Some Houston-area communities seeing the most rain and flooding since Hurricane Harvey

Texans in parts of East and Southeast Texas experienced severe flooding – inundated by waters that led to evacuations, boat rescues, submerged streets, extensive property damage and high levels of water never seen in almost five years.

Along the banks of some rivers, the sky is dropping as much as 23 inches in some isolated areas. As a result, three major reservoirs in the area – Lake Livingston, Lake Houston and Lake Conroe – all reached dangerously high levels, and all three had to release huge amounts of water, causing rivers to flood. downstream from businesses and homes.

Jeff Lindner, Harris County meteorologist, joined Texas Standard to discuss the situation. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity:

Texas standard: What is the latest news in Harris County regarding flooding? How much rain are you seeing right now?

Jeff Lindner: You know, we didn’t see any rain at all overnight. Thus, the floods continue to recede.

We reached our peaks on Saturday. These water levels have all dropped between 3 and 5 feet since Saturday afternoon. So we continue to see a reduction in flooding. And I hope that by Tuesday and Wednesday, we will see these rivers back on their banks. The impacts have therefore improved and they will continue to improve today and tomorrow.

How would you compare this flood to other natural disasters you’ve seen in the area?

You know, it kind of depends on where you are.

So, on the East Fork of the San Jacinto River, this figure was higher than that of Tropical Storm Imelda in 2019, but lower than that of Harvey in 2017.

On the West Fork of the San Jacinto River, it was several feet – almost 10 feet – lower than Harvey. So, you know, it wasn’t a typical river flood, but it wasn’t a record flood here either.

Well, what explains the fact that some areas were really flooded and you weren’t driving on the road too much and there didn’t seem to be much flooding?

Yeah. So this is a different type of flood for us here in Harris County. It’s pretty rare that we see a flood of the San Jacinto River and not see any other flooding in Harris County. And it just depends on how the rain fell.

So all of these heavy rains fell north of us in Montgomery, San Jacinto and Polk counties, and we didn’t have a significant amount of rain directly on us here in Harris County. So all of our creeks and bayous have been doing really well, and we’ve been really hit with the water coming down from our north, which only affects a small portion of northern and eastern Harris County.

So the majority of Harris County and the city of Houston were doing well. You drive to this area and everything is perfectly fine. And then there were floods along the river.

So it’s quite rare to see that here. Typically when we get heavy rain we involve a lot of the county and the river.

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What are you hearing on the victims’ front?

To our knowledge, we have not had any deaths or injuries in Harris County.

Now I have seen reports of more than 220 Harris County residents being rescued. Is this figure almost reached or do you think it will continue to increase? And what about cleaning?

Yeah, no, we probably had the maximum number of rescues we could have. Most of them took place on Friday. As the water was rising we had a few over the weekend. But in the last 24 hours we have received almost no calls for help, unless they are people who chose to make bad decisions by getting out and into the water and underestimating the current and the amount of debris.

We had a few people over yesterday. They got into trouble on the lower San Jacinto River in a kayak. So we’re certainly telling people not to go out in these flooded areas and especially not to go out on the Houston River or Lake Houston at this time, which are closed until the water recedes and the currents recede, which should be Tuesday again. Until wednesday.

Longer term, what can Harris County do to mitigate the damage caused by extreme weather events like this?

You know, rivers are rivers and river control is very difficult to achieve without reservoir exploitation and that sort of thing. Even then, flooding could still occur along rivers. So there is no silver bullet – if you will, silver bullet – for controlling flooding along the San Jacinto River, East Fork and West Fork.

The rest of the county is where we can do a little more on our canals, streams and bayous with retention ponds, home buyout projects and infrastructure modifications and where we can help reduce the risk of flooding.

But I always say that we will never completely eliminate the risk of flooding. There will always be storms – precipitation – that will overtake the design of these projects. So it’s very important that people in this area understand that and always have flood insurance.

Flood insurance is the best thing to protect yourself against flooding. Only about 30 percent of Harris County residents have flood insurance. And so as we head into hurricane season, this is something that’s important to look at and make sure that you have the appropriate coverage.