Flood Risk in Houston, TX

While researching actual damage to businesses during Hurricane Harvey in my local area of Harris County, I found a Houston Chronicle article entitled "Harvey floods damaged 100s of safe-deposit boxes".  The article was written by Paul Takahashi and is dated October 2, 2017. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Harvey-floods-damaged-100s-of-safe-deposit-boxes-12247152.php Mentioned in the article is that the Clear Lake City Boulevard branch of Chase Bank was one of nine branches that were flooded during Harvey.  Driving by that area in the aftermath of Harvey I had noticed that the building was closed for repairs.  The nearby Frost Bank branch was also closed.  It is likely that if these two buildings were flooded then a number of other nearby structures in the area were also flooded.  I was able to identify an area of flooded homes south of the Chase branch bank building in the Bay Knoll subdivision. One of the themes of this blog is comparison of ac

A recent article in the Houston Chronicle by Susan Carroll and Mike Ward dated January 5, 2018 presents the case for a new seawall on Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula. http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/A-massive-seawall-for-Southeast-Texas-could-save-12477716.php The premise is that a direct hit by a major hurricane to Galveston and Galveston Bay could destroy many billion dollars worth of homes and businesses.  The potential impact will increase in the future by sea level rise resulting from climate change. A proposed 17-foot barrier 60 miles in length could reduce the potential destruction by as much as 80% according to Texas A&M researchers.  This barrier is modeled after a system built in the Netherlands. The flooding mechanisms the barrier would be designed to reduce are: water pushed ahead of strong winds  water rising due to reduced atmospheric pressure  Both of these effects combine to produce storm surge.  Storm

An article entitled "Higher ground for the courts - debate rages over retrofit or rebuilding criminal courthouse"  by Brian Rogers appeared in today's (January 7, 2018) Houston Chronicle.  It can also be viewed online at: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Hurricane-Harvey-damage-to-Harris-County-criminal-12476558.php?cmpid=gsa-chron-result The article points out that the Criminal Courts Building at 1201 Franklin has been completely unusable since Hurricane Harvey and will remain closed for at least the next six to seven months.  The 20-story building houses county offices and more than 40 courtrooms.  It was constructed for a cost of approximately $100 million and opened in 2000.   Estimates for repair of the building range from $20 million to $100 million.  A prominent attorney quoted in the article questions whether repair of the structure is warranted since it was also flooded during tropical storm Allison in 2000. It may a

An article posted by Leah Binkovitz dated December 28, 2017 on the Urban Edge website describes the Greater Houston Flood Mitigation Consortium.   http://urbanedge.blogs.rice.edu/2017/12/28/flooding-101-consortium-offers-analysis-and-informational-resources/#.Wk0JE7pFx9A The Urban Edge is a website maintained by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research.  The Urban Edge articles are described as "Stories about why cities are great and how they can do better". Christof Speiler outlined the mission of the Consortium in a Houston Chronicle article on November 16, 2017. http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/To-fight-flooding-in-Houston-we-have-to-think-big-12362463.php The Consortium is a group that was founded to collect and centralize good research on flooding in the Houston area.  Participating institutions are Rice, Texas A&M, Texas Southern, Texas State, University of Houston, University of Texas, Houston Advanced Research Center,