DFW flooding (Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth: 2015, how much, home)

[ParaguaneroSwag]

National news making things sound worse is their business. They’ve mastered that over the last decade or so

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag

National news making things sound worse is their business. They’ve mastered that over the last decade or so

No question about that.

[ElmoPuffinburger]

Originally Posted by f4shionablecha0s

Deep Ellum

Deep Ellum area built over old Peaks Branch watershed. Area by Baylor Hospital subject to flooding - I’ve see water coming up out of inlets by Hall/Crutcher. There’s pretty massive underground drainage structures in that area. There’s a 10’ x 10’ box culvert that runs down the middle of Exposition. The DART trackway in front of Fair Park is basically an at-grade “bridge” that straddles a double horseshoe culvert that you could drive dump trucks through - can’t remember exact size of the two but something like 12’ x 10’ (or 12’?).

[Dashakhs]

Originally Posted by elan

I got 5 inches in Coppell, this spring I got 7 inches one day. Look, this happens every once in a while. It's a pain, but not terribly uncommon. I agree with the above posters, never buy a house by a creek here. And, look at the flood plain maps too. It's sad when people get flooded out, but it's been going on my entire life here (and I'm old). Best we can do is help these people out like good neighbors do.

For the fema flood plain map, if you put in an address and it doesn't have any shading, that means it's not expected to be a problem even in torrential storms? If it's near a couple of "regulatory floodways" colorings but the address itself doesn't fall into any shadings, does it mean only the strongest/rare events are concerns? What's the best way to interpret the map's results?

It was curious to see the rain totals and who got what. As a prospective resident I want to understand exactly why the "inside strip" of the area so to speak got railed while the northern suburbs didn't get it. Did the rain just dissipate and didn't move that way or did something break it up or does it always happen with rain events like. This where those areas are "spared." Where I'm from, we know X town always gets more rain than Y town for example and that's, I guess, due to topography.

[ProTX]

Originally Posted by Johnhw222

My house got 1.3 in west Plano. Gentle rain no flooding at all. National news made it sound like ll of DFW got flooded, tired of none fact based news.

DFW did flood. Dallas & Tarrant are the urban cores of DFW. The cities of Dallas & Fort Worth did flood along with the mid cities. The media was very accurate. Nobody cares about Plano and quite frankly most outside of DFW have never heard of it. This is the only metro in the country where suburbs think they are more power than the real cities. Y’all not important. Stay in y’all place and act like what you are a bedroom community. This is exactly what Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson alluded too.

[rabbit33]

Originally Posted by Dashakhs

For the fema flood plain map, if you put in an address and it doesn't have any shading, that means it's not expected to be a problem even in torrential storms? If it's near a couple of "regulatory floodways" colorings but the address itself doesn't fall into any shadings, does it mean only the strongest/rare events are concerns? What's the best way to interpret the map's results?

It was curious to see the rain totals and who got what. As a prospective resident I want to understand exactly why the "inside strip" of the area so to speak got railed while the northern suburbs didn't get it. Did the rain just dissipate and didn't move that way or did something break it up or does it always happen with rain events like. This where those areas are "spared." Where I'm from, we know X town always gets more rain than Y town for example and that's, I guess, due to topography.

Best way is to go to the location and look around, talk to old-timers ("oh yeah, that underpass there floods every time it rains") and check the topo maps. Don't buy a house in a low lying area, a creek bed, a draw, or one of those on the downhill side of the hill where the driveway funnels rainwater right into your garage door. Don't drive through standing water if you don't know how deep it is. In other words, Self-Preservation 101 kind of things.

From what I can see, the area of heaviest rain in this rain event ran pretty much along the Trinity River bottom lands and a little north of it. Is it really any surprise that a meandering alluvial river with a flood plain a couple miles wide, when subjected to very heavy rain, will flood in the flood plain? Come on, folks. Is it really any surprise that the creeks and draws feeding that river, which also flow over land that's almost completely flat, also have wide flood plains, and fill up with water? You know, even if you bury a creek in an underground culvert, unless you bring in millions of yards of fill, the land above the underground culvert is still going to slope toward where the creek used to be (still is, just buried). Even with the underground culvert, you're still in a watershed and in heavy rains, water's going to build up there.

Stand at the location of interest, and look all around you. If the ground goes UP in all directions, or in three directions, don't choose to build or live there.

More and more I think everyone ought to be required to do certain things for general human survival and one of them is to spend some days camping in a tent. You pick your campsite so you won't get flooded if it rains at night. A house is the same thing.

[tcualum]

Originally Posted by tmtex

Right, the news is making it out as a catastrophic flood where as "Dallas" was wiped off the map. It was a heavy storm, nothing any different. Parts of Plano/Frisco/Allen didnt even get a drop.

Those are entirely different cities, not Dallas. Dallas covers a very large area.

[rabbit33]

Originally Posted by ProTX

DFW did flood. Dallas & Tarrant are the urban cores of DFW. The cities of Dallas & Fort Worth did flood along with the mid cities. The media was very accurate. Nobody cares about Plano and quite frankly most outside of DFW have never heard of it. This is the only metro in the country where suburbs think they are more power than the real cities. Y’all not important. Stay in y’all place and act like what you are a bedroom community. This is exactly what Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson alluded too.

No, some SMALL PARTS of Dallas, in low lying areas, watersheds, river and creek bottoms, and poorly drained underpasses, flooded. Check your topo maps!

[NoClueWho]

Originally Posted by ProTX

DFW did flood. Dallas & Tarrant are the urban cores of DFW. The cities of Dallas & Fort Worth did flood along with the mid cities. The media was very accurate. Nobody cares about Plano and quite frankly most outside of DFW have never heard of it. This is the only metro in the country where suburbs think they are more power than the real cities. Y’all not important. Stay in y’all place and act like what you are a bedroom community. This is exactly what Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson alluded too.

Hahahahaha!!!!!

[ElmoPuffinburger]

Originally Posted by ProTX

DFW did flood. Dallas & Tarrant are the urban cores of DFW. The cities of Dallas & Fort Worth did flood along with the mid cities. The media was very accurate. Nobody cares about Plano and quite frankly most outside of DFW have never heard of it. This is the only metro in the country where suburbs think they are more power than the real cities. Y’all not important. Stay in y’all place and act like what you are a bedroom community. This is exactly what Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson alluded too.

That "bedroom community" would be the largest city in something like 20 states.