HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — Harris County emergency officials said Wednesday they’re ready to ramp up response at the Emergency Operations Center when and if heavy rain and storms arrive in the coming days.
On Wednesday afternoon, the EOC was at normal readiness level. Many emergency crews and critical employees were home resting, while those working double-checked staffing levels and equipment.
County Meteorologist Jeff Lindner says Wednesday’s dry conditions have provided a chance for the water from Tuesday’s storms to go down.
“The bayous are doing well,” said Lindner. “They’re still draining out water. They are elevated. They are above what they would be flowing on a normal day, so there is water in them, and it is moving.”
However, because the ground is already soaked, Lindner says it won’t take much rain to run off into the streets.
“Now we have very little capacity in our soil to take any additional rainfall, and so any additional rain we see Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, the majority of that is going to run off, and so it’s going to result in the creeks and bayous and rivers rising faster than what they would normally rise if the ground was dry.”
County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s advice: make sure neighborhood’s drains are clear. She also recommends parking cars in the driveway or garage, not on the street.
“What happened yesterday is, as is predicted, as it should work, the streets were conveying the waters to the channels, but they couldn’t do that quickly enough,” said Judge Hidalgo. “So that’s why they collected water for such a long time. That’s why it’s important to work on drainage projects there.”
Judge Hidalgo says the county’s lined up $10 million to speed up drainage in Kingwood, which was hit hard during Tuesday’s storms, and should start soon.
“We have to remember Kingwood is attached to the bottom of a funnel: 2,800 square miles drain into Kingwood,” said Judge Hidalgo. “To put that into context, (2,800 square miles) is larger than the size of Harris County, which is about 1,700 square miles, so all of that drains into this one area, and this is the first time we’ve begun to address it.”
The county judge says another $19 million’s been earmarked to work with Montgomery County, the city of Houston and the federal government to figure out other needed detention projects in Kingwood.
More than 200 flood control projects have been paid for with $2.5 billion dollars voters approved in the August 2018 bond election.
Judge Hidalgo says any disaster declaration will depend on the damage. However, as of Wednesday afternoon, she said Harris County did not meet the threshold.
People can monitor bayou levels and flooded roads at readyharris.org, which uses 127 gauges from around the region.