Why is Houston flooding so badly? Blame a bad storm and urban sprawl

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[gabrielcossani]

Houston has some of the most restrictive building codes in the US

[nottawa]

Native wild areas are so important it's the reason that me, someone who lives in Webster at about 32ft above sea level didn't flood. That and good drainage, at the very worst of the storm, the streets flooded up to the sidewalks.

[Kurushal]

I hate this stupid BS.  The reason Houston flooded?  Harvey dropped so much rain the national weather service had to ADD ANOTHER COLOR to represent the amount that fell in just three days.  Harvey rained more than Sandy, Katrina, and Ike COMBINED.  There is no city in the world that can prepare for that kind of downpour.  Over 9 trillion gallons of water fell.  If you took all the water that fell and made it into a cube, it would be 4 miles in length x 4 miles in width x 2 miles high.  People can talk about zoning laws and all that, but I live here and I know what happens.  My condo complex has been here for 30 years and just a year and a half ago they cleared the land across the street to build a new neighborhood.  The only way they could get a permit to build though was to agree to build a HUGE retention pond.  The thing is the size of a football field and 10 feet deep.  I can step out onto my back balcony and see over the fence into it.  Yes, there's no zoning laws, but Houston handles things like this the back alley way, just refusing to grant permits unless things are done their way, without any laws or media coverage.

[Brewzerr]

Having grown up in Houston, I do agree that sprawl is a serious problem, but to blame the sprawl on the no-zoning ordinance is a fallacy and a tired stereotype. For many decades now, and through most of the big boom-growth periods that have occurred, land-use restrictions and heavily enforced deed restrictions have functioned as de facto zoning in Houston. Houston hasn’t sprawled any worse than other big sunbelt cities that have strict zoning laws, like Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, or San Antonio. Houston’s problem is that it has annexed too many of it’s suburbs and effectively stretched it’s infrastructure too thin. The city-proper covers a mind-boggling 600 square miles. For perspective, that almost twice as big as NYC, and about 150 square miles more than Los Angeles. When these massive floods occur (and they have been occurring a LOT more frequently in the last couple of decades), it’s the sheer amount of AREA flooded within city limits that makes preparation more difficult. Houston desperately needs an overhaul for it’s drainage issues. The Addicks and Barker flood reservoirs worked fine when they were built back in the 1940’s, when Houston’s population was something like 500K and the city limits covered maybe 200 square miles. Now the metro population is right around 7 million and still growing.

It’s not a matter of if, but when the next Harvey-level flood hits the city... I just hope they’re better prepared when it does. Houstonians have proved themselves to be compassionate and resilient, but let’s hope we’ve learned a hard lesson about smart growth.

[jjcelica]

Thats why it's important to have regulations on land use.. we can't denied that we are destroying our natural defense.. we have to implement natural barriers like rivers.. marshes.. swamps and forrest into land development to prevent these extreme floods and such things..

[sweetsendaedreamr]

Developers don't like creating retention ponds drainage efforts. Kingwood and Atascocita fought against them.
Bill White and Now Whitmire ignored southern areas' bayous and drainage. The grass is taller than a child and in some cases an adult.
There's no point beautifying med center walking paths if every moderate rain means street flooding and no access. He had all those city workers terminated and replaced them with unskilled, uneducated people that feel they are too good to work humble jobs but want those paychecks....no effort exerted. Tired of these mayors that only represent the inner city rich and neglect the remaining metropolitan area.

[BCK]

Man it happened so fast too. We live in Kingwood and in the morning we drove to the store for some extra supplies and by noon we were stranded and our cars were destroyed.

[jerrywood]

It's silly to blame urban sprawl in Houston on the lack of zoning. Is Houston the only city that sprawls? In fact, lack of zoning allows the market to dictate the increase in density of development in the inner city that has characterized the city in recent decades. In other cities R1 designations are hard to change. But people outside of Houston can't wrap their minds around the idea of no zoning, so they jump to the conclusion that it is responsible for anything that happens.

[CrispyOkra]

Tell me of anyplace that wouldn't flood with 52 inches thrown at it in a few days.

[shortstackJMD]

I was in Houston from June 16th - to August 25th and I noticed that their irrigation is HORRIBLE. Alot of grassy area with sitting water... looked like Florida there.

[selerim]

My house got flooded because the bayou near me swell and spill water. This happens twice already, first in 2001 for Allison and the 2nd hurricane Harvey. Both times was because it stalled dumping lots of rain.

[yumitokushige]

Will the flood water withdraw naturally or be sucked up by something? That water might cause some disease, etc.

[andym]

I thought it was because of the amount of water. Now I know! It is because there are to many places!?

[firesign]

WHAT!!! THEY KNEW ALLLL THAT!!! SHIT!!! ALREADY!!! ...
THEY JUST DID NOT CARE!!!!...
THEY PUT MAKING MONEY!!! BEFORE!!!.... PEOPLE!!! ..SAD!

NOW WATCH...HERE COMES THE REAL!! STORM! AFTER THE STORM!!!.. MILLIONS OF HOMELESS!!! PEOPLE!!! 😠😢

[mjvanderpas]

A lot of money has been made in the Texas oil industry but none of it has been invested back in the area, its infrastructure. State government has been too busy 'protecting' marriage, seeking tax cuts and neglected to properly protect their citizens.

[anhbinbaccuc]

Wow this look like Homer Simpsons creative art, turning the city into Venice

[elaineturla]

houston has zoning see off of westhimer is a single family neighborhood, and over on richmond there is a lot of gated communities, , , we don't know what ur talking

[joecaner]

Urban sprawl did not happen in a vacuum. Blame it on an absence of zoning. Blame it on climate change deniers. Blame it on a government that is a lapdog of the energy extraction industry, and blame it on unregulated capitalism.

[gojmoik]

human trafficking the wrong woman can be costly

[Lugmillord]

Maybe one day, Americans will understand that regulations have their purpose and are necessary.