Tag Archive for: May 7

Life at Ground Zero in Elm Grove

Nancy Vera and Edythe Cogdill live across the street from each other at the northern end of Village Springs. They moved to Elm Grove to build an idyllic life for themselves and their families. For years, it was a quiet, peaceful neighborhood filled with friends and block parties. Kids played in the streets and rode their bikes to schools on greenbelts. From their front porches, they could look north across the Montgomery County line and see forest laced with streams and trails. Then the bulldozers came. And spring rains. Suddenly, they found themselves at ground zero in a battle with Mother Nature, corporate giants, and a neighboring county that cared more about development than protecting downstream residents from flooding. Each woman flooded twice last year. As I interviewed them together, they shared their thoughts on every aspect of the experience.

Cogdill and Vera live at the tip of this 268-acre clear-cut funnel created by Perry Homes. See white dot for approximate location. Perry still has yet to install 75% of the promised detention.

Rehak: How badly did you flood in May and September?

Cogdill: We had about nine, 10 inches, in May. And 22 inches outside the fence during Imelda, but only 12 or 13 inches in the house. Our fence deflected a lot of water. 

Edythe Cogdill looks with worry at Perry Homes’ Woodridge Village. Her home and camper are behind her. Her home flooded twice last year from Woodridge. She captured the harrowing ordeals on video to share with the world.

Rehak: And Nancy, in May, how much did you get?

Vera: We got two feet.

Rehak: And in Imelda? 

Vera: Three.

Impact of Flooding on Neighborhood and Home Values

Rehak: We walked your block and discussed each house. All but one flooded. And you are the only two original families left. It’s like you’re living at ground zero.

Vera (left) and Cogdill (right) fret about the impact of renters on their once idyllic neighborhood.

Cogdill: Yes.

Rehak: Most of these other houses have sold to investors?

Cogdill: All with the exception of the one that has a brother living in it now. That family has to keep the house because they just bought it last year; they can’t afford to sell. 

Rehak: Talk to me about property values in the neighborhood. 

Cogdill: The house next door sold for $93,000. Our appraisal last year was $214,000.

Rehak: So it went for about half?

Cogdill: Another sold for $105,000. 

Vera: It was appraised before the floods at over $200,000.

Rehak: Again, about 50 percent. Would that be a fair estimate for these others up and down the block?

Vera: That’s what I’ve been hearing. My son’s friend’s house sold for eighty. That’s on the next street over.

Vera: Most people are getting $80,000 to $100,000 now.

Homes on their block seem to have been in a perpetual state of repair since last May.

Rehak: And what would that one have gone for before?

Vera: $160,000 to $200,000 depending on square footage.

Rehak: Still, about 50 percent. 

Vera: Yes. 

Remodeling Right Before Flood

Cogdill: We totally remodeled our house in March of 2018, a year before the flood. All new paint inside and out. Totally gutted the bathroom and redid it. Added a very expensive back porch. And then it flooded. 

Rehak: Did you have flood insurance?

Cogdill: We did.

Rehak: You did, too? (To Vera)

Vera: We did not have flood insurance in May. But I got flood insurance within a week after the first flood. 

Vera’s living room has been reduced to “life with lawn furniture.” She has lived this way for almost a year. She and her husband have so little faith in Perry’s promises to fix Woodridge that they postponed repairs until after hurricane season.

Flood Insurance Experiences in Back-to-Back Floods

Rehak: Talk to me about your flood insurance experiences. You said one of your neighbors had a problem. Even though most of the house was rebuilt after the first flood, they didn’t get credit for that?

Cogdill: The adjuster merged the claims because they did not have their inspection complete before the second flood. They were going to get something out of the second flood, but it didn’t nearly cover the loss. They had to redo everything. And they weren’t reimbursed for everything. 

After the second flood in five months and hassles with insurance adjusters, Vera’s neighbors gave up. An investor bought their headaches for 50 cents on the dollar.

And then they took a $10,000 loss on their camper. They bought the camper to live in after the May flood. They were days away from moving back into their house. And then everything – house AND camper – flooded again in September. So they were upside down. Her insurance gave them $10,000 less than what they owed on it. 

Never-ending Parade of Contractors

Vera: I just want to get everybody out of my house, because every day, every day, every day, somebody is there.

Rehak: You have no privacy anymore?

Cogdill: You have contractors that say, “We’ll be there at 7:00 a.m.” And then they don’t come. Or you might take off work to let someone in and they don’t show. 

Vera: And I had to buy cameras to put in my house, so I can see them. 

Cogdill: The lady with the camper worked from home. And they would pound on her  door every time, “Well, we’re here.” And she would be on a conference call. She just said, “I can’t do this anymore.” They’re gone now.

Managing Repairs and Full-Time Jobs

Rehak: I hadn’t really considered the “time off from work” aspect of all this. Nancy, you and your husband both work.

Vera: He can’t really take off because he’s overseeing a massive construction project. So I’m doing all the taking off.

Rehak: Where do you work?

Vera: I work for an insurance company. We handle benefits for school systems that we sell insurance to.

Cogdill: I was the construction manager on our rebuild. We were completely done with the remodel from the first flood.

Rehak: How long did it take you?

Finishing First Repairs Then Flooding Again

Cogdill: We finished two weeks before the September flood.

Rehak: How did that feel?

Cogdill: I sat down and I cried. It was exactly like the May flood. I was home alone and calling my husband every ten minutes, and then … then when it came in the back door, I just started bawling. And nobody could get home until right before dark. It started like eight o’clock in the morning.

Home Alone in Rising Waters

Rehak: What does it feel like when the water is coming up? 

Cogdill: Everybody’s telling me on the phone, “Do this and do that. Put this up and get the dogs. Be sure you get your medicines. And I’m just looking around like, wow, OK, the dogs are walking through puddles … in the house. We lost our car in the first flood. It was in the driveway.

Postponing Rebuild and Wondering

Rehak: Nancy, after the May flood, you were a little skeptical about what Perry was  going to do. So, you didn’t rebuild immediately. 

Vera: We lived in a house with no walls, nothing all summer. We put up that Tyvek paper on all the walls. So that kinda helped. My house never got too hot. We were lucky; our air conditioning was brand new. It held up when everybody else was losing theirs.

Rehak: So, when the second flood came, you didn’t have demo to worry about? 

The Vera kitchen after two floods, the first without insurance.

Vera: Partially. We had more damage the second time. A lot more.

Rehak: That’s right. You said it went up another foot. When did you make the decision to renovate and why?

Vera: We waited until hurricane season was over. And we said we would try to get it done as soon as possible. I was my own project manager to save money. We’re still on the fence as to whether we should sell and walk out.

I Bought This To Be My LIFE

Rehak: Let’s talk about that. Do you think Perry will sort this out?

Vera: You want to have hope.

Cogdill: You hope that they’re human. You want to keep your home.

Vera: This is my home. It’s not an investment. I bought this to be my LIFE. 

Cogdill: This is where I wanted to raise our kids. That’s the reason I live here. 

Vera: I don’t want to give up hope because in my gut I don’t want to sell my house. But then do you trust that they can fix it after you flooded twice … and you see that they’re not actually out there doing ANYTHING to problem solve?

The Cogdill and Vera families fret over the Perry detention pond that seems to be under perpetual construction. Building additional detention capacity that might help prevent future flooding does not seem to be a high priority for Perry. Meanwhile, they live in a state of perpetual fear.

Cogdill: It’s fixin’ to be, you know, flood season and all that. Why have they not been doing anything? 

Rehak: What would you like to see done out there now?

Cogdill: This is such a hard question because there have been so many things out there that people have said could happen, may happen. The most recent one is to make a 300-acre lake out of it if Harris County Flood Control takes over. But I have worries with that, too. Look at all the places that flood in Harris County.

Vera: Right now, we’re very gun shy about anything. We don’t have the correct answer either, because we’re not experts. All we know is that we don’t want to flood again.

Biggest Fear for Neighborhood

Rehak: Beyond flooding again, what’s your biggest fear for the neighborhood? 

Cogdill: Renters won’t take care of property as much as homeowners. They’re not going to keep up their yards. They’re not going to care about landscaping.

Rehak: Beyond your block, how many homes in this area have flipped or are up for sale.

Vera: Close to a hundred.

Ten homes in a row for lease in North Kingwood Forest by the same company. These are directly across Taylor Gully from Vera and Cogdill.

Cogdill: I would say 40 percent. 

Rehak: How many more homes do you think flooded the second time than the first? 

Vera: About 200 flooded the first time. At least 400 the second.

Living in a State of High Alert

Rehak: What would make you happy at this point?

Cogdill: We just want things back to normal.

Rehak: What do you consider normal? 

Cogdill: Not living with the fear. To have everybody’s homes that have been destroyed fixed, repaired, restored back to the original. 

Cogdill can never escape the fear of living with the development in the background. She worries about flooding a third time before someone fixes the problem.

Vera: Not to worry every time there’s a storm coming. We were up all night last night, even though we were told we were not going to flood again. But everybody was still glued to the TV, because we’re always on high alert. We ARE going to flood again because nobody has solved this problem. What do I want? To NOT live with anxiety all the time. But it’s always there.

Cogdill: I want to get back to a place where everybody is not whining, complaining, or scared. I want everybody’s homes fixed and to say, “Hey, we’re having a block party this month.” I just want to live in a normal community that’s not consumed with fear. 

Accountability and Oversight

Rehak: What role do you see Montgomery County Government playing in all of this?

Cogdill: Montgomery County should be liable. City of Houston should be liable. And once these people start being held liable over this stuff, maybe they’ll stop letting it slip through the cracks. You know, it’s just somebody somewhere along the way pushed a bunch of stuff under the rug. And all of them shut their eyes to it. They all should have been involved. But my understanding is that Montgomery County won’t come inspect it. They have a job. And they should do it. 

Vera: My biggest concern is that I don’t know what we can do about it. And we get a lot of spring rain.  

Running Out of Hope

Rehak: Have you considered raising your foundation?

Vera: It was going to be like close to a hundred thousand dollars to do it.

A never-ending story: Once immaculate lawns and proudly maintained homes have given way to trash piles.

Rehak: Last question. What do you feel about the way Perry Homes has handled this?

Vera: I think they’re sick. 


Such is life at ground zero in the flood zone.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 2/4/2020 with thanks to Nancy Vera and Edythe Cogdill for sharing their experience

890 Days since Hurricane Harvey and 139 since Imelda

The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.

Zura Drone Videos Reveal Romerica Had Flooding Problems on May 7 Also

Yet more drone footage by local resident and videographer Jim Zura of Zura Productions revealed that Elm Grove and North Kingwood Forest weren’t the only areas with flooding problems on May 7, 2019. The low-lying Romerica land is in the floodway and floodplain of the San Jacinto West Fork. A large part of the property is also classified as wetlands.

Flood Follies

May continued the developers’ long standing tradition of flooding follies.

Both the TCEQ and US Fish & Wildlife Service complained about the flooding and wetlands when protesting Romerica’s permit application to build high rises in an old riverbed of the West Fork. Between February of 2018 and January of this year, the Romerica property flooded six times – once every other month. In April, Romerica requested an extension of the time allowed to respond to 727 protest letters. The Army Corps withdrew their application instead, but without prejudice. That means the developer may reapply at a future date.

Zura Videos Show Scope of Flooding Day After May 7

Zura filmed three short drone videos linked below. The first two from River Grove Park show the extent of Romerica’s flooding problems on May 7. The third shows street flooding on May 3 on much higher ground.

The first shows how deep the water was in River Grove’s popular boardwalk area. It also shows wetlands adjacent to Woodland Hills, near where Romerica wants to build a commercial and retail mall.

The second shows how much of the developer’s property was flooded after a four inch rain the night before.

The third video shows trucks trying to navigate down a residential street on much higher ground.

Romerica Reportedly Reapplying for Permit

Romerica has reportedly decided to reapply for a permit from the Army Corps. As they develop the required surveys and studies coming out of Round One, they have taken down many of the websites that previously caused them so many problems. For instance, they removed the site offering EB-5 visas to foreign investors through their American Vision program. However, I have screen captures of all the suspect websites.

Zura’s video underscores the folly of developing this property into anything other than a park. I hope Mr. Haddad and Mr. Covarrubias watch these videos closely.

The Producers Sequel called The Developers?

This is starting to feel like a remake of a Mel Brooks 1960s movie called The Producers. In the movie, a Broadway producer discovers that he can make a lot more money with a flop than a hit by overselling shares in the production, because no one will audit the books of a play presumed to have lost money. If I were developing the sequel, I would call it The Developers and base it on two foreign investors trying to recreate a suburban Atlantis for which they can also sell flood insurance backed by (you guessed it) the U.S. Government.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/11/2019

651 Days since Hurricane Harvey

Woodridge Problems Still Piling Up for Porter Resident Chris Yates

Photo looking west toward Yates property just out of frame on right. Developer continues to build site up relative to neighbors – before installing drainage. This has created problems for Chris Yates and his neighbors in Porter.

Some more bad news surfaced today for the people whose drainage has been affected by Woodridge Village construction activity. Rebel Contractors has built up the level of Woodridge before installing drainage between Woodridge and neighbors. As a result, water has ponded in Porter yards for months and damaged their property. Then, to add insult to injury, about a week after finally erecting a long-awaited silt fence, Rebel Contractors covered it with dirt.

Woodridge: The Yates Family Curse

Chris Yates, who lives at 25395 Needham Road in Porter, sent me these pictures today. They show how construction activity has affected his property. First up: two BEFORE shots showing his happy family in front of the Woodridge site.

Yates’ daughter Amber in back yard before clearcutting began. Looking east. A small ditch ran through the tree line which forms the property line between Yates and Woodridge. Note the telephone lines at the top of the picture for reference in subsequent photos.
Yates with family in happier times. This was taken after construction began but before water started piling up. Note piles of dirt being stacked up on Woodridge property in background.
After clearcutting and grading of the Woodridge property in the background, water started collecting in Yates’ yard. This rain fell in March and remained there until Friday, May 31, when Yates pumped it out.

Contractor Should Have Maintained Positive Drainage at All Times

Page 6/Point 12 of the Woodridge Village Detention Plan states that, “Contractor shall maintain positive drainage from construction site at all times. Any damage to existing ditch system as the result of the contractor’s activities shall be repaired to existing or better conditions.” Oops! Neighbors up and down the western border of Woodridge have experienced stagnant water. Some have even experienced flooding.

Almost 4 Feet of Standing Water Before Any Drains Away

The Yates back yard on May 7. Their four-foot fence is barely visible in these two shots taken as water built up. It could not drain away according to Yates until the stormwater crested at a high point to the south between his home and Sherwood Trails..
This recent shot shows how the standing water killed Yates’ grass. Silty runoff ponded for two months.
Today, Yates pumped the water out to his street drain. It took him eight hours, pumping at 3,700 gallons per hour. While this kind of damage does not compare to the loss of a home, I’m sharing this story because it seems to illustrate the contractor’s disregard for the problems it causes neighbors.
Yates raises several animals on his property but has had to keep them caged for months because of the standing water.
Detention plans show that developer knew runoff was moving west to east toward development.
Page 12 of the Water, Sanigtary Sewer and Drainage Facilities & Paving Appurtenances Plan shows that developer was expecting to compensate for 10-aces of offside drainage from the Yates neighborhood, but didn’t start installing the storm drains for months, until well after three heavy May rains.
Looking north from Yates back yard along western boundary of Woodridge. Note the standing water between development and neighbors. The Woodridge side of the property (right) was elevated approximately 3 feet before drainage was installed. Photo taken 5/31/2019.
Plans show that this drain should eventually handle water that collects between Yates’ property and Woodridge. Question: Why wasn’t this installed before the Woodridge property was elevated? Said Yates who has years of construction experience, “Drainage is put in by elevation so this could have been put in before building up.” Photo taken 5/31/2019.

More Out-of-Sequence Construction?

Yates, whose father owned a clearing/grading business, worked in the family business when younger and said that on a site like this, they typically installed drainage first thing. The reason: ponding water slows down construction. “Even though it takes time, it saves time,” said Yates. “You can’t work when the site is wet. Construction on this site seems to be out of sequence.”

Yates also said that he had talked to the developer and learned they were six months behind schedule. One can only wonder whether the delayed installation of drainage had anything to do with the construction delays.

This sequencing complaint echoed the concerns of Elm Grove and North Kingwood Forest residents. They flooded, in part, because the developer clear cut the entire 268 acres before installing critical detention ponds.

The Silt Fence Saga: Part 2

This and detention ponds were not the only out-of-sequence construction that neighbors have suffered through. Silt fences should have been installed before clear cutting started. Instead, they were put up almost a year later.

Additionally, the developer finally installed silt fences last week. The developer was supposed to install them before clearcutting began. For months, residents complained about sand, silt and clay pouring out of the construction site into streets and storm drains. Then about a week or so ago, after a complaint to the TCEQ triggered an investigation, silt fences finally appeared. Now they are buried under dirt again.

1-2 Week old silt fence … buried under silt. Said Yates, “What’s the point of silt fences if you are piling dirt on top of them an on the other side of them?” Photo taken 5/31/2019.

Chris Yates must feel at this point as though he’s Rodney Dangerfield. “Can’t get no respect.” Let’s hope he and the hundreds of other families affected by Woodridge construction find some before this is all over.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/1/2019 with images courtesy of Chris and Tammy Yates of Porter

641 Days since Hurricane Harvey

All thoughts expressed in this post are my opinions on matters of public policy and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP statute of the Great State of Texas.