Fight floods
New building rules need approval now.
You can’t overreact to an apocalypse.
When Hurricane Harvey bore down on Houston, you didn’t hear folks sleeping on convention center cots and floating down the street in flatbottom boats worrying that the city would go too far to protect them from the next storm.
They were worried about surviving. About returning to their homes. About ensuring that a disaster of this scale would never happen again.
That’s why Harris County rushed to pass new regulations about building in the floodplain, and why Houston City Hall is now working to pass its own rules.
Too many lives were lost and buildings destroyed to simply seek a cautious path. Too much could go wrong in the recovery process — too many threats loom in the next hurricane season — to wait for more studies.
No more hesitating. No more debate. City Council must approve Mayor Sylvester Turner’s new development rules when they’re up for a vote later this month.
From Meyerland to Kingwood, Harvey posed an existential threat to our city. And from Washington to Austin, our politicians have failed to meet this disaster with appropriate fervency.
The White House’s initial recovery bill was an insult. Gov. Greg Abbott failed to call a special session to tap the Rainy Day Fund. Land Commissioner George P. Bush has bungled the housing response so far.
Only Turner and County Judge Ed Emmett seem to grasp the enormity of the challenge placed before us. How we respond to Harvey will determine whether Houston continues to thrive through the 21st century, or whether this is the point at which our city starts to die.
The new rules before City Council this week are so obvious that they can barely be considered a first step, but they’re a step that must be taken nonetheless: new construction within the 500-year floodplain to be lifted two feet above the projected flood level during a 500-year storm, and stricter stormwater detention requirements.
Of course, developers have pushed back against these new rules. The people who saw nothing wrong with building neighborhoods in the Addicks and Barker flood pools now wonder whether the regulations might have unintended consequences.
One of the big lessons that Houston needs to learn after Harvey is to tune out the voices of people who led us down this path of irresponsible construction and instead start listening to those who had the foresight to warn us about the ramifications of reckless development.
Pass the regulations, and use 2019 as an opportunity to vote out anyone at City Hall who clings to a dangerous pre-Harvey mindset.