Flooding In Downtown From Hurricane Harvey

[IronTiger]

7 hours ago, samagon said:

 

I don't think that any of us are hydrologists either, and as such I think any of our thoughts are as valid as the other. One of my friends attending UH is taking a class on drainage. We discussed this topic at length, one of the things that makes it tough is costs. Taxes speak really loud. I think we may have even discussed it in this thread?

 

Many of the countries in the EU plan for the 1000 year storm when developing land. We look to the Netherlands and their work with water (and water retention) and say "Why can't we do that" well, it costs a lot of money. So do we want a quality of life that provides peace of mind for 1000 year flood events, or do we want quality of life that has current level taxes?

 

The number of people in Houston that are up in arms over the 1 year tax our mayor suggested prove the answer to that question is lower taxes.

 

So in reality, any idea that might mitigate the chances of a future flood are academic and worthwhile for the purposes of our discussion.

I think that one way to see what needs to be done is to check what flooded and then compare that to previous floods, and then find what changed in between. Allison would make a great example because there's enough data on it to know exactly what went down and what flooded, because what flooded with Allsion was not what flooded with Harvey, and both got a deluge of rain, plus the cityscape comparing Allison and Harvey is a lot more valid than say, Carla or the 1930s flood because the highways and the sprawl both exist.

 

For example, notoriously, Interstate 10 east of 610W got flooded in Allison, but the high waters didn't nearly affect at it as much this time around (Beltway 8, not so much).

- A detention pond was added north of (what is now) the Hampton Inn at Washington Avenue and I-10 that wasn't there before.

- Another open field/drainage area was added just west of Yale Street

- Frontage roads have been built east of Patterson Street, including two bridges on the White Oak Bayou

 

I believe that I-10 flooded because White Oak Bayou did. Glancing at the changes between 2001 and 2017, we see a few changes along the bayou.

- A detention pond was added to White Oak Bayou north of the start of the Heights Bike Trail, specifically designed for spillover

- When the Albertsons at 18th and TC Jester was converted to a self-storage facility, over a third of its parking was turned into a detention pond

- The Oakbrook Apartments at 5353 DeSoto were cleared. They had been abandoned since December 2008 but still there until last year.

- The Arbor Oaks subdivision was bought out and cleared except for a few holdouts (near Little York and Antoine)

- Space near Beltway 8 deliberately cleared out for drainage purposes. This was all woods, from Phillippine to Brookriver, with only Kensington Crossings apartments developed as something since (the apartment complex to the right of it pre-existed)

- Undeveloped space at Fallbrook & Jones became a detention pond as well.

 

I don't think I read anything about White Oak Bayou flooding, and those changes may have well saved White Oak, and by extension, I-10.

 

But Buffalo Bayou is a problem because there's almost no detention ponds along it, instead just a large dam and a few golf courses. To save Buffalo Bayou (and by extension Beltway 8), they need to condemn houses and apartment complexes up and down the river. I can see a few flooded neighborhoods and apartment complexes that would be economical enough to tear down. Plus, by tearing out the houses on Isolde Drive and Mignon Lane, they can finally add contiguous frontage roads from Boheme Drive to Briar Hill Drive.

 

[HoustonMidtown]

14 hours ago, samagon said:

 

There are portions of trail that are totally washed out in Buffalo Bayou Park, and others that are still there but structurally unsafe on the east side of town.

 

I took pictures, I need to upload them to a suitable location and post them here. It's quite fascinating. 

 

Of course, I don't want to think of all the heavy metals and poo I'm subjecting myself to in these expeditions

 

I have a couple pics of the washed out trails on the east side

[samagon]

8 hours ago, IronTiger said:

I think that one way to see what needs to be done is to check what flooded and then compare that to previous floods, and then find what changed in between. Allison would make a great example because there's enough data on it to know exactly what went down and what flooded, because what flooded with Allsion was not what flooded with Harvey, and both got a deluge of rain, plus the cityscape comparing Allison and Harvey is a lot more valid than say, Carla or the 1930s flood because the highways and the sprawl both exist.

 

For example, notoriously, Interstate 10 east of 610W got flooded in Allison, but the high waters didn't nearly affect at it as much this time around (Beltway 8, not so much).

- A detention pond was added north of (what is now) the Hampton Inn at Washington Avenue and I-10 that wasn't there before.

- Another open field/drainage area was added just west of Yale Street

- Frontage roads have been built east of Patterson Street, including two bridges on the White Oak Bayou

 

I believe that I-10 flooded because White Oak Bayou did. Glancing at the changes between 2001 and 2017, we see a few changes along the bayou.

- A detention pond was added to White Oak Bayou north of the start of the Heights Bike Trail, specifically designed for spillover

- When the Albertsons at 18th and TC Jester was converted to a self-storage facility, over a third of its parking was turned into a detention pond

- The Oakbrook Apartments at 5353 DeSoto were cleared. They had been abandoned since December 2008 but still there until last year.

- The Arbor Oaks subdivision was bought out and cleared except for a few holdouts (near Little York and Antoine)

- Space near Beltway 8 deliberately cleared out for drainage purposes. This was all woods, from Phillippine to Brookriver, with only Kensington Crossings apartments developed as something since (the apartment complex to the right of it pre-existed)

- Undeveloped space at Fallbrook & Jones became a detention pond as well.

 

I don't think I read anything about White Oak Bayou flooding, and those changes may have well saved White Oak, and by extension, I-10.

 

But Buffalo Bayou is a problem because there's almost no detention ponds along it, instead just a large dam and a few golf courses. To save Buffalo Bayou (and by extension Beltway 8), they need to condemn houses and apartment complexes up and down the river. I can see a few flooded neighborhoods and apartment complexes that would be economical enough to tear down. Plus, by tearing out the houses on Isolde Drive and Mignon Lane, they can finally add contiguous frontage roads from Boheme Drive to Briar Hill Drive.

 

 

I get what you're saying, but detention ponds didn't save white oak bayou they have bigger detention ponds along brays bayou and it didn't do anything to save meyerland.

 

I think you have to look at the exact locations of where rain fell and in what amount over what time periods. take for instance the 9" that dropped in 90 minutes on east pearland. move that volume of water in that time period over to the heights and you have a flooded white oak bayou, detention ponds and all.

 

where precisely the rain fell in such high volumes changed between allison and harvey (and all the other floods we've had recently). this is what moved where the flooding occurred. not some detention pond on white oak bayou.

[IronTiger]

x

[IronTiger]

2 hours ago, samagon said:

 

I get what you're saying, but detention ponds didn't save white oak bayou they have bigger detention ponds along brays bayou and it didn't do anything to save meyerland.

 

I think you have to look at the exact locations of where rain fell and in what amount over what time periods. take for instance the 9" that dropped in 90 minutes on east pearland. move that volume of water in that time period over to the heights and you have a flooded white oak bayou, detention ponds and all.

 

where precisely the rain fell in such high volumes changed between allison and harvey (and all the other floods we've had recently). this is what moved where the flooding occurred. not some detention pond on white oak bayou.

I recall reading that they had been working on flood mitigation for the Brays Bayou and the parts where the project was completed did not flood, though I don't know exactly what this did or where it was. Nevertheless, Brays Bayou also doesn't seem to have sufficient drainage. There's a spillover pond at 610 and Post Oak that was added in 2008...and that's it. Brays Bayou is fully built up west of 610 with roads paralleling it, no spillover areas, not even detention ponds in parking lots. It also appears, based on the Google Earth shot of 8/30/17 that shows the extreme flooding (roads and highways underwater, etc. etc.), the Braeswood/Meyerland area already drained off (there is trash and rubble gathered at sidewalks if you look closer, plus all the swimming pools look disgusting and brown instead of the bright blue they're supposed to be this time of the year). Whether or not Google Earth shows it, though, it still flooded out (probably that water went downstream to make that South Beltway area less happy). And why not? In fact, since the 2015 floods (not the 2016 Tax Day floods) that closed the H-E-B at Chimney Rock and Braeswood, they've gone and built up the site at Braeswood and Glenfield. It was a former Champs restaurant demolished between 2006 and 2008, and they've started building a dozen townhomes in that lot. Three had been partially constructed when Harvey hit and the other nine were still foundations. Likewise, a former Shell station at 9602 Chimney Rock (the pumps had been dismantled in 2004, though the service station part remained closed and unoccupied until demolition in 2010) was never converted to green space for better drainage. Heck, it might have saved H-E-B some grief both times.

 

Obviously where the rain fell makes a big difference in flooding (something I think a lot of people are still missing) but I still think if Harvey hit EXACTLY where Allison hit, we would see some significant changes for the better; or, on the contrary, if Allison hit exactly where Harvey hit now but in 2001, if the damage is any worse or better.

[samagon]

I think stories like this one that ran yesterday are just the start:

 

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2017/09/26/239041/harris-county-approves-buying-out-200-homes-impacted-by-harvey/

 

I think, if the city/county/state/nation is serious there are going to be a lot more buyouts of homes, and the buyouts will be of homes that front the bayous. 

 

You mention that there are roads on each side of brays, well, I think that's fine, the city already owns that easement then and can close a road on one side of the bayou or the other and buy up the homes and businesses that front those roads, make the whole channel of the bayou wider, not just add a new detention pond.

[IronTiger]

8 minutes ago, samagon said:

I think stories like this one that ran yesterday are just the start:

 

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2017/09/26/239041/harris-county-approves-buying-out-200-homes-impacted-by-harvey/

 

I think, if the city/county/state/nation is serious there are going to be a lot more buyouts of homes, and the buyouts will be of homes that front the bayous. 

 

You mention that there are roads on each side of brays, well, I think that's fine, the city already owns that easement then and can close a road on one side of the bayou or the other and buy up the homes and businesses that front those roads, make the whole channel of the bayou wider, not just add a new detention pond.

They don't have to close off roads, just rebuild one to allow for a bridge to a spillover pond, or demolish certain structures along it so when it does flood, it doesn't flood things. The 200 homes are just a start, following Allison, 2,400 houses were demolished, though I'm not sure if they were ALL houses and not other structures. I don't know exactly where all the subdivisions that were cleared out beyond the aforementioned Arbor Oaks. From mousing around on Google Earth, there was Glen Forest Oaks, a subdivision north of Greenspoint Mall that is now detention ponds. One was built in 2016 but came too late to save the Greenspoint apartments, but now two more have been built (and they were full).

 

Other areas I can tell was a subdivision off of Deutser and east of the Saunders Road/Orlando Street exit at I-69, Grantwood near Jones Road and Grant Road, Lake Cypress Estates off of Maxwell Road (not fully cleared but was flooded again), and many others I missed. The number of detention ponds in the Houston area is woefully insufficient, and more work needs to be done.

 

 

[IronTiger]

8 minutes ago, samagon said:

I think stories like this one that ran yesterday are just the start:

 

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2017/09/26/239041/harris-county-approves-buying-out-200-homes-impacted-by-harvey/

 

I think, if the city/county/state/nation is serious there are going to be a lot more buyouts of homes, and the buyouts will be of homes that front the bayous. 

 

You mention that there are roads on each side of brays, well, I think that's fine, the city already owns that easement then and can close a road on one side of the bayou or the other and buy up the homes and businesses that front those roads, make the whole channel of the bayou wider, not just add a new detention pond.

They don't have to close off roads, just rebuild one to allow for a bridge to a spillover pond, or demolish certain structures along it so when it does flood, it doesn't flood things. The 200 homes are just a start, following Allison, 2,400 houses were demolished, though I'm not sure if they were ALL houses and not other structures. I don't know exactly where all the subdivisions that were cleared out beyond the aforementioned Arbor Oaks. From mousing around on Google Earth, there was Glen Forest Oaks, a subdivision north of Greenspoint Mall that is now detention ponds. One was built in 2016 but came too late to save the Greenspoint apartments, but now two more have been built (and they were full).

 

Other areas I can tell was a subdivision off of Deutser and east of the Saunders Road/Orlando Street exit at I-69, Grantwood near Jones Road and Grant Road, Lake Cypress Estates off of Maxwell Road (not fully cleared but was flooded again), and many others I missed. The number of detention ponds in the Houston area is woefully insufficient, and more work needs to be done.

 

 

[samagon]

13 minutes ago, IronTiger said:

They don't have to close off roads, just rebuild one to allow for a bridge to a spillover pond, or demolish certain structures along it so when it does flood, it doesn't flood things. The 200 homes are just a start, following Allison, 2,400 houses were demolished, though I'm not sure if they were ALL houses and not other structures. I don't know exactly where all the subdivisions that were cleared out beyond the aforementioned Arbor Oaks. From mousing around on Google Earth, there was Glen Forest Oaks, a subdivision north of Greenspoint Mall that is now detention ponds. One was built in 2016 but came too late to save the Greenspoint apartments, but now two more have been built (and they were full).

 

Other areas I can tell was a subdivision off of Deutser and east of the Saunders Road/Orlando Street exit at I-69, Grantwood near Jones Road and Grant Road, Lake Cypress Estates off of Maxwell Road (not fully cleared but was flooded again), and many others I missed. The number of detention ponds in the Houston area is woefully insufficient, and more work needs to be done.

 

 

 

I guess what I'm saying is, buy up all homes that front South Braeswood between Hillcroft and Post Oak. Close South Braeswood between Hillcroft and Post Oak. Turn all of that into a wider channel/detention pond/depressed park area.

 

Once you get inside the loop it gets easy, anything between a street called Braeswood and Brays bayou gets bought and turned into depressed park area.

 

By depressed park area, I mean dig as much dirt as you can out from the area, leave the park a few feet above whatever the normal water level is in the bayou. it's not flooded in normal conditions, but when it rains there's a lot of extra space for the water to fill before it spills out of the area designated.

[IronTiger]

5 hours ago, samagon said:

 

I guess what I'm saying is, buy up all homes that front South Braeswood between Hillcroft and Post Oak. Close South Braeswood between Hillcroft and Post Oak. Turn all of that into a wider channel/detention pond/depressed park area.

 

Once you get inside the loop it gets easy, anything between a street called Braeswood and Brays bayou gets bought and turned into depressed park area.

 

By depressed park area, I mean dig as much dirt as you can out from the area, leave the park a few feet above whatever the normal water level is in the bayou. it's not flooded in normal conditions, but when it rains there's a lot of extra space for the water to fill before it spills out of the area designated.

For that to work, it would screw with traffic patterns a bit (to have the frontage roads of 610 heading east/west just abruptly stop with no easy way to get to North Braeswood). Maybe it could extend to Rice Avenue. But when I say roads on both sides, I don't mean to permanently cut traffic to either one. But what if South Braeswood functioned as both as an emergency spillway conduit and a functional road?

 

You could rebuild South Braeswood lower than its current elevation (closer to the bayou's elevation) from Hillcroft to 610. This "new" South Braeswood has no houses along the south end, and it would have concrete walls on its sides. The concrete then goes into a detention pond, which would be a bigger version of the greenspace at the southwest corner of Post Oak/610W and S. Braeswood/610S (but cleared for actually to be a detention pond). Railroad crossing-style gates and lights would go down in any sort of minor flooding event until it is cleared.

[Ross]

White Oak Bayou flooded. It was over the 11th Street bridge, flowed over TC Jester South of the TC Jester bridge South of 11th, and flooded a bunch of original houses in Timbergrove East of the Bayou. The townhomes at Hidden Lakes, on the North bank of the bayou in Timbergrove flooded, some to the second floor. That's the 4th or 5th time some of those have flooded. If the rain had fallen more in the White Oak watershed, flooding would have been worse. And then there was major flooding on Yale and Heights South of I-10, but that's mostly commercial. And no, Wal-Mart in the Heights opponents, the Wal-Mart didn't' flood and it isn't closing to be demolished in favor of apartments, chef driven restaurants and hoity toity boutiques.

[IronTiger]

10 hours ago, Ross said:

White Oak Bayou flooded. It was over the 11th Street bridge, flowed over TC Jester South of the TC Jester bridge South of 11th, and flooded a bunch of original houses in Timbergrove East of the Bayou. The townhomes at Hidden Lakes, on the North bank of the bayou in Timbergrove flooded, some to the second floor. That's the 4th or 5th time some of those have flooded. If the rain had fallen more in the White Oak watershed, flooding would have been worse. And then there was major flooding on Yale and Heights South of I-10, but that's mostly commercial. And no, Wal-Mart in the Heights opponents, the Wal-Mart didn't' flood and it isn't closing to be demolished in favor of apartments, chef driven restaurants and hoity toity boutiques.

Perhaps, but I think I read that Allison flooded further up White Oak, including flooding a new Eckerd store there at TC Jester and 18th. I had thought the old Eckerd had been abandoned for so long because it was such a liability, but then an "emergency room" opened there in 2015 and did NOT flood from what I've heard. But I-10 had flooded in Allison because of the White Oak Bayou overflowing, just like how Beltway 8 took in water from Buffalo Bayou.

[HoustonMidtown]

The clean up continues

[HoustonMidtown]

Here is a before and after....notice the top of the bench in the top picture