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Kingwood flooding doesn't pass the smell test

77,512 Views | 567 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by notheranymore
Bag
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In reply to JustPanda • 8:48p, 9/5/17
AG
Thanks for adding to the conversation.

https://www.click2houston.com/news/decision-to-open-floodgates-that-ravaged-kingwood-comes-under-scrutiny

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Bag
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In reply to Ferris Wheel Allstar • 8:56p, 9/5/17
AG
I may take u up on that. We worked all weekend in the enclave, they need help, as it was mostly a retirement community. It is enough to make you cry to see what happened there.
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Bag
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In reply to Agmechanic • 9:04p, 9/5/17
AG
The photos are on a friend's phone who lives on the lake, I have seen them but I am having trouble getting in touch with her because a bombed was literally dropped on this town. I saw the picture before the actual flood in a casual conversation about 'something weird happened to on the lake'

I will get them, but now the point is moot as another poster who lives on the lake has verified the same thing
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Ferris Wheel Allstar
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In reply to Bag • 9:09p, 9/5/17
AG
Bag said:
I may take u up on that. We worked all weekend in the enclave, they need help, as it was mostly a retirement community. It is enough to make you cry to see what happened there.


We've been hitting Forest Cove. On the 12th house currently.
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Bag
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In reply to CDUB98 • 9:12p, 9/5/17
AG
Gutting houses, cooking briskets to deliver to victims, feeding first responders, teaching my kids about service, community and what it means to be a Texan. What have you done?

The collateral beauty is amazing in this town, that doesn't mean questions should not be asked and protocols put place better respond in the future.
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Bag
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In reply to Ferris Wheel Allstar • 9:15p, 9/5/17
AG
That is awesome, thank you so much for your service. You are the people that will see this thru.
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JustPanda
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In reply to Bag • 9:20p, 9/5/17
AG
He appears
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Bag
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In reply to JustPanda • 9:25p, 9/5/17
AG
Been here since u were a toddler.
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JustPanda
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In reply to Bag • 9:28p, 9/5/17
FHKChE07
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9:28p, 9/5/17
AG
Per this website (http://houston.uslakes.info/Level/), I got the following data of the lake level of Lake Houston leading up to the storm.

Aug 20 42.38 ft
Aug 25 41.89 ft

I corresponded this the best I could to the capacity curves from here (http://www.twdb.texas.gov/hydro_survey/houston/2011-12/)

Aug 20 130,660 acre-ft
Aug 25 126,294 acre-ft

This corresponds to a draw down of 4,366 acre-ft of water in 5 days before the storm. Yes, they did draw down Lake Houston before the storm, but as you see in the first link, it was well in the margin of error that Lake Houston operates in. Also, 4,366 acre-ft is an amount of water, but it is far from a large amount of water considering this storm. At peak flows, the inflows into Lake Houston were 400,000 cfs (according to this: http://thegoldenhammer.net/the-flooding-catastrophe-from-tropical-storm-harvey-was-largely-man-made/). At that rate, that 4,366 acre-ft that was drained was filled back in to Lake Houston in 476 seconds, or less than 8 minutes.

The draw down that you witnessed on Lake Houston was an inconsequential amount of water compared to this storm and it took 5 days. Had they drawn down Lake Conroe, there would have been more water in the system to try and drain. This was a biblical flood that the only way Northeast houston would have been able to not flood is if Lake Houston and Lake Conroe were both dry. Those two lakes hold roughly the same amount of water as the normally empty reservoirs on the west side of town that are now overflowing.

Stop with your witch hunt that has no basis in reality. There is no way that Lake Conroe could have been drawn down in any meaningful amount in the time they had to prevent the flooding that we saw. This is a tragic event, I agree, but there is no bad intentions, there was just nothing they could do.

Edits: corrected some typos
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Bag
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In reply to FHKChE07 • 9:34p, 9/5/17
AG
So to be clear, your opinion is that the decision to not release water from lake Conroe prior to what was being called a monumental rain event had no direct impact on the magnitude of the flooding that took place, correct?

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txags92
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9:38p, 9/5/17
AG
My opinion fwiw, is no. The amount of water they would have had time to release and let clear the system prior to the storm would not have made a lick of difference to the overall flood. There simply wasn't time to release a meaningful amount of water from Conroe before the storm without preflooding Lake Houston.
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In reply to Bag • 9:42p, 9/5/17
FHKChE07
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9:47p, 9/5/17
AG
I'm saying that in the timeframe that they had to make the decision whether to release from Lake Conroe or not, they could not have released enough water to make a appreciable difference without, a: flooding before the storm and/or b: preloading the West Fork of the San Jacinto because the water could not get out of the watershed and past Lake Houston. Before the storm, the West Fork was running at it's normal low level. Had they done significant releases from Lake Conroe, it would have been significantly higher than normal low level and you would have flooded earlier when the flows of Cypress Creek and Spring Creek and just natural flows of water hit the river.. It takes a few days for water released from Lake Conroe to get through the water shed and into Galveston Bay. It isn't like they could have just said we want to release a bunch of water and it would be gone.
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Bag
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In reply to [removed post] • 9:52p, 9/5/17
AG
These are the questions that will be answered soon enough. I'm not on a witch Hunt, I simply want to know how we can do this better in the future and to me it all boils down to communication and protocols. These should not be judgement calls, they should 'if this, than that' decisions
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FHKChE07
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10:04p, 9/5/17
AG
What questions are you talking about? Whether Kingwood should have flooded earlier? There isn't any questions here. Lake Conroe and Lake Houston are not flood control reservoirs. They have a slight dampening ability due to volume that allows them to slightly slow / absorb floods. They did draw down Lake Houston but I am pretty sure that was just for drinking water and not for actual flood relief purposes because if they did it for flood relief purposes they did a ****ty job by only drawing down a small amount. They did their best at Lake Conroe to restrict the releases to less than the inflows, but they have to protect the integrity of the dam and they will release enough not to hit critical heights in the dam. The only reason Lake Conroe was able to act as a flood control lake during the Memorial day floods was because we had been in a drought for 5 years and it was down significantly in capacity, but that happened over a long period of time.

I realize that I am talking to a conspiracy theorist and that no amount of facts, logic or reason will apply, but I am hoping that I will help others to understand how crazy of a theory this is.
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schmellba99
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In reply to Bag • 10:07p, 9/5/17
AG
Bag said:
These are the questions that will be answered soon enough. I'm not on a witch Hunt, I simply want to know how we can do this better in the future and to me it all boils down to communication and protocols. These should not be judgement calls, they should 'if this, than that' decisions


Ifs and thats will still be limited to the fact that minumum levels must be maintained in both reservoirs, even in the event that there is a high probability of precipitation.

Because, as stated, these are not flood,control reservoirs - they have exactly zero consideration for flood control in their design or function. They are water supply lakes that are the primary source of water for a number of people that is big enough to have two commas. Lowering the levels or draining the reservoirs in anticipation of flooding or high rain events simply cannot happen, because there are no guarantees that said events will occur and a water supply reservoir chain without water is functionally not something any public official will entertain.

You think flooding is bad, try having a million people without water for weeks at a time.

Conroe and Houston are not Addicks,and Barker, not even close in design and functionality. You have to understand and accept the design and use parameters first, and you simply have not demonstrated that you have a gradp of that concept based on tbis thread.
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schmellba99
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In reply to aTm2004 • 10:12p, 9/5/17
AG
aTm2004 said:
Quote:
It's not even remotely simple in scope, to think that it is something that just should have been up and done is narrow minded thinking at best.
I get that it's not just a "well, lets send some equipment out there and get it done" kind of thing, but they have to know that it needs to be done. They should already have a plan in place to do this with the execution time being the only discussion point. Hell, the city didn't even try to clean the trash out of it, IIRC. Citizens around the lake did.


Again - the logistics of this would literally take years to line out, and permits have expiration dates. I honestly do not think there is a fundamental grasp of the magnitude of a project like this, and that does not include the actual cost of work.

The idea of taking advantage of the drought a few years back is great....on paper. Thats where it ends.
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txags92
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In reply to Bag • 10:13p, 9/5/17
AG
You act like that isn't what happened. That IS what happens. They look at the time before the storm hits...the amount of water that can be released, the amount of rain that is expected and where, etc. And then they make the decision that attempts to do the least harm. In this case, the if/then was "if we prerelease, we might lower Conroe by something like 0.5 feet, but then, we will have preloaded the watershed below us for the coming flood to make worse". Later the if/then was "if we release, then Kingwood and other will flood, but if we don't release, then the dam could overtop and fail, and Kingwood and others will be flooded with 1000x more water than we would release." Like I said before...a set of crappy choices and they picked the one that did the least harm based on what they knew. I know you want it to run like an automated logic problem that could be computerized, but that is impossible. Hydrologic modeling and flood dynamics doesn't work that way. Every rainfall is different, every flood is different, and every weather situation is different. There is just no way to map out all of the possible permutations that would be necessary to build the logic necessary to automate what the humans are currently doing to make these decisions.
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In reply to Bag • 10:26p, 9/5/17
Bismarck
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10:53p, 9/5/17
AG
Or you could blame Augustus C. Allen and John Kirby Allen for building Houston on a swamp next to body of water that generates enormous hurricanes.
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Bag
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In reply to [removed post] • 11:13p, 9/5/17
AG
It is an emotional topic, when u sit with an 85 year old vet that is fighting cancer and sees everything he has in this world destroyed it is only human to get angry (along with about 50 other emotions).

I am of the opinion that:

*Communication between the counties was non existent when it came to any coordinated response whatsoever.
*Communication to the public was even worse
*It is baffling that there would be an attempt to draw down LH and not draw down LC at the same time.
*The water levels became untenable between 1AM and 4 AM the morning of 29th in most parts of Kingwood. It would appear that simple math could have at least created a situation where panic would not set in the middle of the night.
*Simple math could also have been used to call for a mandatory evacuation of areas that it was clear were going to be effected (fosters mill, Barrington, the enclave, Kingwood greens, Kings Point)
*The truth will come out, and I am happy to eat crow, but I firmly believe this the same process safety failures that were to play in the 94 flood. Same ****, different millennia.
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aggiebq03+
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In reply to FHKChE07 • 11:42p, 9/5/17
1. He understands everything you've all been saying clearly.

2. He will never admit you are all correct.
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FHKChE07
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11:47p, 9/5/17
AG
They didn't draw down lake Houston. Over the five days before the storm it stayed in the normal band of operation it always is in. Yes, it did go down but that was a superficial amount as I showed above, probably from normal usage of drinking water.

What miscommunication between counties are you talking about? The San Jac authority manages the reservoirs and will do what it can buy only has a very minor ability to help.

I can not comment on what you were personally notified about for flooding but their was ****ing civil distress flooding alarms going off on every cell phone, tv (every ****ing channel), radio, etc... I saw plenty of news coverage as I was watching that as soon as they decided to start releasing from lake Conroe to protect the dam from failing they were telling people that it would add to the already swollen bayous.

As for timing, unfortunately most of the rain from Harvey came at night due to basic physics of hot moist air, mixing with cold dry air. That is how this type of rain works. They didn't know what the simple math was to do because they didn't know how much rain would fall. Nobody expected this much rain so fast.

White oak bayou and Buffalo bayou also did most of their flooding between 1 and 5 Sunday morning and you don't hear people *****ing about that they weren't told. They put the entire region on basic shelter in place for 3 days saying it is super dangerous to go outside. I can't help you if you decided to go toy shopping during a ****ing hurricane.
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SandAG
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12:37a, 9/6/17
Three points:
  • In past rain events, Lake Conroe has accounted for about 10% of the inflow into Lake Houston. It is estimated with Harvey that number may have been closer to 20%. Without the dam at Lake Conroe, there would have been a 60% increase in water flow through that site. Then that number increases to around 30%. This is the definition of flood mitigation.
  • At normal pool and with the gates closed, there is a freeboard (water to top of gate) of 18" at Lake Conroe. When that distance decreases significantly due to a rise in the lake level, the gates have to be opened. And they have to be opened enough to manage that rise day or night. As mentioned earlier, under zero circumstances will the water be allowed to top the gates or they would likely fail due to the force of the water coming over the top. When and how the gates are opened is engineered into the dam.The only real calculation, and it's not a political one, is how much water is released to stop the lake from topping the gates or reaching 207'. I'm sure those numbers were run as tight as possible to minimize downstream damage.
  • Finally, Conroe and Houston are part of the same system with the same administration. No decisions are made independently of one another, no matter which county they are in. And if anyone wants to be made aware of releases, register your phone number with Montgomery or Harris County Emergency Services. They are both notified and they will alert you.
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Bag
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In reply to FHKChE07 • 1:55a, 9/6/17
AG
I guess them let me rephrase, the San Jacked river authority sucks at communicating, is that better?

Can someone tell me about the communication protocols between the san jac river authority and the Harris county flood control district? Because I live in Harris county and it would appear the hcfcd knew dick all what the sjra was up to.

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Bag
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In reply to SandAG • 1:58a, 9/6/17
AG
Noone is arguing that lake Conroe doesnt prevent flooding, that is what dams do. Is the dam wasn't there the communities wouldn't be either
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FHKChE07
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4:39a, 9/6/17
AG
I guarantee that HCFCD was in constant communication with all the surrounding authorities about water. But what would you have liked them to talk about. Everytime Jeff talked he addressed the immediate flood risks for Harris county but he couldn't tell lake Conroe to stop releasing. They have to protect their dam. I guarantee you that Jeff would have preferred to have the COE not release record amounts of water from Addicks and Barker until Buffalo Bayou had receded but the COE's main responsibility is maintaining the integrity of the dams to prevent catastrophic failures. That is why the lake conroe releases happened also. I know in several press conferences he directly addressed that with Cypress Creek and spring Creek at record levels that the west fork of the San Jacinto was also going to be at record levels, especially including the releases from lake conroe.

Again, all dams do not prevent flooding. The lake Houston and lake Conroe dams are not for preventing floods. Their primary purpose is for drinking water impoundment. They are able to at a small level slow flooding but not to a great extent. They operate in a very narrow band. A flood control dam would have significant excess storage with which to absorb flood waters. This is why I posted the design of lake Travis earlier in this thread. That is a perfect example of a flood control lake that isn't kept dry. The dam has another 50 feet of flood water capacity above it's normal level. Lake Conroe has 2. It is like lake LBJ or Inks lake that are constant level lakes. The Dam at Lake Conroe is just not designed for this purpose. It has nothing to do with lake front property, and everything to do with dam design.
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JustPanda
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7:02a, 9/6/17
AG
Bag is getting falcon punched with facts
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The Wonderer
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7:02a, 9/6/17
AG
OP sounds like a dam idiot.
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sts7049
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In reply to Bag • 8:11a, 9/6/17
AG
i suspect having a "black and white" decision tree in a scenario like harvey could have resulted in much worse circumstances for someone. it was such an extraordinary event that you couldn't build a decision tree large enough to encompass all possible scenarios. you need professional judgement to be used in situations like this.
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txags92
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In reply to sts7049 • 8:20a, 9/6/17
AG
sts7049 said:
i suspect having a "black and white" decision tree in a scenario like harvey could have resulted in much worse circumstances for someone. it was such an extraordinary event that you couldn't build a decision tree large enough to encompass all possible scenarios. you need professional judgement to be used in situations like this.
If they had built and followed a decision tree that was published and known to the public, we would be having this same exact conversation, except the blame would be placed on "rigid adherence to SOPs by government bureaucrats that didn't anticipate the severity of the flooding", and the OP would be arguing for more latitude and professional judgement to be used in the future. It is natural to look for somebody to blame for natural disasters...it is just misplaced in this case when applied to the SJRA. Mother Nature gets the blame for this one...it was just a really nasty storm.
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sts7049
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In reply to txags92 • 8:27a, 9/6/17
AG
exactly
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Satellite of Love
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8:32a, 9/6/17
I remember several occasions on ABC 13 where they talked about water being released from Conroe, and that was before Kingwood flooded out.
bad_teammate said on 2/10/21:
Just imagine how 1/6 would've played out if DC hadn't had such strict gun laws.

Two people starred his post as of the time of this signature. Those 3 people are allowed to vote in the US.
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aTm2004
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In reply to FHKChE07 • 8:45a, 9/6/17
AG
Quote:
I can't help you if you decided to go toy shopping during a ****ing hurricane.
You really can't understand what you read, can you? Getting out during what was then a TS with mostly rain was not a hurricane at the time), is a very minor fact in what I've been saying was an overall lack of communication on the part of SJRA or any leadership within Montgomery County. People around Barker and Addicks were told what was anticipated to flood and when it was estimated to happen. You say it was communicated, but I have yet to run into 1 person in Kingwood who was flooded or not, who heard anything about the potential impact downstream. It was communicated that Conroe opened the flood gates, but that was about it.

You state that Conroe was a small percentage of all that went into LH, so why was there not any representatives from SJRA giving updates to the public? Linder, ACOE, and Turner were on multiple times per day giving updates, anticipated impact, etc. Nada from SJRA, and that is what is frustrating to people. Bag may believe that there's some conspiracy going on (I'm not one of them and have not personally met anybody who does), but a large majority don't. I don't remember what happened in Kingwood in '94, but if it was something similar, you can't get angry at people for asking questions when it looks like nothing was learned from it.

Before you go on another rant about a "****ing toy store," people aren't oblivious that this was a historical rain event where flooding was bound to happen. It's the lack of communication on the impact. If the SJRA didn't know what the impact would be and to what areas, that's a major concern that needs to be addressed ASAP.

You also mention the alerts people got on their phones. I got flood alerts all the time, yet I could walk out in my street in flip flops the whole time and not step in a puddle deep enough to get my feet wet. You seem to think that general communication is enough, which it isn't. They way you're defending them makes me wonder where you work.
ArticPenguin:
I am a middle aged lesbian with two children. In Texas, the GOP would love to claim I am an unfit parent and take my children.

Response when pressed for proof:
I actually have 6 links, and was getting super pissed the more info I looked up...So, look it up yourself, I am not going to fight about something I know to be true, to a person who would just as soon see me in prison or dead.
https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/2948036/replies/51680255
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