Storms call flood risk claims into question
When 48-year-old Ana García moved into the sprawling Colony Ridge development about 30 miles northeast of Houston a year and a half ago, she said she was reassured by the development company multiple times that the predominantly Latino community in Liberty County did not flood.
She was skeptical, owing to her experience living in floodprone areas of Houston. Referring to nearby waterways, including the east fork of the San Jacinto River in the neighboring town of Plum Grove and the winding Tarkington Bayou, García remembers asking company representatives, “But the rivers are so close. How could it not flood?”
García and other residents’ suspicions were confirmed when major storms slammed into Southeast Texas last week and flooded swaths of the Houston region’s northern edge, leaving parts of Colony Ridge underwater. Residents said entire streets were flooded for days, and videos and photos from neighbors show vehicles, even school buses, stalled out and residents wading through high water.
Some Colony Ridge residents weren’t expecting to be trapped in their homes for days, including neighbors who told the Houston Chronicle they were also promised the community wasn’t at risk for floods when
first moving there. The Chronicle spoke to several residents across the development Monday, when much of the floodwaters had receded, and although none of them reported flooded homes, all were faced with inundated roadways and yards.
“All of this looked like it was a river,” García said in Spanish, signaling toward the end of her street as she stood in front of the home she shares with her husband and their three children. “You couldn’t see anything.”
Flooding has been a concern in Colony Ridge, a 33,000-acre development that has become a popular destination for low-income Latino families, typically immigrants, looking to own land and escape rising housing costs in Houston. It’s estimated to house tens of thousands of people.
The development is built on razed forests and filled-in wetlands in Liberty County, and residents from Colony Ridge and surrounding communities have complained for years about inadequate drainage there.
Colony Ridge CEO John Harris, who has developed the area alongside his brother William “Trey” Harris III for more than a decade, acknowledged the need for improved drainage but said he was proud of how the community’s systems performed during the torrential floods.
When asked about residents who said they felt tricked by the company’s flood risk claims, he said, “To them, in this situation, I would say, ‘Apologies, but that’s exactly how it was designed. The roads flood to keep it from going into people’s homes. … The thing we try to do is protect lives and homes first.”
The developer added that surrounding communities like Plum Grove and Cleveland saw worse flooding than Colony Ridge during the recent storms. (Plum Grove sued the Colony Ridge developers in 2020, claiming the community’s sewers filled ditches and creeks with sewage and that the subdivision’s inadequate drainage had worsened local flooding. A judge ruled early last year that the developers weren’t to blame for the nearby flooding.)
The Colony Ridge developers have also been scrutinized by federal and state officials for their business practices, which include offering buyers high-interest loans that have led to above-average foreclosure rates in the development.
Last December, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued the developers. They accused them of targeting tens of thousands of Latinos with falsehoods and predatory loans. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also filed suit, alleging deceptive trade practices and fraud.
Flooding in Colony Ridge is central to the arguments in the lawsuits, with both alleging that the development company lied to buyers about the flood risk.
“During the Property Visit, consumers report that Colony Ridge sales assessors did not inform them about any flooding risk,” the DOJ and CFPB’s filing said. “To the contrary, consumers report that Colony Ridge employees represented to them that their lots did not or would not flood.”
Paxton’s office made similar claims in its suit: “Colony Ridge and John Harris continue to falsely represent to consumers at the time of sale that the residential lots in the Development are not subject to repeated flooding.”
John Harris had previously called the DOJ’s legal action “outrageous and inflammatory” and said, “There is nothing new” in Paxton’s lawsuit.
Yolanda Debernardi-Lewis realized that her new neighborhood floods before moving there.
The 50-year-old and her family bought land in Colony Ridge in early 2023, hoping for a quieter and cheaper life in rural Liberty County. Because they couldn’t yet afford to put a home on the plot, they waited to move until August and took occasional trips to tend to their land.
Debernardi-Lewis was surprised when she visited her soonto-be home on one of those trips only to find the land flooded, she said, despite being told by the development company there was no flood risk.
“It’s hard when you put all of your money into something that you were told was going to be the perfect life, right?” she said from her home last Friday, as waters continued to rise. “They sold us a dream, you know, the dream of having perfect land and living in a perfect world.”
“For you to be a good businessperson, you have to come out and lay everything on the table,” she continued. “Don’t deceive people.”
When the rains began last week, Debernardi-Lewis said the land around her home flooded in under two hours. It was the fourth severe flood she’d experienced while living in Colony Ridge, and the inundations had already damaged the foundation underneath her brand new home.
Resident Gloria Martínez came to Colony Ridge four years ago under similar circumstances as García and Debernardi-Lewis, looking for a quiet place to raise her family. But after the recent flooding, she said she feels trapped in the community and hopes to move out soon.
“When (the development company) shows you the land here, they don’t tell you that it floods,” she said in Spanish. “Wanting to own land, one goes, ‘Wow, what a good opportunity.’ But sometimes we make mistakes.”
The flooding that hit the neighborhood had been especially unexpected for the 55-year-old.
Martínez lost television signal when the storms rolled in, disconnecting her from Spanish-language news organizations disseminating crucial information from local officials. She did not know how intense the storms would be until she looked outside and saw the water rising on her street and front yard. It eventually reached her front doorstep but stayed out of the house.
During the rains, Martínez and her husband couldn’t leave her home to buy food and other essentials that they hadn’t stocked up on.
“I have a baby girl, and we couldn’t leave,” she said. “We were left with no help.”