This month, you have three opportunities to attend meetings that could help reduce flooding in the Lake Houston area.
TWDB Visits Tomball to Solicit Input on State’s First Flood Plan
On Friday, August 9, the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) will hold a meeting in Tomball. Purpose: to solicit public opinion on rules and guidelines for Texas’ first statewide flood plan. Here’s more information about the event and the TWDB. The TWDB is the state’s water agency. It’s primary mission is developing and maintaining lakes and reservoirs that support economic growth. This year, the legislature put them into the flood mitigation business, too. They’re looking for the best ways to spend $800 million on flood mitigation from the state’s Rainy Day Fund. TWDB will hold the event at:
Beckendorf Conference Center at Lone Star College–Tomball
30555 Tomball Pkwy.
Tomball, TX 77375
9:30-11:30 a.m.
Friday, August 9
Sign up for more information about these meetings and other flood information at the TWDB’s website. You can also contact the TWDB at (512) 463-8725 or flood@twdb.texas.gov.
TWDB Makes Repeat Appearance at Houston City Hall
If you can’t make the event in Tomball, you have another chance. TWDB will repeat the event at:
Houston City Hall
Council Chamber, 2nd Floor
901 Bagby Street
Houston, TX 77002
9:30 to 11:30
Friday, August 23
Montgomery County Will Hear Testimony on Closing Detention Loophole
You don’t have to be a Montgomery County resident to testify. As downstream residents of the Lake Houston Area, you may be affected by this more than Montgomery County residents are.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/7/2019
708 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SchoolBus.jpg?fit=1500%2C1689&ssl=116891500adminadmin2019-08-06 21:55:552019-08-06 21:56:05Mark Your Calendar: Important Meetings Related to Flooding
An article in the New York Times about a looming water crisis caught my eye today. Datelined Bangalore, India, the article describes how “Countries that are home to one-fourth of Earth’s population face an increasingly urgent risk: The prospect of running out of water.” So what does that have to do with flooding? Many of those countries also experience cyclic flooding. Sound familiar?
Uncanny Parallels to Houston
In yet another uncanny parallel to our situation – i.e., with the Water Wars in Montgomery County – “…some are squandering what water they have. Several are relying too heavily on groundwater, which instead they should be replenishing and saving for times of drought.”
In Chennai, India’s fourth largest city, residents accustomed to relying on groundwater for years now find none left. So the city is forced to transport water from farther and farther away (like our Luce Bayou Project). They lose significant amounts in the process due to evaporation and leakage.
The World Resources Institute expects the number of people worldwide living in “extremely high water stress” to nearly double in the next decade.
Cape Town, a city roughly the size of Houston, had to ration water last year.
Drought and Flooding Solutions Often Overlap
In Bangalore, lakes that once dotted the city have been filled in, much the way we fill in wetlands, so they can no longer collect rainwater and serve as the city’s water storage tanks.
That parallel reminded me of the dwindling water capacity in Lake Houston due to sedimentation. With backup supplies in Lake Livingston and Lake Conroe, Houston certainly doesn’t have to worry about running out of water any time soon. But as recent sedimentation surveys near the mouth bar showed, we do have to worry about loss of lake capacity.
Difference map developed by Tetra Tech for City of Houston in Feb/March, 2019, showing areas of deposition and scour near the West Fork Mouth Bar. Overall, Tetra Tech estimates that this small 350-acre area of Lake Houston gained 504-acre feet of sedimentsince the previous survey in 2011. Brown areas represent more than 5 FEET of deposition.
Drought and floods represent two sides of the same coin. This article reminded me that solutions to one problem can also help solve the other. For instance…
Developing adequate surface water supplies and saving ground water as the backup. This can reduce subsidence which can lead to flooding.
Improving lake/river capacity by dredging can eliminate blockages that also cause flooding.
As we move forward with West Fork and maintenance dredging, we should remember this. We aren’t just looking at costs that benefit Lake Houston residents. We’re looking at costs that benefit millions of residents in the larger metropolitan area. It’s not just about flooding. It’s also about water capacity for a rapidly growing population.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/6/2019
707 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/DifferenceMap.jpg?fit=2004%2C1340&ssl=113402004adminadmin2019-08-06 20:53:322019-08-06 21:01:50NY Times Article Says Quarter of Humanity Facing Looming Water Crisis
Two days ago, I posted a story about a community on the Bolivar Peninsula that Hurricane Ike totally destroyed. Owners have virtually rebuilt it. This isn’t a unique story. Around the world, around the county, on coast after coast and river after river, similar stories abound. FEMA calls floods the most common form of natural disaster. The Agency says Americans have a 26 percent chance of experiencing a flood during the life of a 30-year mortgage, compared to a four percent chance of fire. So people obviously love water views despite the risk. They even pay a premium for them. Why is there such an attraction to water?
Pragmatic Attractions
Historically, oceans were our earliest highways and busiest trade routes.
Water attracts us for other logical reasons, too. We need water for drinking, cooking and bathing. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, each person in the United States uses eighty to one hundred gallons of water every day for what we consider our “basic needs.” The United Nations declared, “Safe and clean drinking water is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life.” We can’t live without it. But given modern technology and our ability to pump water over long distances, pragmatic considerations alone cannot explain our attraction to it.
Oceans and rivers also provide abundant protein year round. Wallace Nichols, author of the Blue Mind, wrote in Salon.com that, “The number of food and material resources provided in or near the water often trumped what could be found on land. The supply of plant-based and animal food sources may vanish in the winter, Eriksen observed, but our ancestors could fish or harvest shellfish year-round. And because the nature of water is to move and flow, instead of having to travel miles to forage, our ancestors could walk along a shore or riverbank and see what water had brought to them or what came to the water’s edge.”*
Biological Attractions
Nichols, also notes that, “Our innate relationship to water goes far deeper than economics, food, or proximity, however. Our ancient ancestors came out of the water and evolved from swimming to crawling to walking. Human fetuses still have “gill-slit” structures in their early stages of development, and we spend our first nine months of life immersed in the “watery” environment of our mother’s womb.”
“When we’re born, our bodies are approximately 78 percent water. As we age, that number drops to below 60 percent — but the brain continues to be made of 80 percent water. The human body as a whole is almost the same density as water, which allows us to float. In its mineral composition, the water in our cells is comparable to that found in the sea. Science writer Loren Eiseley once described human beings as “a way that water has of going about, beyond the reach of rivers.”
Psychological Attractions
Nichols cites the story of researchers at Plymouth University in the United Kingdom. In 2010, they asked forty adults to rate more than one hundred pictures of different natural and urban environments. Respondents gave higher ratings for positive mood, preference, and perceived restorativeness to any picture containing water, whether it was in a natural landscape or an urban setting, as opposed to those photos without water.
One of my close friends and photographic mentors is Gary Faye. Faye is one of America’s greatest living landscape photographers. His images exude serenity and often mystery…as in this shot of a swing in the Salton Sea. At a root level, it says, “This doesn’t belong here.” Much like the homes once destroyed by Ike, rebuilt just feet from the Gulf of Mexico on a dwindling spit of sand barely five feet above sea level.
“Swingset, Salton Sea” (c) 2019 Gary Faye. Used with artist’s permission.All rights reserved.
Years ago, Faye told me that his images showing water outsold his other work by a considerable margin. He has since refined his explanation. “It’s not just the presence of water in the image,” he says. “It’s the sense of peacefulness and serenity that it communicates.”
The population density of coastal shoreline counties is over six times greater than the corresponding inland counties.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s official population estimates, Between 1960 and 2008, the population in coastline counties along the Gulf of Mexico soared by 150 percent, more than double the rate of increase of the nation’s population as a whole.
As of 1998, over half the population of the planet — about 3.2 billion people — lives and works in a coastal strip just 200 kilometers wide (120 miles), while a full two-thirds, 4 billion, are found within 400 kilometers of a coast.
Living and Dying with the Water Paradox
So are people who build homes mere feet from the shoreline crazy? Or are others crazy for thinking they are crazy? It would seem that:
Proximity to water is hardwired into our DNA
Living near water, which has both benefits and dangers, is the norm.
I call this attraction to living in a danger zone the Water Paradox. What to do about it? You can’t fight it. Maybe we just need to plan and build better. Personally, I’m still searching for answers.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Gary-Faye-c-2019.jpeg?fit=1024%2C684&ssl=16841024adminadmin2019-08-04 21:26:192019-08-04 21:41:21Humankind’s Love-Hate Attraction to Water
Callan Marine should complete its portion of the original Emergency West Fork Dredging Project near Kings Harbor next week. That’s a good thing because Placement Area 1 (PA1) is virtually filled up. Compare these two photos.
20-acrePA1 on 2/23/19 was about one quarter full.
This shot taken on 8/3/2019 shows the entire 20-acre pond is now full with the exception of a narrow strip along the western edge.
Next Phases of Dredging Outlined
The original scope of the emergency West Fork project extended from roughly River Grove Park to just past Kings Harbor. In a town hall meeting last October, Stephen Costello, the City of Houston’s flood czar and chief resiliency officer, called that Phase 1.
Costello also indicated that he was pursuing a grant through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program to dredge further upriver between 59 and River Grove. He called that Phase 3.
Next, he talked about potentially dredging the East Fork.
Finally, he talked about the need for maintenance dredging, something the Corps and FEMA have emphasized for more than a year.
Next phases of dredging, proposed by Stephen Costello, City of Houston’s flood czar, at Town Hall Meeting earlier this year.
Phase 3 and Edgewater Park Boat Ramp
Harris County Precinct 4 plans to build a new park and boat launch immediately east of 494 and Hamblen Road starting in October. Construction will go well into 2020, but unless Phase 3 of dredging takes place, the boat launch may have limited value. I was on a ride-along with HPD’s Lake Patrol in January and their boat got stuck on sand bars several times in this reach of the river.
More Dredging Needed at Mouth Bar
The 500,000 cubic yards that FEMA is removing from the mouth bar is just a start.
The City estimated that Harvey deposited at least 1.4 million cubic yards in that area. And that doesn’t even include deposits left behind by previous storms that severely constrict the conveyance of the river.
Neither the City, nor the Corps, have yet divulged plans for restoring the full conveyance. People are so tight lipped, you would think this involved national security. I requested plans from the Corps under the Freedom of Information Act six weeks ago and have still not received them.
Drone photo of Great Lakes Dredge at Mouth Bar with Atascocita Point in background. Photo courtesy of BCAeronautics.
Meanwhile, the partial mouth bar dredging is going much faster than expected. Great Lakes originally said it would take six months to complete the 500,000 cubic yards. However, they’ve finished half the job in six weeks. That’s reportedly because they have not found the submerged trees in that area that they found upstream.
Once again, an early finish could pressure officials. Remobilizing another dredge crew if Great Lakes leaves could prove very costly. Mobilization and demobilization constituted one quarter of the cost of the current job or about $18 million.
Maintenance Dredging Needed, Too
Keeping sedimentation down to a sub-acute level in the future will require periodic maintenance dredging. And that will require a large storage site and annual budgeting.
Beyond the sediment, we also have another reason for periodic river surveys and maintenance dredging. They will help avoid battles with FEMA. After Harvey, the City, Corps and FEMA argued for a year about how much of the sediment in the mouth bar was due to Harvey and how much was due to deferred maintenance from previous years. FEMA can pay for storm damage, but not deferred maintenance. Hence the lengthy debate and delays.
Kingwood Could Swing Mayoral Election
As we head into the mayoral race this fall, we should keep in mind that we have started the dredging, but it will never be finished. Nature and sand mines in floodways will continue to dump sediment in the headwaters of Lake Houston.
I, for one, look forward to quizzing the candidates on their plans for and commitment to maintenance dredging after we restore conveyance between 59 and 1960. In previous years, because the problem was out of sight under water, mayor after mayor deferred dredging to divert money elsewhere. We paid the price during Harvey.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/3/2019with drone photo from BCAeronautics
704 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Costello-Flood-Resilience-in-Kingwood_Page_6.jpg?fit=1120%2C728&ssl=17281120adminadmin2019-08-03 22:41:582019-08-03 22:42:07Phase 1 of West Fork Dredging Almost Complete; What Happens Next Could Affect Mayoral Race
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
The 86th Texas Legislature charged the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) with implementing flood-related legislation, including Senate Bill (SB) 7, SB 8, SB 500, and House Joint Resolution 4. This legislation greatly expanded the TWDB’s role in flood planning and financing.
Planning the New State Flood Plan
The TWDB will administer a new state flood planning program. This program establishes a state and regional flood planning process, with flood planning regions based on river basins. The TWDB aims to have the first regional flood plans by 2023, and the first state flood plan by September 1, 2024.
Light pole near River Bend in North Shore as Harvey receded. Note the “wet marks” several feet up on pole. Photo by Jim Balcom.
The legislature also authorized a one-time transfer of $793 million from the state’s Economic Stabilization or “Rainy Day” Fund to create a new flood mitigation funding program that the TWDB will administer. The goal: to make drainage and flood projects more affordable and to meet immediate needs for funding. The funding will become available in 2020.
Statewide Call for Input
Says Jeff Walker, Executive Director, “The TWDB is working to get these programs up and running as quickly as possible and to hire staff for these new roles. Prior to formal rulemaking activities this fall, we are seeking input on a variety of issues, including but not limited to:
Administration of funding for flood control planning and drainage, flood mitigation, and flood control projects
Creation of regional and state flood planning process and related requirements
Potential flood planning region boundaries
State and regional flood planning guidance principles”
Written feedback is requested by August 30, 2019 and should be submitted to rulescomments@twdb.texas.gov.
Issues Being Considered
TWDB will also host stakeholder workshops around the state the first two weeks of August; these will include presentations on implementation efforts and issues for stakeholder consideration as well as opportunities for giving formal comments and for informal discussions with TWDB staff and board members.
TWDB invites you to join these discussions. In the coming months, you can help create new state programs that will better protect Texans against the loss of life and property from flooding.
What will be the most effective form of financial assistance? Grants or loans?
Should they require local matches?
What types of projects should get the highest priority?
Should state funds complement federal buyout funds?
How can the TDWB ensure cooperation of all political entities in a watershed?
How can we avoid conflicts between state and regional flood plans?
How can we ensure that flood mitigation measures in one area don’t exacerbate flooding in another?
Regional Workshop in Tomball on August 9
The information included in the PDF linked above is intended to generate discussion and to solicit specific feedback that will inform formal rulemaking and other implementation efforts.
Written feedback is requested by August 30, 2019 and should be submitted to rulescomments@twdb.texas.gov.
If you have thoughts you would like to volunteer on these or other planning issues, you can also discuss them in person at:
Beckendorf Conference Center at Lone Star College–Tomball
30555 Tomball Pkwy.
Tomball, TX 77375
9:30-11:30 a.m.
Friday, August 9
Sign up for more information about these meetings and other flood information at the TWDB’s website. You can also contact the TWDB at (512) 463-8725 or flood@twdb.texas.gov.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/30/2019with photo by Jim Balcom
700 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/image4-1-e1553198926707.jpeg?fit=966%2C1400&ssl=11400966adminadmin2019-07-30 21:30:132019-07-30 21:40:18Flood Planning: How Would You Spend $793 million?
I recently had the honor of interviewing Blake Roberts, general manager of the Clubs of Kingwood. Roberts took the job just five days before Hurricane Harvey and has led the Clubs’ remarkable comeback. From golf courses buried under as much as eight feet of sand to the clubhouse that took on six feet of water, Roberts and his team resurrected an operation that many would have written off. They turned it into a shining centerpiece and selling point for the entire Kingwood community…even as they fed members whose homes had been destroyed.
Rehak: When you combine Deerwood and Kingwood, this must rank as one of the larger clubs in the country. Is it in the Top 10?
Roberts: It’s actually #5 now.
Rehak: What happened during Harvey?
Roberts: We ended up with almost 18 feet of water across the entire golf course. We also had sand. Some areas had just a few inches but others had up to eight feet.
Rehak: Amazing.
Buried in Sand
Roberts: The big issue we had was, “What do you do with all the sand?” And, “How do you turn it back into a golf course and make it better than ever. We have a phenomenal maintenance group. They redid three out of the five holes near the river that had the most silt on them. They re-contoured them to actually use the silt and sand dumped by Harvey.
Hurricane Harvey deposited several feet of sand on Kingwood Country Club’s golf courses near the river. This shot was taken on 9/14/2017. You can see crews already re-contouring one of the holes.
Rehak: You couldn’t just push it back into the river.
Roberts: Correct. We spread it out over other parts of the golf course and used that as padding for the soil that was already out there. We came in with backhoes and started moving the dirt and trying to smooth it all out. Then we put sod right back over the top of it.
Downed trees, of course, made some of the bigger differences. When people play the courses today, they say, “I don’t remember this hole being this way.” That’s because you used to have a tree here and a tree there. But that was part of the contouring that went along with it to make it flow and drain for playing golf again.
Eaglet in nest on Kingwood Country Club Island Course. Photo courtesy of Emily Murphy.Eagles returned after the flood.
One of the biggest concerns for the members was our eagles’ nests. We’re happy to say they’re safe and sound and we have a huge Facebook following of the baby eagles that hatched this year!
18 Feet of Water On Courses, 6 in Clubhouse
Rehak: You said you had 18 feet of water on the course. How much was in the clubhouse?
Roberts: Almost six feet.
Rehak: What did reconstruction entail?
Newly redecorated reception area at the Kingwood Country Club
Roberts: We took out everything. Took out ceiling tiles. We took out all the way up because the mold started growing so quickly. We took everything down to the studs and bricks, and tossed out anything that could hold moisture.
Rehak: You lost some other facilities here, too. Tell me about those.
Roberts: We lost the fitness center. That ended up with about twenty eight inches of water in it. Of course the pools and everything else. We lost all of our pump houses. We lost our maintenance building. We lost the Forest Course which has the Golf Advantage School and the driving range.
Deerwood Completely Updated
Rehak: And what about Deerwood?
Roberts: We lost the Deerwood Club House and maintenance building. Deerwood ended up with about 34 inches. The water wicked up through the walls. With the building being a little bit older and not having as many updates, we went back in and changed it completely.
Roberts: How?
Roberts: It now has a restaurant where their golf shop used to be. And then we redid the men’s locker room. We redid the dining area. We put in a new bar area, new wet areas, new showers, new everything. Members tell me it’s the best thing that we could have ever done.
Improvements to Other Facilities at Kingwood
Rehak: What about your Lazy River and pool at the Kingwood Club? How did those fare in the flood?
Roberts: Not well. All of the equipment – from the umbrellas to the chairs to the tables – was pushed around in the flood. They damaged the interior of the pools. So we drained all the water, completely power washed everything, re- plastered and started all over from the very beginning.
We even rebuilt all the cabanas because the cabanas had metal poles. There was a concern that if they sat in water with level four contaminants and you didn’t get everything, what happens when somebody touches it and then touches food?
We had the same concerns with fitness equipment. Some of it was above water, but we worried about microbial growth. So we took everything out. All the way down the concrete slab which they bleached the tar out of. Then we started over with brand new equipment.
Rehak: Incredible.
Newly renovatedLakeside Terrace where members dined during reconstruction. It had been flooded to the roofline.
Roberts: The Lakeside Terrace flooded all the way up to the roofline because of where it sits. So they took it all the way down to the studs and the glass walls. We power washed and bleached it. Just started all over again, replaced the roof, replaced the ceiling, replaced the insulation. It’s beautiful. More beautiful than it was before. Absolutely. Members actually dined out there for a little more than a year. Our “kitchen” was a 38-foot trailer for 15 months.
Giving Back to Community in Its Darkest Hour
Rehak: That raises an interesting question. How did you keep your staff focused through all this?
Roberts: The team actually bonded together, much like the community as a whole. We took more than 25,000 sandwiches and wraps to homeowners around the community right after Harvey. All of our clubs in the area sent food our way. We dispersed it throughout the entire community. That’s incredible. As soon as we could get a food truck here, we actually fed all of our members from the food truck. From the 8th of September all the way through the 8th of December. Every single day, members could come up and dine for free.
When the staff wasn’t working here, folks went into neighborhoods and helped random people moving stuff out of their homes or ripping sheetrock out. There were so many random acts of kindness!
Rehak: That’s quite amazing.
Roberts: And the employees all bound together. They had a plan. Our goal was to get these golf courses back and a dining space before the end of the year, which we accomplished. Golf courses finished up on December 26, with the last trucks of sand going into the bunkers. And we had the Lakeside Terrace for members to dine. And April 9th, 2018, we opened up the fitness center. And then the pools opened on Memorial Day weekend that year like they were always scheduled to do.
Membership Back Up But Still Room For Growth
Rehak: And how did the membership levels fare through all this. Did you take a hit?
Members teeing up on the driving range and working on the putting green.
Roberts: Oh yes. And we anticipated that would happen. We had more than 300 members whose homes flooded. So we allowed them to go to a “Hold” Category while they rebuilt their homes. They had plenty of time to complete fixes before coming back to full membership.
$50 Million Investment In Community
Roberts: How much did it cost to restore all this?
We’re over $50 million currently. That includes Deerwood and Kingwood Clubs. It also includes a large fleet of golf carts and maintenance equipment that nobody really ever thinks about. But those carts aren’t cheap and neither are those big tractors that mow.
Ironically, we had taken precautions with all that equipment before the flood. We moved everything to the parking lot because the parking lot had never flooded before.
Rehak: So fifty million dollars! That’s a huge commitment. Was that a hard sell to your corporate office?
Roberts: Not really. They came back and said, “You know what? This has always been the heart of Kingwood. This is the heart of the community and we want to get it back to being bigger and better than ever.”
Part of the Kingwood Country Clubs gorgeous Lake Course
Manager Started Job 5 Days Before Harvey…and Stayed
Rehak: You started this job not long before Hurricane Harvey.
Roberts: Five days. When I tell people that, everyone asks, “Why did you stay?” I saw it as an opportunity. Can you imagine putting this on your resume? A 50 million dollar rebuild project on top of managing 90 holes of golf, a fitness center, tennis and all the other.
Rehak: It’s gorgeous. It looks like you’ve completely redesigned the clubhouse.
Roberts: Not completely redesigned, but completely refreshed. We kept most of the walls in the same spots, but the ones that we needed to move, we did. The new board room is an example.
Rehak: What did you do and how did you make it different?
Roberts: Well, we had a storage room behind the board room. We removed that wall and gained six extra feet. So we were able to put a very large table in there and make it the boardroom that it always should have been.
“We’re Still Discovering Little Things”
With other changes like that, we soft-opened this building (Kingwood CC clubhouse) in February, 2019. And we’re still considering ourselves under soft opening because we’re still discovering things.
Rehak: For instance?
Roberts: Little things. You originally go into re-building thinking, “I have all this covered.” And then you’re like, “I don’t have all this.” For instance, I’m still waiting on my coffee credenza to where I have member coffee available all of the time. It’s just little things like that. We built the building back and we’re ninety-eight percent of the way…complete.
Rehak: Are you going to have an official grand reopening?
18th Hole of Kingwood Country Club’s Island Course.
Official Grand Re-Opening Coming Soon
Roberts: We ARE. But there are three projects we’re still trying to complete. The member porte-cochère entrance by the golf shop, the back patio, and our private-event entrance. Then we will consider the rebuild complete.
Rehak: Would you call this the opportunity to rebuild the club your dreams? It really does look pretty spectacular here.
Roberts: Yes, we were able to put all the little things back together that we wished for over the years, but never were able to do.
Rehak: Do any stories from the flood or the recovery really stand out in your mind?
Roberts: 25,000+ sandwiches. Feeding members for months. Long days. Some of our crews did this by day. And by night, they were actually going to people’s houses and helping them rip out sheet rock and drywall and everything else. I was amazed to hear how many people were doing this and you know some of them are 50-60 years old.
Rehak: Is the membership level back up to where it was or it needs to be?
Roberts: We’re close. Very close to being back where we were before Harvey. But two other floods in 2015 and 2016 hurt us as well. So we still have room to grow.
Outside of newly renovated dining room.
Rehak: How are the courses? Are there spots you don’t want to hit your ball into?
Getting Even Better Every Single Day
Roberts: Not really. The best part about this was the golf courses getting that extra sand. I have people who have been members for 40 years saying, “This place is better than the day it was built.” It makes me smile knowing how far we’ve come.
Rehak: Did you have to replant the greens?
Roberts: All the greens survived except two. And we redid those with the three fairways. But if you didn’t know exactly where to look, you probably couldn’t tell.
Rehak: If you had one thing to tell potential new members right now, what would it be?
Roberts: We’re back and better than ever. And we’re getting even better every single day. If you haven’t seen us lately, you probably should take a look again. Because you know what? What people may remember is completely different now.
Posted by Bob Rehak on August 7, 2019
708 Days from Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/RobertsBlake_02.jpg?fit=1500%2C1000&ssl=110001500adminadmin2019-07-30 18:21:322019-08-09 01:13:24$50 Million Rebuild After Harvey Makes Fifth Largest Country Club in America Better Than Ever
Before Harvey, Jennifer Parks lived in the Forest Cove Townhomes with her husband, four kids and cat. They absolutely loved the river lifestyle and the friendships they built with neighbors. Harvey was the eighth of seven floods in five years. It destroyed their 4-story townhome, a close knit community and a life they loved despite the trouble. This is a story about how a flood changed the trajectory of six people’s lives forever.It’s the latest in a series of Impact stories.
2019 Fire Brings Back Memories of 2016
Rehak: You lived in the complex on Timberline at Marina Drive that burned on July 4th this year?
Parks: Yes. We were the four-story unit at the end, two doors down from where there was another fire in 2016.
Rehak: How many fires have there been there this year?
Parks: Three. Two during the week of July 4th and one earlier over by the pool.
Rehak: The fire department came out in force for this one. They had 10 fire trucks plus two ambulances. It was impressive.
Ten fire trucks were called out to battle the blaze in Parks’ townhome complex on July 4.
Parks: When we had the fire back in 2016 there were 32 fire trucks. The whole street was lined all the way. On both sides. Every truck in Kingwood, plus Porter and Atascocita came in. It was craziness but people lived there, then. So lives were at stake. Now, the townhomes are abandoned.
“We Always Flooded on My Husband’s Birthday”
Rehak: How long did you live there?
Parks: Five years. We moved in at the end of March, 2013. We had our first flood on Memorial Day. My husband’s birthday was Memorial Day and we always flooded on his birthday.
Rehak: (Laughs)
Parks: Yeah (also laughing sarcastically) it was nice. At first, we would flood from the streets when the storm drains backed up. The first time I ever saw the river come over the bank was Memorial Day of 2016. It filled the area up like a bowl. People would drive around to look at it and splash water into our garage. It ruined everything we had on the floor.
Eight Floods in Five Years
Parks: We had a total of eight floods including Harvey in the five years we lived there.
Rehak: (Incredulous) Eight floods in five years!
Parks: Yeah. We had to move our vehicles and water got into the first story. Usually it would just splash in, but for the Tax Day flooding, we had three feet of water. That was the first time we left our house in a canoe. Then that Memorial Day we had eight feet. That was the second time we left in a canoe. Then there was Harvey. We had 20 feet.
Rehak: How many?
Parks: 20 feet is what FEMA measured.
Parks’ second story living room went under water during Harvey. FEMA says water reached 20 feet.
Rehak: Oh geez!
Parks: It went over my TV in the second story.
Man Cave on First Floor
Rehak: Were those apartments vacant on the ground floor?
Parks: They were all built with the garage on the first. We have a big truck that did not fit in there. So we had a bar, darts and lights. Ours was decked out. It was more of a man cave than a garage. We never managed to get a lava lamp. But it was pretty cool. We were the neighborhood hang-out. We were always told that we were the welcoming committee.
As Harvey’s floodwaters receded, Parks’ husband took this picture from a canoe while returning to save the family cat.
The kids would be playing board games in the front. They had a TV, a table, a microwave and a refrigerator. It was like a snack hangout area. People would walk by, see us out there, and be like, “Hey, how you doin’!” That’s how we’d meet all the new neighbors. We were just in a friend’s wedding who we met that way. He went by one day to get the mail at stopped in to say hi. It was a very tight knit neighborhood to say the least.
Structural damage made townhomes unlivable. City condemned them all shortly after the flood.
Sense of Community Lost
Rehak: What brought you together?
Parks: Just living close to each other. Plus, the backyards were large. The driveways were very long. And then there was a big beautiful field. We have four kids. So our kids were always back there playing and we were outside. We did a lot of landscaping and gardening and we helped other neighbors. I think just being outside all the time was a large part of it because it was such a beautiful area to be outside.
Collapsed first floor game room where kids and neighbors once gathered.
Rehak: It’s easy to see why you miss it.
Parks: That’s how we made friends. And then there was the canoe.
Rehak: Canoe?
Parks: A neighbor with a canoe kept rescuing my children. Needless to say, we became very close with him. His name is Bob.
And then there was all the bonding during cleanups. After the bigger floods, the sand deposits were crazy. It got in your house. So there was a lot of pressure washing and a lot of cleaning.
The first story had Blowout walls. They are intended to blow out with a flood.
Repairs and Clean Up Brought People Together
Rehak: So you had to rebuild those.
Parks: Yes. The structural walls with cement and cinder blocks … there was a lot of rebuilding those, too, and sand removal and pressure washing. The whole neighborhood just kind of came together. We would go from one drive to the next. Someone would be shoveling sand out of one. Someone would be pressure washing the next. I think that brought us really close together. We helped each other out. Then the Memorial Day flood happened and it was like ten times worse.
We had the Red Cross truck here three times a day with food. It was amazing. My kids joked, “Heyyyyy! We’re getting snacks from the Red Cross today!”
Rehak: Red Cross Cuisine!
Some of the sand deposited by Harvey in front of Parks’ Townhome.
Parks: Yes. And you know, it wasn’t bad…considering you work all day, and then you come home and you’re going to pressure wash or shovel sand. Because with sand come roaches and to try to keep the roaches out of everybody’s house, we’re trying to move the sand as quickly as possible.
Rehak: I hadn’t even thought about that.
Parks: It was disgusting. You would shovel it to scoop up sand and roaches would just scurry. And we never had roaches before the Memorial Day flood. Never! It was baaaad.
Why They Stayed Despite Flooding
Rehak: If you flooded eight times in five years, why did you stay?”
Parks: The first few weren’t that bad. Then the next two were big and really rough. We contemplated what we were going to do. One big argument for staying put was that our kids went to Foster Elementary school. It was and is an amazing school. And we didn’t want to pull our kids out. Another big factor was finding another rental in the area that was within our $1400 budget. That was just not happening unless it was an apartment. And we really didn’t want to do an apartment. Finally, there was also the beauty. Every time we felt we couldn’t go through another flood, we’d take a look at how beautiful it is here. We’d say, “It’s worth it to stay. And we have our community here.” So we stayed.
“You Know We’re Not Coming Back This Time, Right Bubba?”
I have a video of my husband and Bob in a canoe. As Harvey was receding, they went back and got our cat. In the video, it’s like the most heart wrenching thing you will ever hear. Bob says to my husband, “You know we’re not coming back here this time, right Bubba?”
Every single time I watch that video it brings me to tears because it tells you how much that place meant to all of us. My husband and I actually got married there. It’ll be four years in October. We got married right on the river bank. We had party tents in our driveway and we had a big wedding. It meant so much to us.
I get a little defensive when people say, “Oh, you lived in the crackhead apartments? No, it was not crackhead apartments in any way, shape, or form! Sorry if I get a little defensive.
Parks surveys the gang graffiti where her children once played.
Too Heartbreaking To Go Home Again
Rehak: When you go down to your old neighborhood today, what does it make you feel?
Parks: I don’t go down there. I can’t. It’s heartbreaking. It’s disgusting. It amazes me how in two years … how it got so bad. A friend who is a police officer was down there after the last fire. He took pictures and there’s graffiti all over my beautiful garage. Like disgusting graffiti. And it’s…it’s gang graffiti. It’s absolutely gang graffiti. There are gangs living in my beautiful home.
As Parks gave me a tour of her former property, she discovered this looseleaf notebook that looters had thrown from her kitchen. It contained a lifetime of recipes. She tried to salvage her family cookbook.
Our house was completely redone after the 2016 fire. All the walls. All new appliances. Everything was brand new. Flooring and carpeting. It was beautiful. So that’s the other thing people don’t know because they hadn’t been inside the townhomes. A lot of them were gorgeous.
Rehak: Did your kids end up in a different school?
Learning Firsthand What It Means to Be Homeless
Parks: We actually were able to stay. Because our status was “homeless,” which is always interesting, our daughter was able to stay for fourth grade at Foster without any question. That was fantastic. But then for the fifth grade we would have had to transfer. Her guidance counselor told me to note, “mental stability of the child at stake due a natural disaster.” And so she got to stay for fifth grade and finish up at Foster.
Rehak: Tell me about the homeless aspect for a second. What did that mean in practical terms?
Parks: We were fortunate. I’m involved in Cub and Boy Scouts. One of my Cub Scout friends, she actually lived here her whole life. She knew that in the ’94 floods, a couple of the townhomes collapsed. So after Harvey she was, “Get out, get out, get out, right now.” She said, “Come stay with me.” I only knew the family for two years from Monday night Scout meetings. But we ended up living with them for months while we bought our current house.
We were actually renting the townhome in Forest Cove, but wound up having to buy a house because we were “homeless.” It took time. While we were looking, we were considered “displaced due to natural disaster.” They condemned the townhomes pretty quickly. We couldn’t even think about going back because of structural damage. What else?
School Restores Sense of Normalcy for Kids
Parks: So the kids got free lunch at school.
Foster Elementary was one of the highest impacted elementary schools between teachers and students because of where it is and because it services Forest Cove.
Many of the teachers were impacted, too, and the school did amazing things, incredible things really … like blankets were donated to the kids. Something so simple. But my daughter didn’t have the blanket that she grew up with anymore. So you know having a new blanket was something really special.
They gave all the kids year books that year.
When the book fair came around, they gave the kids gift certificates.
They were just a lot of little things that happened even after we bought our house.
We moved in the day before Thanksgiving so we were pretty quick. Others were displaced for so much longer and still are. We were fortunate that we had friends and family that helped financially. We were able to furnish our new home. We have all this stuff and a beautiful house. But getting there was not fun.
Friends Now Farther But Not Forgotten
Rehak: I certainly understand that. What has happened to your old circle of friends? Are you still in touch?
Parks: We are. Except for one who moved pretty far away … out to Crosby. We see Bob at least on a weekly basis. That was a hard transition from seeing him every day to now only once a week or so. He bought a house in Porter. His daughter … I see her at least two or three times a week still.
And Jane and Rob. It’s gone from seeing them every day to once a month now.
Rehak: On balance, are you happier now?
Learning to Live with Moderate Neighborhood-Ness
Parks: I don’t know if you can compare. Everything in our lives is pre-Harvey or post-Harvey. Which kind of sucks. I would say that the happiness is different because we’ve made friends with our neighbors in Woodland Hills. We just don’t see as many people as often. But we still have moderate “neighborhood-ness.” I would say we’re equally happy.
I can tell you that the six to twelve months after Harvey was very, very difficult. Probably the most trying time in my life and my husband’s. And my kids! My kids were thoroughly traumatized, to say the least.
Rehak: Your lives were turned upside down.
Parks: It’s hard when the kids say, “Hey Mom, do you have X? And I have to say, “I’m sorry. No, we won’t have that anymore.”
The tree under which Parks got married with all their neighborhood friends. San Jacinto West Fork and US59 Bridge are in the background.
It’s little stuff like my daughter’s Build-a-Bear. And all their school supplies that were sitting on our kitchen table. We had to get new school supplies all over again; I had just bought them the week before Harvey. That was fun. (Rolling eyes.)
Rehak: Not easy on a young family’s salary.
Husband Forced into New Job That Takes Him Farther from Family
Parks: And my husband did private construction. All of his tools were in our living room. Before Harvey, we moved them up from the garage so they wouldn’t get flooded or stolen. Then our living room flooded. We didn’t just lose our house. My husband lost his job, too, because we couldn’t just go out and replace thousands of dollars in tools. So he ended up going back to the oil fields and travelling. It’s not so bad on me, but…it’s hard on the kids.
Rehak: When you saw those townhomes burn, did you still have an emotional attachment to them?
July 4 Fire Triggered PTSD
Parks: I’m so ready for them to just be gone. I don’t even care how they go. I’m tired of the community badmouthing them; they were not bad places. But at the same time there’s some PTSD. Because of the 2016 fire, all that trauma comes back really fast when we see fire.
We had so much fun there for so many years. Ironically, we had a big fire pit out front and we would burn whatever was laying around. It was right on the river. We had crawfish boils over there and now we’re like, “Oh my gosh! This place is gone.” In a not-so-comfortable way.
Parks: Adding insult to injury?
Parks: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. “Insult to injury.”
Posted by Bob Rehak on July 30, 2019
699 Days after Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Exterior-Parks-Home-1-e1650134710966.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=16751200adminadmin2019-07-29 16:28:222019-07-29 17:00:35After Eighth Flood in Five Years, Forest Cove Townhome Renter Forced Out and Burned Out
