Houston flooding (Sugar Land, West, Buffalo: 2015, home, construction)

[Meyerland]

Some homes in Meyerland flooding, much less so than Memorial Day floods.

[Zhang Fei]

For a place that gets so much concentrated rain, Houston drainage seems woefully inadequate. The bayous provide insufficient drainage. If flooding on this scale becomes an annual event, perhaps the city government needs to consider building a system of storm drains roughly the width of the narrower parts of the bayous, situated at regular intervals throughout the city. Acquiring the land would probably be difficult and expensive, even with eminent domain purchases (which would likely play out in the courts, as landowners who draw the short straw politically are singled out), but shutting down a city of millions for days at a time on an annual basis is just ridiculous.

[DejaBlue]

Originally Posted by texas7

Bam -- and this is why we tell people that they should buy flood insurance whether their home is in a flood zone or not. News is reporting that there are homes that have water in them that typically don't.

Yep. When the Northside gets flooding you know it's bad because we don't get rivers like the SW does.

[Meyerland]

Originally Posted by Zhang Fei

For a place that gets so much concentrated rain, Houston drainage seems woefully inadequate. The bayous provide insufficient drainage. If flooding on this scale becomes an annual event, perhaps the city government needs to consider building a system of storm drains roughly the width of the narrower parts of the bayous, situated at regular intervals throughout the city. Acquiring the land would probably be difficult and expensive, even with eminent domain purchases (which would likely play out in the courts, as landowners who draw the short straw politically are singled out), but shutting down a city of millions for days at a time on an annual basis is just ridiculous.

Houston actually does pretty good with the amount of rain we get. Any other city that would get this amount of rain would have much worse flooding. There is only so much you can do when you get a foot or so of rain in less than twelve hours. The water shed of Texas must go somewhere and that's the geographic of Houston .It historically was a swamp.

The natural bayous do a better job than when they are modified. Look at Braes Bayou. It's huge, water flows rapidly, but it's too much too fast. The undulating natural bayous do better, which is why they abandoned the huge drainage ditch style favored in the fifties and sixties.

Once the rain slows or stops the water recedes quickly. I bet tomorrow most of the flood waters will be gone and it will be back to regular business.

[citizenoftheglobalworld]

Southeast Houston has extensive flooding as well --- for example 610 South and MLK, Mykawa, Scott...

[westhou]

This all happened at the right time. Imagine if all this had started this morning instead of overnight.

[Ghost Town]

My company is closed today. Significant flooding around.
Huge flooding in my neighborhood on a north side of Katy, much worse than major flooding last year.

[Milton Miteybad]

Originally Posted by Zhang Fei

For a place that gets so much concentrated rain, Houston drainage seems woefully inadequate. The bayous provide insufficient drainage. If flooding on this scale becomes an annual event, perhaps the city government needs to consider building a system of storm drains roughly the width of the narrower parts of the bayous, situated at regular intervals throughout the city. Acquiring the land would probably be difficult and expensive, even with eminent domain purchases (which would likely play out in the courts, as landowners who draw the short straw politically are singled out), but shutting down a city of millions for days at a time on an annual basis is just ridiculous.

The reason the bayous fill up during exceptional rain events is because there are thousands of storm drains filling them up with runoff. In other words...the storm drains you propose already in fact exist.

To anticipate your next question: "Well, why don't they deepen the bayous, then?" In reply, please permit two observations:

1. They already have deepened them, decades ago. Buffalo Bayou in downtown didn't always have a 30' channel. Same with White Oak, Greens, Brays, Hunting, Mason Creek, etc. As urban runoff increased, so the did need for additional drainage capacity in the bayous.
2. In the eastern half of the county, the bayous are already as deep as they can be without going below sea level. They can't be dug much deeper than they already are without inviting the waters of the Ship Channel and Galveston Bay into downtown Houston.

As noted above, Houston is a city built on a swamp, which was drained in order to build the city.

[gwarnecke]

Our neighborhood, which backs up to Buffalo Bayou, didn't flood at all on Memorial Day last year. This year, we had bad street flooding and a handful of homes with water inside (not coming up from the bayou, mainly due to localized low spots and blocked drains).

Don't drive today. If you must drive, use Waze!

[DJboutit]

Update video West Bellfort and Cliffwood


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-3kbdkbA28