Pearland Flood Zoning?

[Skintrade72]

Can anyone give me info on whether Pearland is in a flood zone? And what are the general requirements for flood insurance in this area?

I heard from an insurance "expert" that the entire Pearland region is a Flood Hazard Zone "A," which supposedly designates an area that is at high risk, and that flood insurance is required in the area.

Can anyone shed some light on this or refer me to other resources?

Thanks!

[TheNiche]

Can anyone give me info on whether Pearland is in a flood zone? And what are the general requirements for flood insurance in this area?

I heard from an insurance "expert" that the entire Pearland region is a Flood Hazard Zone "A," which supposedly designates an area that is at high risk, and that flood insurance is required in the area.

Can anyone shed some light on this or refer me to other resources?

Thanks!

The City of Pearland keeps a very good GIS program on their website for public use. It probably shows various flood risk contours. I'm not sure if they translate directly onto a Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) perfectly, however.

I'm aware of the fact that a good bit of Pearland does have more flooding issues than most areas, but many are being dealt with using detention ponds in the new developments. I'm also absolutely certain that the "entire Pearland region" is not all in Zone A. That is just unthinkable.

I've got about 600 to 800 FIRMs, btw, if anybody reading this is looking to buy a bunch of vintage maps. They mostly date from 1978 to 1992. They cover much of the Houston area, but also include a few rural counties, such as Grimes and Austin. Also some Travis County FIRMs in there. They'd make a great historical resource one day.

[rem78]

Can anyone give me info on whether Pearland is in a flood zone? And what are the general requirements for flood insurance in this area?

I heard from an insurance "expert" that the entire Pearland region is a Flood Hazard Zone "A," which supposedly designates an area that is at high risk, and that flood insurance is required in the area.

Can anyone shed some light on this or refer me to other resources?

Thanks!

The flood zoning really varies by area and no, the entire region is not in a flood hazard. The following link has a newsletter published from the City of Pearland regarding flooding http://www.cityofpearland.com/vertical/Sit...3A2ABEFB2E}.PDF

Many of the areas around Clear Creek are prone more to flood, but the newer developments have built in detention ponds and better drainage systems to reduce risk. I think a lot of the older sections of Pearland are plagued by poor drainage. Does anyone have any more info on this?

I live in SCR and my area is not in a flood plan, nor did I have to purchase flood insurance. I went ahead because it was inexpensive and I want to see how a major rain will affect my section since I'm new to the area. So far no problems, but we haven't had any really heavy rains (at least not while I was home to check it out). Since the majority of Pearland is in Brazoria, the insurance companies do require separate insurance for Windstorm coverage.

[Skintrade72]

Thanks for the info. From the map it appears that SCR and Silverlake is at the edge of the Clear Creek floodplain. I know SCR wasn't really there during Tropical Storm Allison, but does anyone know how Silverlake fared?

Also, anyone know the elevation of Pearland above sea level?

[uncertaintraveler]

If you do some searching on the Houston Press website, I think you will come across an article discussing potential flooding problems and (I think...) the SCR area. It is pretty old, but still has some useful information in it.

[Skintrade72]

If you do some searching on the Houston Press website, I think you will come across an article discussing potential flooding problems and (I think...) the SCR area. It is pretty old, but still has some useful information in it.

Found it.

http://www.houstonpress.com/Issues/2001-09...ature_full.html

This was before SCR was built, but its interesting to see all the issues that were being dealt with at the time. I actually called the Department of Engineers of Pearland. The floodplain administrator there has only been working there for 4 months, so he doesn't seem to know much about what happened during Allison. But he says SCR is the driest area in Pearland, given its detention lakes, ponds, and basins. This article seems to confirm that, though I don't know if anything's been done for the downstream communities, since if there were to be run-off from the SCR detention lakes into Clear Creek, those neighborhoods wold be affected.

He confirmed that SCR is in an "AE zone" which is high risk, but the detention system makes is an "X" zone that is not flood-prone. He said it is built to withstand more than a 100-year flood.

[BWSchultz]

I'll just make a quick comment on this. I live in SCR and yes, it is zone X. However, I did purchase flood insurance because it was inexpensive.

There have been two heavy rains since I moved into SCR in May. I think the first was in June (when Hobby Airport had about 12 inches in a day) and then yesterday/this morning. Driving through SCR this morning I saw zero road flooding. The man-made lakes were very high, however. The first row of trees around the lakes were under water by a few feet. I would guess that the lakes had risen 8 feet or so but it's hard to be sure. That said, they would need to rise an additional 10 feet or more to be any danger to the surrounding homes. The lakes do what they are supposed to do.

[dalparadise]

Friendswood, to the Southeast gets most of Pearland's floodwaters these days. The detention ponds along Clear Creek around the new Pearland Parkway are huge and more than enough for the 100-year rain events like Allison and the more recent deluges. Clear Creek still flows, though, and the older parts of Friendswood don't have the same retention ponds. It still floods down there.

One note -- as we saw today -- 288 @610 is very flood prone. Ditto the southern parts of 35 coming out of Houston and Almeda close to the Beltway. In a major rainstorm these areas do flood, even though 99% of Pearland stays high and dry. This effectively cuts off Pearland from Houston, even though there's no direct flood damage.

[BWSchultz]

Friendswood, to the Southeast gets most of Pearland's floodwaters these days. The detention ponds along Clear Creek around the new Pearland Parkway are huge and more than enough for the 100-year rain events like Allison and the more recent deluges. Clear Creek still flows, though, and the older parts of Friendswood don't have the same retention ponds. It still floods down there.

One note -- as we saw today -- 288 @610 is very flood prone. Ditto the southern parts of 35 coming out of Houston and Almeda close to the Beltway. In a major rainstorm these areas do flood, even though 99% of Pearland stays high and dry. This effectively cuts off Pearland from Houston, even though there's no direct flood damage.

This morning, Pearland Parkway at B8 was still underwater. The feeder was shutdown there.

288 was open this morning but yes, the 288/610 intersection is awful. When 288 is completely worked (probably after 45 Gulf is completely worked) they may have to address that.

521 (Almeda) was accessible all the way from 2234 (Shadow Creek Parkway) into downtown yesterday morning and yesterday evening. Worked well as an alternate route to/from downtown. There was no need to take 288 to 610 to 59 to downtown.

The lakes within Shadow Creek Ranch are about 5 feet from overflowing and about 15-20 feet higher than they were three days ago. Very dramatic.

[musicman]

One note -- as we saw today -- 288 @610 is very flood prone. Ditto the southern parts of 35 coming out of Houston and Almeda close to the Beltway. In a major rainstorm these areas do flood, even though 99% of Pearland stays high and dry. This effectively cuts off Pearland from Houston, even though there's no direct flood damage.

35 NEVER flooded until beltway 8 was built. the water from hobby southward flowed to clear creek until the beltway was built. Now the beltway acts as a dam keeping waters from going to clear creek. there is a pass thru (for a old stream) just east of 35 but it definitely isn't enough to drain the entire area.. bad engineering on county's part.

[dalparadise]

bad engineering on county's part.

so that would be bad engineering on Harris County's part, affecting Brazoria County. The beltway never crosses into Brazoria County, or the city of Pearland.

[brerrabbit]

so that would be bad engineering on Harris County's part, affecting Brazoria County. The beltway never crosses into Brazoria County, or the city of Pearland.

Bad engineering on everyones part. The Beltway is not in Brazoria County but it effectively created a dam that keeps water from Southern Harris county from draining away into Clear Creek. During the last big rain we had the Beltway 8 and Pearland Parkway interscection flooded and traffic could not go south on Pearland Parkway. Thats an interscection thats only a year old and its already flooding. Bad planning I think. The other factor that plays into flooding in Pearland is that our City leaders are way to lenient when it comes to developers and the new neighborhoods they are building. There are areas of town that never flooded until a new set of houses were built upstream or downstream of them. The flood maps will never be able to keep pace with the rate of construction we have in the Pearland area so a lot of areas are going to be unknown as to flooding until the next big rain comes.

[Skintrade72]

I'll just make a quick comment on this. I live in SCR and yes, it is zone X. However, I did purchase flood insurance because it was inexpensive.

There have been two heavy rains since I moved into SCR in May. I think the first was in June (when Hobby Airport had about 12 inches in a day) and then yesterday/this morning. Driving through SCR this morning I saw zero road flooding. The man-made lakes were very high, however. The first row of trees around the lakes were under water by a few feet. I would guess that the lakes had risen 8 feet or so but it's hard to be sure. That said, they would need to rise an additional 10 feet or more to be any danger to the surrounding homes. The lakes do what they are supposed to do.

I was wondering if during these recent heavy rains whether there was any problem getting in and out of SCR along the local roads like BW8 feeders and such?

Also, since you live in SCR, do any parts of the detention ponds and lakes ever foul up?

[rem78]

I was wondering if during these recent heavy rains whether there was any problem getting in and out of SCR along the local roads like BW8 feeders and such?

Also, since you live in SCR, do any parts of the detention ponds and lakes ever foul up?

I typically enter SCR on Shadow Creek Parkway from BW8 and never had any problems with water. I did see water build up on the south side of the neighborhood on 518. I think some of the problem is the construction for expanding it, so hopefully that will be alleviated once the expansion is complete.

As far as the ponds and lakes I've never noticed an odor, but I do sometimes see trash build up on the edges. During mosquito season, you need to prepared in order to be around the lakes and trails since water can be haven for those pests.