![]() ![]() After citing several scientists in their article, Pro Publica interviewed Mike Talbott, former director of the Harris County Flood Control District. Questions remain, though, about just how much impact such development actually has in worsening floods-and whether added regulations would change anything. There have been more than 7,000 units built in the hundred-year floodplain since 2010. To make matters worse, money-hungry officials also encouraged development in low-lying, flood-prone areas without regard to future risk. The state played along, funding expansion of I-10, “the Katy Freeway,” and another road, the Grand Parkway, which further opened that land up for development. The flood-absorbent grasslands of the Katy Prairie have been cut by three-quarters over the past few decades as Houston sprawled west. Just a few weeks later, the Houston Chronicle published a piece claiming that in the last 40 years, rainfall in the Brays Bayou watershed had increased by 26%, but runoff by 204%.Īmid this most recent flood, other media outlets-including The Atlantic, Slate, and Newsweek-have piled on with their "floodsplaining," screaming out headlines like "Houston Is Drowning-In Its Freedom From Regulations." As Slate columnist Henry Grabar wrote: ![]() It argued that rapid sprawl development has reduced water-soaking prairie land across the metro, and instead covered the region with impervious surface, creating runoff problems. The strongest connection between Houston’s liberalized policy and its flood problems was actually made in late 2016, when Pro Publica documented its flooding during Hurricane Rita. And a predictable culprit has come up-the city’s lack of zoning, and its general embrace of fast, unfettered growth. This has caused a mini-war within the media-mainstream and social-about why the city has experienced such flooding, not only this week but in recent years. The flooding has killed at least 14 people and caused an estimated $35 billion in damage. Over the past five days, the metro area suffered a U.S-record 52 inches of rainfall from Hurricane Harvey. Other civic leaders disagree, and have called for the eventual depopulation of the flood plain, " perhaps by pouring billions of dollars into buying out tens of thousands of at-risk homes." Meanwhile, some developers think the post-Harvey rebuilding spree will have a limited shelf life, arguing that heightened regulation and the cost of elevated homes will eventually deter builders from choosing flood plain sites.This partisan debate is resurfacing now that Houston sits underwater. " Houston cannot and should not abandon a third of the city to avoid flooding any more than San Francisco should abandon numerous established neighborhoods that could be affected by earthquakes," he said. In April, Houston's city council tightened rules on flood plain construction, extending "regulations from the 100-year flood plain to the broader 500-year flood plain and new homes built in those areas to sit higher off the ground." But Mayor Sylvester Turner doesn't see a future in abandoning those areas outright. Many of those permits went to owners razing and elevating flooded homes, but plenty of new construction is also occurring, including " clumps of townhomes, packing more families into the flood plain." Some Houston developers and homebuyers seem to "see opportunity in devastation," according to reporting by Mike Morris and Matt Dempsey. "One in 5 new homes permitted in Houston in the year after Hurricane Harvey is in a flood plain - some on prairie developed for the first time after the storm - even as new rainfall data showed existing flood maps understate the risk posed by strengthening storms." ![]()
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