IronTiger

Natural bodies of water ARE liabilities, because they're more liable to flooding (especially after Harvey) and a "waterfront view" is not a selling point like it is for residential (and I hate to admit this, but the bayous aren't much to look at). Old warehouses are also a problem, like it or not. Houston's zoning has been pretty lax, but if you look at actual land use, everything has more or less settled out. Commercial has clustered along major roads. Industrial areas have forced out houses. Like clusters around like. It's unrealistic to think that Amazon is going to settle into a "fixer-upper" space without major taxpayer-funded investment, and even the KBR site was a possibility, it doesn't have access to light rail despite being close to downtown, and I thought light rail was half the reason for its justification as being inner loop. Personally, I find Gattis and Slotboom the most keen into the way of how Houston actually works. They don't (not to my knowledge anyway) have these New Urbanist delusions that everything contrary to their idealistic "urbanism" view must be exterminated (the Pierce Elevated and the tunnels come to mind) that so many others do, and they know that Houston is just largely misunderstood rather than a problem that needs to be fixed. To me, that seems like a greater love of the city rather than "Houston needs X to be more like Y" I've seen on this forum sometimes.

I know there was one topic that I made for Ike about a decade ago, but I'm trying to compile a list of businesses that have not and will not reopen after Harvey. My list is pretty short, Google isn't helping. H-E-B (5417 South Braeswood Blvd., Houston) River Queen Saloon (4712 1/2 N Highway 146, Baytown) CB&I closed a large facility in Beaumont, as well.

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.

That means their car is probably sitting in a racetrack miles away somewhere as an appraiser sees if it's a total loss or not.

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.

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.

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 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.

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Did some reading and it appears that the Weingarten inside Gulfgate Mall was bought by Safeway. I wonder how long that arrangement lasted, because they were long gone by the time they pulled out of Houston just about four years later.

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.

Wait wait wait, @editor sold out? When was this? I feel like I'm out of 610 here*... * Please tell me if that was either funny or obtuse. I have to know.

All that dirt is sediment, right? Where did it all come from, the Barker Reservoir?

So you weren't talking about something like this? If you were, I believe I've already outlined above why that's not a great idea. If you weren't, then explain. The mainlanes of 288 have to be lower than the frontage roads and closer to the bayou's normal level so there aren't any dramatic changes in the highway's grade, as just south of MacGregor, there's a pedestrian overpass (formerly a railroad). For the sake of simplicity (and the city is fairly flat) let's call the elevation of the bulk of Houston "0". Railroads also like flat surfaces, so all trains run at "0". One level below this is "-1" and one level above is "+1", and so on. Highway interchanges are one of the taller structures that aren't lighting or buildings, and when two freeways interchange, they form a "five-stack" with the frontage roads running at 0, main lanes of both freeways running at +1 and +2, and the ramps at +3 and +4. Bayous run at -1 (functionally, let's not get too nitpicky) and the only -2 level freeway I know of is the ramp from southbound Beltway 8 to east bound Westpark Tollway. At most interchanges, the crossing road is at 0, and the highway goes over at +1. This is the most common set-up among at freeways except for the depressed sections, where the crossing road is at 0 and the freeway is at -1. In a more rare circumstance, MacGregor and the frontage roads are elevated to +1, Highway 288 stays at 0, and the bayou is at -1, which would make the freeway more susceptible to flooding. At the bayou, Highway 288 has to stay at 0 because its "default" is -1, as it is a sunken freeway from downtown to 610. For obvious reasons, the MacGregor/288 interchange has to be at a minimum of 0, because of the bayou and a "river bridge" for the bayou is impractical at best (so is a tunnel going underneath the bayou). But to "raise the roadbed" would narrow clearance to the MacGregor overpasses. So let's say that Highway 288 can't be built to 0 because as it stands it causes problems and that it needs to be taller (according to your theory). OK. What if it was the height MacGregor is now? Well, that means MacGregor has to be at "0", or the height 288 is now, and that apparently causes extra flooding in your columns theory, plus now there's a big ramp that 288 has to go to, so cars start at -1 when they go under Binz or the pedestrian walkway, go up a big ramp to +1, and then back down again. It's not unheard of, as there are big drops at I-45 at Dallas Street, or Beltway 8 at I-10, and arguably, the "big drop" at Dallas Street is worse, but it also means that there's artificial congestion in that area due to slowing down for the ramp (and the last thing the freeways need is more congestion) But what if a crossing at "0" is still not good enough? That means something would have to be rebuilt. So if 288 was now +1 (or, the height that the MacGregor/frontage road bridges are on), which is a little impractical but still very doable, MacGregor has to be now at an impractical +2, which means that ramps would be steep enough just getting on from MacGregor, and the ramps southbound from MacGregor are going to be amazingly steep to get three levels down to 288 to go under Binz (or the pedestrian walkway). So the more dramatic (and expensive) procedure would be to rebuild 288 completely as a +1 level structure and go up even higher for the MacGregor/Brays Bayou overpass. This would naturally create an abandoned canyon, horrible for reasons described in my previous post, or just a straight elevated highway (backfilling any space under the highway that you can hide under and ending up largely resembling any other typical freeway like I-45, US-290, I-10, etc.), which wouldn't do much for flood control (since 288 can no longer serve as an emergency spillover pond) or quality of life. Either way I don't see your plan working, save for the detention pond idea at the northeast corner of MacGregor and 288. That's actually a good one.

Just because we can discuss things doesn't mean you're immune from criticism. I didn't make any ad hominem attacks either. Here are the big problems with it, and feel free to defend these without shrugging them off as "potshots". First, if the freeway already is sunken in its present state, then it wouldn't fix flooding in the Med Center, it would only save the freeway from being flooded. And if the city is disabled from flooding, having an open freeway wouldn't matter that much, and that's what the frontage roads are for. Finally, despite the high waters, 288 cleared out rather quickly. You are basically asking to create a massive project to save a freeway from maybe two days of flooding in a rare historic flood event. Additionally, flow would change due to all the columns in the water, either displace more water outwards and upwards or slow the flow (I'm not that well-versed in water physics, but either way, it would make drainage outflow more of a problem). Secondly, no one builds parks under freeways anymore, due to noise, pollution, and other factors, so no one would want to go there if it's just an unmaintained undeveloped area under the freeway and would be expensive to maintain. Thirdly, an unmaintained, undeveloped area would become a magnet for the homeless and crime, moreso than any under-freeway space in Houston. It would be like Seattle's Jungle, an unsafe crime-infested haven, which would be even worse for everyone living along 288 to deal with in addition to the additional noise from a new elevated freeway. Furthermore, if floods were in fact a more common occurrence, everyone living under there will perish. Even if you were a sociopath and that was the end-game, it would still be an incredibly convoluted and expensive plan.

Yeah, but adding a taller bridge would be getting rid of the sunken part of 288, unless you wanted to create a two-story viaduct where there's just nothing underneath except for hobo encampments I guess. And bringing up the Atchafalaya River Basin bridge is irrelevant since 288's not going to be flooded 99.999% of the time. The floodwaters are going to recede and it didn't permanently change the landscape by having areas underwater stay underwater forever. Also, bringing up the Big Dig as a positive comparison to anything is a terrible idea.

Trying to get a direction here. Appears to be from the west (since we aren't talking about the Omni on I-10, and the holdouts on Blackhaw are probably regretting not selling sooner) but from that direction (based on the curve on the building) wouldn't be visible because of a building/parking garage attached to the right of the hotel, unless the building to the right is attached to the hotel (doubtful--isn't that the Skyhouse visible from 610?)

288 as it is is not a new freeway and the engineer is probably long gone. It is the "newest" freeway in terms of being built new that's not on the far outskirts of town or one where the frontage roads were built years before the fact. 288 is sunken inner-loop, probably due to neighborhood impact reasons (originally, elevated was considered lower-impact but at some point toward the end of the "freeway era" that changed). To go over Brays Bayou as you were proposing would've required an even bigger bridge and would create the problem that I-45 faces near the Pierce where it becomes a giant ramp to go over and then under again. 288's flooding wasn't as problematic as Beltway 8's flooding was, and from the looks of it, all the flooded highways (due to high water) were reopened quickly, with the exception of Beltway 8.

Sorry.

Found it. According to "Real estate briefs" in Houston Chronicle (online access if you have a COH library card, it's free if you live in Texas), I found this snippet. " Fiesta is constructing a 92,000-square-foot store at the Willowchase Shopping Center at FM 1960 and FM 249" from an article in October 1989. The store probably opened in 1990.

Given the flooding and subsequent logistics issues, I think that might scare Amazon away. I'd rather see them an hour and a half away from Houston in a growing college-centered town in need of higher-paying jobs and better opportunities. *coughs conspicuously*

I don't think any FEMA flood maps have been released, but there are areas in Houston more susceptible to flooding than others. Obviously, a retention pond in Midtown won't save Meyerland, but as a whole, they should reduce the effects of flooding, and even a "few inches" can make a big difference in house flooding, and even roads. From what I saw in maps what was flooded and what had dried off, Interstate 10 east of 610 West had dried off quickly because retention ponds had been built (I seem to recall reading that when the Tax Day Floods happened last year). Southwest Freeway near University Place also seemed to dry as well because it was a modern highway built with systems in place to prevent catastrophic flooding (it too, was dealt with post-Allison). But Beltway 8 near Town & Country Village wasn't afforded those same sorts of benefits, being years older, and filled up with water. From driving it (before it flooded, obviously), there are small roadside drains that can drain off in a normal rainstorm but are completely inadequate to drain off huge floodwaters in a major rain event. Now, there were a few retention ponds in related to the Katy Freeway rebuild, but that was for the Katy Freeway...allegedly, before the rebuild, the frontage road intersections (which were a full level underground, not sure about that now) would get quite wet even during a significant rainfall.

But if we were talking about retention ponds, it's irrelevant if it's sprawl or high density. College Station, Texas doesn't tend to flood due to higher elevation and less rainfall in general. But it does get rainfall from time to time. At some point in the not-too-distant past (roughly 2004-ish but after the 1990s), they began requiring detention ponds for all development. A lot of the older shopping centers and buildings will have wet parking lots for days after a rainfall, while the ones with large detention ponds (like the one that was built in the middle of the Walmart parking lot during a redevelopment of the building, replacing a storm drain) dry off very quickly. Even larger developments have retention ponds, and many neighborhood parks are built around these ponds (as a component, not as the main park). College Station is a sprawl-oriented town, single family homes stretch for miles with nary a building higher than two stories in sight save for the occasional large hospital, hotel, or apartment complex. Houston still has a lot of sprawl but it has none of the retention ponds that development (of any type) needs to not flood. Again, I suppose you could blame development for not having it these years, but it's something that can be corrected retroactively without significantly changing the exist cityscape. Oh, and that little parking lot and greenspace I showed you earlier? Here's what it looked like circa 2001. By this point, the 1970s-era Burger King had closed and redevelopment was just a few years away, but you get the idea. A building sitting on an entirely paved lot with what looks like a giant puddle formed in the corner because there's practically no drainage. That's bad. That's what we want to avoid. Instituting that new development have retention ponds while rehabbing grayfields into attractive little green space will make the city less suspect to flooding while making things a little greener.

I hope you're talking about specific areas like Canyon Gate, which was built below the Addicks Reservoir level and no real way to drain out, but I don't think you are. Pointing to development that was flooded and saying that it was "development policy" is very broad strokes. Steps can be taken to alleviate that flooding, but shrugging and just blaming the flood plain is like saying Amsterdam, which is often cited as "ideal" urbanism, should be leveled because it's below sea level and thus liable to flood. However, Amsterdam has built ways to prevent it from becoming flooded, so no demolition is necessary. Houston is above sea level, so that's even better as far as flood control goes.

Google Maps also shows the flooding. If you couldn't see the highway at either ends, CityCentre now looks like an attractive development next to a boulevard-lined canal.