County will buy 200 sites
Cost of securing the flooded residences put at $20 million
Harris County Commissioners Court voted to spend $20 million to purchase more than 200 homes that flooded during Hurricane Harvey in an attempt to dramatically speed up the buyout process in the devastating storm’s aftermath.
Commissioners agreed to spend county funds to jumpstart what typically is a monthslong process of applying for federal grants even as some area owners have yet to move back in to their damaged homes.
County officials hope to close on at least some home purchases by the end of October before residents engage in costly repairs and upgrades required by county regulations.
“We want to get to the people sooner rather than later,” Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said Tuesday. “We’re taking a more active stance.”
The plan includes purchasing 206 homes in floodplains across unincorporated portions of the county that were substantially damaged during Hurricane Harvey’s record-breaking deluge and destruction, including clusters along Cypress Creek, Greens Bayou and the San Jacinto River.
The buyout program ap-
proved Tuesday comes as local officials discuss ways to sharply escalate flood control initiatives in Harvey’s wake. During the storm, up to 52 inches of rain fell across the county, causing billions of dollars of damage, flooding an estimated 136,000 homes and structures, and killing more than 75 people across the state.
Earlier this month, Emmett called for a wideranging re-examination of local flood control efforts. Ideas he suggested be considered include the revival of a long-dormant plan to build a third reservoir to collect stormwater in northwest Harris County, spending millions of dollars on levees and bayous, large-scale property buyouts and the possible creation of a multicounty flood control district.
More buyouts to come
Buyouts have been a focal point of county flood control efforts in recent years as decades of Houston’s growth in flood-prone areas pose a particular problem for local officials. The first comprehensive floodplain maps were not drawn until the mid 1980s when some 2.7 million people already lived in the county.
The Harris County Flood Control District estimates nearly 180,000 homes and structures are inside “100-year” floodplains, areas that would flood in the event of a 100year storm — a storm so severe that it has a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year.
Harvey, the Tax Day floods in 2016, and the Memorial Day floods in 2015 all surpassed rainfall levels of a “500-year” storm — 0.2 percent chance of occurring in any given year — in at least some parts of the county.
Commissioners Court unanimously approved the $20 million buyout initiative, the first attempted since Harvey first came ashore a month ago, at their meeting Tuesday.
“It’s just the tip of the iceberg of what needs to be done,” said Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer and co-director of Rice University’s center for Severe Storm Prediction, Education, and Evacuation from Disasters.
Emmett said Tuesday it is likely the county and other jurisdictions will conduct more buyouts in Harvey’s wake, a departure from the county’s traditionally slower, piecemeal approach over the years.
It typically takes months or even years for local governments to apply for and get federal grants for buyouts. Earlier this month, Commissioners Court voted to ask the federal government for $17 million to purchase 104 homes at the highest risk of flooding, based on data from 2015 and 2016. The earliest the county could see those funds is in 2018.
Since the flood control district began administering a buyout program in the mid 1980s, about 3,000 homes have been purchased.
The district prioritizes 65 areas, including 5,500 parcels of land, across the county that it says would be conducive to buyouts, such as homes that are two feet or deeper in the 100year floodplain.
About 3,300 of those parcels have homes on them.
Every one of those priority areas flooded during Harvey, district officials said. Buying all of the homes targeted by the county before Harvey would cost about $650 million, according to county estimates.
Officials would not say where each of the buyouts proposed Tuesday is located, noting that homeowners have not yet agreed to sell. Homeowners could refuse to sell and opt, instead, to elevate their homes at least 1½ feet above the base flood level, per county regulations.
County officials said they hope the $20 million will be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or another federal or state agency. Certain FEMA programs require that homes being bought out carry flood insurance, so the 206 homes targeted Tuesday all have flood insurance.
Speeding up process
Harris County Engineer John Blount said the county is focusing on areas in unincorporated Harris County, where just under half of the county’s population lives.
Houston Housing and Community Development Director Tom McCasland said the city is working with the flood control district to conduct 60 buyouts in the Braeburn Glen, Langwood and Glenburnie neighborhoods — a program initiated after the Memorial Day 2015 floods. Those buyouts would be funded with $10 million from the city’s Community Development grant funds.
McCasland said all the neighborhoods flooded during Harvey.
“As additional areas are identified, we’re going to be working with the mayor and City Council,” McCasland said.
FEMA officials also have expressed interest in speeding up buyouts of homes that repeatedly flood. FEMA spokesman Peter Herrick said Tuesday evening that the agency was still working out how to speed up the process.
Typically, Herrick said, the state forwards FEMA a list of projects compiled from local government requests to be considered.
“It’s not uncommon for that not to happen for a little bit,” Herrick said, stating that officials likely still would be focused on getting people aid.
The county buyout initiative was approved Tuesday during Commissioners Court’s mid-year budget review. Uncertainty over how Harvey’s damage will affect property tax revenue has county officials bracing for spending reductions of up to 5 percent of department budgets.
Commissioners Court on Tuesday voted in favor of keeping the county’s overall property tax rate — 62.9 cents per $100 of assessed value — the same. Commissioners are scheduled to adopt the tax rate at the Oct. 10 meeting.