Hope doesn’t float
You’d think Houston would learn: Building homes in flood plains is asking for trouble
The old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results seems to fit Houston, which despite Hurricane Harvey keeps permitting residential development on ground that has flooded in the past and will flood again.
One in 5 new homes permitted in Houston in the year after Hurricane Harvey is in a flood plain, according to an analysis of city data by Chronicle reporters Mike Morris and Matt Dempsey. About 615 permits were issued in the 100-year flood plain, which has a 1 percent chance of going underwater in any given year, and 600 were approved in the 500-year flood plain, which in any year has a 0.2 percent chance of inundation.
But don’t let the fractions fool you. Scientists say climate change is causing so-called 100-year and 500-year floods to occur more frequently. Given that reality, one might expect public officials to halt new development in flood plains. Instead, their actions suggest that living in the Bayou City means accepting the fact that your house and high water may one day develop a close relationship.
Instead of moving more people out of flood-prone areas, Mayor Sylvester Turner wants houses built higher and improvements made in the city’s drainage infrastructure. “Houston cannot and should not abandon a third of the city to avoid flooding any more than San Francisco should abandon numerous established neighborhoods that could be affected by earthquakes,” he said.
City Council approved legislation in April that extended development regulations for the 100-year flood plain to the broader 500-year flood plain, and required new homes built in those areas to sit higher off the ground. But the new rules didn’t take effect until Sept. 1, more than a year after Harvey and too late to stop development that had already occurred.
“No one is talking about flood plain development being dangerous — that it’s unsafe, it’s unwise,” said Jim Blackburn, of Rice University’s Severe Storm Prediction Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center. “What you hear from the city is there’s a minimum requirement and you have to meet it. That’s not leadership on this issue.”
Such criticism doesn’t mean Turner and City Council should stop requiring developers to build houses higher off the ground, or not add detention basins to their plans. But their longer-term solutions should also include moving people out of perpetually flooding areas. The city also needs to confront concerns that the current flood maps fail to reflect the true risk of flooding.
Whatever it costs to relocate households won’t match the price to continually replace homes and other property destroyed by floodwaters. That’s not to mention the human toll that flooding too often takes.
Making people move out of neighborhoods they have called home for years is as hard for politicians as raising taxes for schools. Climate change, however, has made it necessary for Houston and other cities to make relocation part of any viable flooding plan before the next Harvey or a lesser storm occurs.