Suburban counties dealing with lingering floodwaters

Holiday Lakes Mayor Norman Schroeder hasn’t been able to reach his residence for about a week.

Schroeder has heard that his 1,800-square-foot home on one of the city’s highest points has 6 inches of water in it. But with several feet of water still idling in Holiday Lakes, he can’t get to it yet.

“I’m going to have to tear all the stuff in the house out whenIgetthere,”Schroeder said. “I don’t think it’s going to take too long to rebuild, but it depends on what the mold does.”

As floodwaters recede in large swaths of Greater Houston, thousands of residents in Brazoria County and neighboring Fort Bend County are still dealing with lingering water and infrastructure issues, local officials said this week. The slow rise of the Brazos and San Bernard rivers, combined with large amounts of rainfall that flooded nearby creeks and bayous, has extendedtherecoverytimeline in the two counties west and south of Houston.

“We’re still dealing with the flooding, but parts of the county are in the recovery stage right now,” said SharonTrower,aspokeswoman for Brazoria County.

Trower said thousands of homes remain inaccessible due to floodwaters, particularly in the Bar X, Holiday Lakes and Rosharon regions. Residents in several other corners of the county —Danbury,Liverpool,Richwood and northern Lake Jackson — are also dealing with pockets of flooding.

To the west, the cities of Brazoria and West Columbia were both attempting to fix wastewater treatment plant issues that left thousands of residents without sewer services.

In addition, 15 subdivisions served by Undine LLC remained under boil-water

notices Wednesday due to concerns about water contamination. The neighborhoods are spread throughout the county, from Alvin to Freeport and the city of Brazoria.

However, the damage could have been more extensive if earlier forecasts for the Brazos River had panned out. Originally projected to crest at 34.5 feet, the river instead peaked Monday at 30.8 feet, just short of “major” flood status as defined by the National Weather Service. The lower crest helped spare the downtown areas of West Columbia and Brazoria from widespread flooding.

“We’re just glad that the river didn’t reach that high, because it could have been even more devastating to the area, and to areas down south of (West Columbia),” Trower said

In Fort Bend County, which likewise didn’t see the Brazos River rise as high as once projected, water already had drained from most roadways. A daunting process of rebuilding remained.

Mandatory evacuation orders had largely been lifted and the curfew was over, but debris pick-up alone could take months, County Judge Bob Hebert said.

“This is the frustrating period in these floods,” Hebert said, speaking at a commissioners court meeting Tuesday. “It always has been.”

Still, the county is making progress. Officials on Wednesday cleared the Jodie Stavinoha Bridge — part of the Grand Parkway that runs over the Brazos River near Sugar Land — to reopen. It had been under construction before the storm hit, closing temporarily when the base became no longer visible under river waters.

Residents were also allowed, with law-enforcement supervision, into the last of the closed-off areas of the county near the Barker Reservoir, where water appeared to have receded from homes even as it remained on some roadways.

“So far, so good,” Precinct 3 Constable Wayne Thompson said of the process, which he has been helping to oversee. “The community has really come out to help.”

Fort Bend officials said about 22 percent of the county was flooded after some areas received up to three feet of rain. An estimated 200,000 people left their homes, slightly more than a quarter of the county’s population.

As of Wednesday, fewer than 40 people remained in shelters in the county and 45 roads remained closed.

The following day, Gov. Greg Abbott and John Sharp, who is leading his recovery efforts, stopped in Richmond to meet with county leaders and vow to work together.

“We don’t want to just rebuild,” Abbott said, explaining they were considering many options. “We want to rebuild smarter.”