Houston’s Bayous Fared Well During Hurricane Beryl

Houston’s bayous fared well during Hurricane Beryl on Monday, but the storm tested the limits of how much water the system can handle, Harris County meteorologist Jeff Lindner said.

The region had been experiencing a dry, hot spell before Monday, which allowed the ground to absorb some of the water, Lindner said Tuesday. The speed at which Hurricane Beryl moved also helped limit the damage, he added.

“A slower storm would have produced more precipitation, and we probably would have had more flooding,” Lindner said. “We were at about 8 to 10 inches, which is about the limit of what we can handle.”

The areas that experienced flooding were areas that were expected, such as along Clear Creek and Brays Bayou, and the high waters of White Oak and Buffalo bayous. However, he said it was minor flooding with limited damage to homes.

“When I started this project 20 years ago, a 12- to 8-inch rain would have flooded hundreds of homes,” Lindner said. “Our bayous and creeks have done very well.”

Much work has been done to widen some bayous and build new flood control infrastructure. Lindner said infrastructure improvements approved by voters after Hurricane Harvey are having a positive effect in the face of these storms, and maintenance efforts to clean up after May’s derecho were critical to getting the area’s flood control infrastructure ready for Beryl.

The next storm might not be so mild, he warned.

“Everything has a limit. This time our limit went pretty well,” Lindner said. “A lot of things helped us yesterday.”

Despite more rain and thunderstorms on the horizon, officials said there was “no concern” about further flooding this week. The storms would be typical afternoon rain showers and thunderstorms, with no widespread heavy rain forecast.

Jim Blackburn, co-director of Rice University’s Center for Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation, warned that the good news may not last long.

“The real problem is (the bayous) “The rainfall has been good, but it hasn’t been what we’re anticipating with the storms coming,” Blackburn said. “If we had had three or four more inches, we would have had extremely widespread flooding.”

Lindner echoed that sentiment, noting that what the region encountered Monday was a weaker hurricane, and that the damage from a relatively weaker storm should serve as a wake-up call for residents, especially those further inland.

“Look where we are this morning. We had 80 mph winds in Conroe,” Lindner said. “This is not just a coastal issue. You know, you can have high winds and heavy rain all the way inland. We’re talking power outages this morning all the way to Shreveport.”

Blackburn said he measured 8 inches of rain at his Houston home, between Brays and Buffalo bayous, which doesn’t come close to a 100-year storm.

A 100-year storm has a 1 percent chance of occurring each year. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has changed the classification of a 100-year storm in Houston from 13 inches of rain in 24 hours to 18 inches.

Blackburn said climate change was making those precipitation standards obsolete.

“We can’t really rely on the past to predict our future anymore, as we used to,” he said.

With that in mind, Blackburn said that the focus should be on purchasing real estate currently in flood plains, and residents who currently live in a flood plain should be prepared for flooding.

“I don’t think our community has ever taken the initiative to talk about flood plains and try to move people away from those areas,” he said. “We need to make more room for water in our community, and we don’t have enough right now.”

After Hurricane Harvey, Harris County and the city of Houston changed development rules in flood zones, requiring development to be built above the 500-year flood plain.

Harris County has also been working on buyouts for years, including launching the nation’s first mandatory flood buyout program. Since Harvey, the county has bought out more than 1,000 properties. However, the process of purchasing a property can take up to two years, leaving the county with a backlog of parcels targeted for buyouts.

The best time for government agencies to buy up properties is immediately after a flood, before owners have invested money and incurred debt for repairs, Blackburn said.

“We tolerate the building and rebuilding of the same flooded homes year after year, decade after decade, because we are reluctant to step in and say, ‘Look, we need you to move,’” he said. “We have built a lot of new projects, but they are not comparable to the magnitude of the flooding we are facing.”

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