Harvey was a wake up call. It taught us to start respecting rivers by giving them the distance deserve. It’s time for taxpayers to stop encouraging risky developments with taxpayer subsidized flood insurance. When investors, mortgage lenders and buyers can’t get that insurance, they will turn their backs. It will be much harder to build such harebrained ideas.
Stop Subsidizing Risky Behavior
This isn’t such a radical notion. Most private insurers peg the price of insurance to risk. More risk, higher price. It’s simple. At a certain point, when behavior becomes too risky, you can’t get insurance at any price. Right now, people can get flood insurance anywhere because it’s subsidized by taxpayers. Artificially low rates encourage floodplain development and discourage conservation.
By weeding such high-risk developers out of the pool, the cost of flood insurance should come down for people who give rivers the respect they deserve and build a reasonable distance away.
Start Encouraging Conservation with Economic Incentives
For those who want waterfront views, and those who are willing and able to lose everything, go ahead. No one’s stopping you. Just don’t expect taxpayers to subsidize your insurance through the National Flood Insurance Plan. If developers, lenders, investors and buyers couldn’t get flood insurance on newly built floodway homes, demand for such homes would likely fall. Thus, developers would have an economic disincentive to buy that cheap floodplain land. Owners would leave it in timber or grass. And we could give them even bigger tax breaks for doing do. Take the tax rate on timber land in floodways down to zero.
Smarter Land Use Policies = Fewer Flooded Homes
More floodplain land might remain in the hands of Mother Nature. More natural green space would slow rain from getting to rivers and provide more natural retention. Less development in floodways and flood plains just might reduce flooding further from the river, too.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/23/2019
571 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Storm Surge and the Houston Ship Channel: A National Security Issue?
Jim Blackburn, a professor at Rice University noted for his work in predicting and modeling the effects of severe storms, has released an except from a larger paper that he is preparing with Amy Jaffe of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The report, titled “Storm Surge and the Future of the Houston Ship Channel,” models a series of storms with increasing intensity to examine their impact on Galveston, Galveston Bay and the Houston Ship Channel.
Refining Capacity Vs. Surge Height
The report begins by outlining the importance of these areas for national security. For instance, this Bay and Ship Channel are home to eight major refiners and more than 200 chemical plants that provide 12% of U.S. refining capacity, 27% of the nation’s jet fuel, 13% of the nation’s gasoline, and 25% of the nation’s ethylene and propylene.
Blackburn and Jaffe note that the largest surges recorded up the Houston Ship Channel to date were from Hurricane Ike in 2008 and Carla in 1961. Neither of those storms generated more than about 13 to 14 feet of surge, a level that can generally be accommodated by industry.
Modeling Surge Damage from Future Storms
The authors then play “what if.” What if the winds were 15 mph stronger and extended out a few miles farther? The “what if” scenarios are based on recent storms such as Hurricanes Irma and Maria (Category 4 and 5 storms) with hurricane force winds extending 80 miles out from the center. Such storms could generate surges in the range of 22 to 25 feet in the ship channel. Those are NOT levels that industry could handle with existing dikes.
An associate of Blackburn’s, Dr. Jamie Padgett of Rice’s SSPEED Center, predicts that some percentage of storage tanks would fail. They would either be lifted off their foundations, crushed by water or penetrated by debris. Dr. Padgett’s team estimated that a 24-foot surge event could lead to the release of at least 90 million gallons of oil and hazardous substances. It could threaten the US economy and raise concerns about the availability of transportation fuel.
Confined in Galveston Bay and its surrounding wetlands, such spills could also turn into an environmental debacle that lasts for decades. Far fetched? Consider what happened this week when a fire erupted in a few storage tanks at one facility in Deer Park. It shut down the entire city for close to a week.
Significantly, the modeled surge event does not include the effects of sea-level rise or climate change.
Inability to Deal with Mitigation
Blackburn and Jaffe then shift their focus to mitigation strategies such as the Ike Dike and the Galveston Bay Park Plan. I will not review those here; they have received much coverage in other venues. And the report contains far more detail than any summary could.
The authors conclude by saying, “A major threat exists to the refining and chemical industrial complex that is based around Galveston Bay. This issue has not received the attention that it should from a national security perspective, from a national economic stability perspective and from an environmental risk perspective. The SSPEED Center’s experience in modeling and planning to protect the channel highlights the disconnect between past observations and future likely events being encountered everyday throughout the world with our changing climate. We are facing situations that differ from the past, but we seemingly lack the institutional ability or fortitude to address these future risks and avoid the national security consequences that are foreseen and forewarned.”
“What If” We Actually Came to Grips with Flood Mitigation?
Whether you believe in climate change or not, it worries me to think about what would happen if a storm like Maria came up the throat of Galveston Bay like Ike did. We had two storms in the last decade (Ike and Harvey) that wiped out major portions of the region. The possibilities are not remote that another could strike before we prepare for it. I wish someone had done this kind of analysis with a rainfall event like Harvey before Harvey hit. Think how different life might be right now.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/22/2019
570 Days since Hurricane Harvey