Matt Corbett

There will inevitably be extreme hottakes regarding flood planning and monday-morning QB-ing of officials. This is for context

which all run (and drain) from west to east, converging on either the ship channel or San Jacinto Bay

(Note: I've highlighted 2 areas- Addicks & Barker reservoirs and the medical center, because I'll mention them later)

HTX has sandy soil and a high water table, and so has some, but limited, ability to rely on absorption

(related: No houses have basements and it would be nearly impossible to construct a subway)

Most of HTX is ~35-45' above sea level. Flooding risk is almost entirely from rain, not storm surges

Being Gulf Coast, HTX gets ~50" of rain a year. Gulf T-Storms can get intense. 4-6"-in-8-hours storms happen about once a year

flooding is essentially a rate problem- can you drain the water as fast as it comes?

as a result, any person's flooding risk is mainly about proximity and elevation vs the nearest bayou

The primary backup for the bayous for handling too much water are the roads

In the 90s. Houston was getting large enough that relying on groundwater was starting to cause subsidence problems

The powers that be decided (wisely, mostly) to slowly convert all the roads into a giant rain collection network

so every time an asphalt road needed to be repaved, it got replaced with curb & gutter concrete w/ big storm sewer underneath

this has been highly obnoxious to anyone living nearby when such a project was underway but ultimately quite effective

usually means that in flooding situations, roads briefly become rivers and then drain, saving houses from flood damage

but it's also a work in progress that has proceeded at the rate roads needed replacing, and varies greatly by location