County, congressmen tackle solutions to flood woes after Hurricane Harvey
As Harris County officials push to prevent another Harvey-like catastrophe, members of the Houston congressional delegation introduced legislation to require more oversight of water-retention basins and dams.
“We’ve had three 500year events in two years,” said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett on Monday in a nearly hourlong news conference offering storm recovery updates. “I don’t think there’s any question right now that everybody believes that flood control is the most important thing for our region.”
In Washington, a bipartisan group of congressmen unveiled a bill to increase flood-related reporting by federal and local agencies.
The Texas Flood Accountability Act of 2017 would require entities including the Army Corps of Engineers, San Jacinto River Authority and the city of Houston to submit a report within 90 days for all dams, reservoirs, lakes and other water-retention facilities in Southeast Texas.
The bill requires divulging water capacity, overflow levels and notification processes during flood emergencies. Agencies would also be required to provide recommendations to prevent future unplanned releases of water. Failure to comply would result in federal funding
losses. The bill’s sponsors are Republican U.S. Reps. Ted Poe, Brian Babin and John Culberson with Democratic U.S. Reps. Al Green and Gene Green.
The Army Corps opened the overflowing Addicks and Barker reservoirs for “controlled releases” during last month’s storm, which caused flooding downstream that some blame for lives lost. The San Jacinto River Authority unfastened Lake Conroe’s floodgates and inundated northeast Houston’s Kingwood community.
As debris removal begins amid home buyout discussions and long-term flood mitigation preparations, so have recalculations. Harris County officials now have more clarity about the historic nature of Harvey.
The storm dropped enough water to register as a 25,000-year event and maybe even a deluge seen every 50,000 years, according to Harris County Flood Control District meteorologist Jeff Lindner. In four days, the county averaged 33.5 inches of rain and 69 percent of its usual annual rainfall.
Those numbers mean the definition of a 50-year or 100-year flood must be recalculated, officials said.
Taking a hard look
The county’s propertytax funding model, legislative efforts to suppress tax increases and where developers are allowed to build homes also must be reconsidered, Emmett said.
“Clearly, we’ve got to go back and look at what our floodplains are and make adjustments. But more importantly, we are going to have to look at spending serious amounts of money from the federal, state and local level in new reservoirs,” the county judge said. “We’ve got to do all the buyouts (of properties). And then we’ve got to take a hard look at what our rules and regulations are relative to development.”
The flood control district already had four federal flood relief construction projects in progress on Clear Creek, Brays, White Oak and Hunting bayous.
Emmett waded further into politics by noting that the biennial state legislative session won’t start until 2019 but stressed the urgency of funding beyond property taxes and local autonomy in spending. Nearly 2 million people live in unincorporated Harris County.
“For an urban county like ours, we need to find some other way of having revenue come to the county,” he said. “Hopefully, we’re over this issue of the state telling local governments, flood control districts and everything else: ‘We want to hold down your revenue to just the bare minimum.’”
Flood control district executive director Russ Poppe said the agency is working with Houston officials to determine the number of homes that flooded from the intentional releases.
“We do know it’s probably several thousand,” he said. “There were homes that were already flooding just from what Mother Nature put in the Buffalo Bayou watershed before they even started to make their releases.”
Communication gap
The county judge also acknowledged a communication gap between Harris County officials and the San Jacinto River Authority.
“We weren’t really that involved in it at all,” Emmett said. “Was it just a Montgomery County perspective that Harris County paid the price for?”
In the last two decades, mostly with FEMA, Harris County has acquired about 3,000 parcels through voluntary and mandatory buyouts, Poppe said. Since Harvey, more than 3,000 residents have inquired about buyouts, he added, and “a good number” live near the Addicks and Barker reservoirs.
FEMA grants for those purchases, flowing through state and local agencies, could take nine months to a year to reach homeowners. Poppe said the flood control district has been “advocating very strongly” for immediate funding “before significant reinvestment is made back in these homes.”
Generally, a home qualifies for a buyout if the residence has a flood insurance policy, is located in the 100year flood plain and has past flood damage, he said.
Harris County is responsible for debris removal in unincorporated areas as well as three cities: South Houston, Shoreacres and Hunters Creek Village.
Crews will collect at each address three times. The first pass will happen in the first three or four months, said Harris County Engineer John R. Blount.