Paying for rain
Inconsistent federal funding leaves residents vulnerable to floods and hurricanes.
When then-Vice President Richard Nixon attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newly developed Meyerland neighborhood, the winding streets and modern homes were a pictureperfect vision of a post-war future that promised new appliances in every kitchen and two cars in every garage.
Now those cars have been replaced by Dumpsters as crews gut flooded homes.
Two major deluges in less than year have transformed this slice of southwest Houston into a patchwork of devastation. Some blocks are practically abandoned. Streets sit in eerie silence. It didn’t have to be like this. After Tropical Storm Allison, the federal government and Harris County Flood Control District united in the bipartisan Project Brays, which would spend about $450 million to improve water retention and flood prevention in the Brays Bayou watershed. It was originally supposed to be completed in 2014. Now, due to inconsistent funding, that project will be finished in 2021 at the earliest.
How many homes would have been preserved, and lives saved, if our local representatives had worked to keep Project Brays fully funded and on schedule
Meyerland shouldn’t have to wait for a third flood to be the charm that gets Congress moving. The Water Resources Development Act, which designates projects for the Corps, was just passed out of committee in the Senate. While press releases tout new infrastructure projects in California and flood control in Louisiana, there’s little love so far for Houston.
There will be plenty of opportunities to add to this bill as it makes it way to President Obama’s desk. The Harris County Flood Control District even made specific recommendations for the new bill in its 2016 federal briefing. Houston’s politicians need to pay attention.
Follow the bayou current downstream and there’s reason to hope. Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, just proposed a bill designed to speed up the construction of a storm surge protection project along the Texas coast. This is impressive progress for Texas’ senior senator, who didn’t even know what coastal storm surge protection was during the 2014 election. The potential of a major hurricane driving a wall of water into Galveston Bay and up the Houston Ship Channel poses a grave threat to one of the most important industrial centers in the nation, if not the world. Federal, state and local governments need to act to protect this important linchpin in the global petroleum supply chain, and the millions of people who live in its shadow.
U.S. Rep. Randy Weber, R-Friendswood, said he will introduce a House companion to Cornyn’s bill.
If passed, the bill will require the Corps to consider local studies, which the agency says it already plans to do. The bill will also authorize construction without specific congressional approval. Without expedited action, the Corps has said that construction on a hurricane protection project would have to wait until 2024 at the earliest. That’s at least eight more hurricane seasons that Houston will have to endure with crossed fingers and bated breath.
However, the real challenge will be in funding the whole thing.
So far, the Corps has struggled to get Congress to fund mere studies on protecting the Texas coast. That doesn’t bode well for the expected multi-billiondollar? price tag on the final project.
The devastating May 2015 floods cost Houston between $200 million and $550 million in destroyed property and economic loss. The floods this past month are being estimated at $1.3 billion and $1.9 billion.
We’re going to pay one way or another for the damage that Mother Nature wreaks on our city, and new infrastructure makes for a much better ribboncutting opportunity than debris cleanup.