Inlaws 42 years in Pasadena with no flooding until Harvey. Who can we blame other than 50 freaking inches of rain?

Lake Conroe and Lake Houston are not flood control lakes. They can help a bit but that is not their purpose. Lake Travis is a flood control lake.

This is what a dam looks like that is on a flood control lake.

https://www.lcra.org/water/floods/pages/key-elevations-for-lake-travis-during-floods.aspx

"Because it's never"....will go down in Houston history.

In response to the flooding in 2016, the SJRA, Montgomery County, and the City of Conroe initiated a study to improve flood protection planning and early warning enhancements. A grant proposal for matching funds was submitted to the Texas Water Development Board and was approved. The first public meeting was held July 12, 2017. (I'm sure the attendance wasn't standing room only.) Phase I of the study is to be completed by August of 2018. I would say this shows a commitment by all of the above mentioned actors to mitigate human and property loss.

Lake Houston, Lake Livingston, and Lake Conroe were all built by the City of Houston for one purpose - to provide the city with a reliable water supply. This was done in response to the lengthy drought in the 1950's and anticipated population growth. The City of Houston today relies on these reservoirs for 87% of its water. Just recently Conroe and the Woodlands negotiated water rights with Houston for use of Lake Conroe's waters as well.

These earthen dams were not intended for, or better yet, designed for flood control as mentioned in previous posts, but they do mitigate downstream flooding. Also mentioned above was the fact that peak inflow to Lake Conroe was 130,000 cfs, while peak outflow through the dam was 79,000 cfs. I can' t imagine what that additional 50,000 flow rate would have destroyed if the dam had not been there.

To use a political term Lake Conroe "serves at the pleasure" of Lake Houston. A better term might be "sole authority". Its function is to make sure the pump stands at the west end of the Lake Houston dam are always full of water. Beyond that, the SJRA's focus is not only on the supply of water, but the quality of that water. Maintaining the overall quality of the watershed is a top priority. The last thing they want to do is flood the river out of its banks dragging all of the pollution that comes along with it, while also flooding sewage treatment and water purification facilities. Lake Houston has to be nothing more than a giant sewer right now.

Until we can accurately predict daily rainfall over a 500 square mile watershed a week in advance, Lake Conroe is not going to pre-release water. As the lake approached 206', water had to be released at record levels. Crest is 207'. At that level, you start to worry about the integrity of the dam. Rumors of dam failure had to be quashed in Conroe during this time. Development and recreation are ancillary benefits of these lakes; but they don't take precedent over human safety, wildlife, or the SJRA's primary function.

Frustration levels are high; but the people appointed or elected to these positions are working to make things better. Even at times when it might not seem so.

If Conroe pre released, Lake Houston would have flooded during rain instead of after.

94chem said:

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Informative post, but Conroe shohld have pre-released. It was not a mystery. There was a 0% chance that less than 12" would fall. There was no danger of a drought. This was managed poorly. In the future, perhaps more competent authorities and not half-wit bubba bumpkins will be involved. These bumpkins were afraid that the 2011 drought would be repeated, but you have to deal with the disaster at hand and not what might happen 10 years from now. Incompetent bumpkins strike again.

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So with more rainfall predicted the closer you got to the coast, the dam upstream from Lake Houston and further from the coast should have pre-released water to make sure that the entire watershed upstream from Lake Houston was at or near bank full conditions before the rain even started? Seriously...that is what you are suggesting, and it takes a special kind of stupid to believe that is the best decision that could have been made given the very short notice and lack of specificity about where the heaviest rain would fall. In order to make any kind of meaningful dent in the level at Lake Conroe, they would have had to start 5-7 days in advance and release enough water to begin flooding low lying areas around Lake Houston. And you want them to have done that before the first raindrop fell?

Look, I get it. People flooded that had never flooded before, and they didn't have a lot of warning it was coming. But that is because of the amount of rainfall that fell over a whole slew of watersheds that all empty into the upper end of Lake Houston. That would have been so much worse if all of those watersheds had emptied into a Lake Houston that was already filled to the brim by releases from Lake Conroe.

94chem said:

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You sit around calling me stupid, and I'll work on getting a new home, car, and cancer treatments...deal? We never got the truth from '94 - not expecting to get it this time. After all, Hillary is a free woman...

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Yep, you are the only person in Houston with problems, so we should all defer to your opinion. I get it. Look, I really am sorry for what you and everybody else are going through. I am not callous to the suffering and hardship. But I really hate to see people running down public servants who made the best decisions they could from a set of terribly bad choices. They are human on the inside as well and many of them were at work while their families tried to cope with the storm at home by themselves. So I just hate to see people scrambling to create conspiracy theories out of nothing. Especially when this was just a crap ton of rainfall that had to go somewhere, and if they hadn't released when they did, it could have made it a thousand times worse if the dam had failed.

First of all, flood insurance is $250k for house and $100k for possessions. And you can get additional private flood insurance also for on top of that, but your average flood insurance claim is ~$30k.

And txags is right, it is probably 3 daysish from Lake Conroe to past Lake Houston. So in order to get any meaningful amount of water out of Lake Conroe and not still have it still be in the river you would have to start days ahead of time. This is why the rule on Addicks and Barker used to be that they wouldn't release any water from the reservoirs if there was more than a certain per cent chance of rain that day. That way if it rained that day, you wouldn't have to deal with the additional water from the releases in Buffalo Bayou as well as whatever rain fell in the watershed. It just preloads the rivers with a ****load of water. They only changed it to allow them to drain the reservoirs faster after the tax day flood. And that was just until they get some capacity back in the reservoirs.

There is absolutely no way they could have gotten any meaningful amount of water out of Lake Conroe in the window that they had for action and not have screwed Kingwood worse.

My aunt saw the waters rising and got 90% of her house into a moving van and to higher ground. Kingwood should not have been a shock to those that lived through 94.

aTm2004 said:

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txags92 said:

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94chem said:

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You sit around calling me stupid, and I'll work on getting a new home, car, and cancer treatments...deal? We never got the truth from '94 - not expecting to get it this time. After all, Hillary is a free woman...

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Yep, you are the only person in Houston with problems, so we should all defer to your opinion. I get it. Look, I really am sorry for what you and everybody else are going through. I am not callous to the suffering and hardship. But I really hate to see people running down public servants who made the best decisions they could from a set of terribly bad choices. They are human on the inside as well and many of them were at work while their families tried to cope with the storm at home by themselves. So I just hate to see people scrambling to create conspiracy theories out of nothing. Especially when this was just a crap ton of rainfall that had to go somewhere, and if they hadn't released when they did, it could have made it a thousand times worse if the dam had failed.

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What seems to be people's problem is that there was tons of coverage on the Addicks and Barker releases and where they expected it to impact, and when, but for the Conroe release, there was nothing. People lost things that could have been saved had there been some communication as to how bad it was expected to get. I helped with a house today that lost everything on their first floor as well as both of their cars. On the way home, I saw a Maserati that had been under on a flatbed. Again, with some communication from those in charge, they could have prepared their houses the best they could, and then get some of their cherished belongings to safety. Instead, much of it went into dumpsters or onto the street.

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The reason you didn't see the same lead time warning about Conroe releasing was that they didn't have that kind of time. The rise of Addicks and Barker to the level approaching the spillway and causing releases was days, not hours. They had time to prepare flood maps, hold news conferences, etc. the SJRA didn't have that kind of time with Conroe. They had well over 100k cfs coming into the lake and had a few hours to make a decision to get ahead of it or they would have risked losing the dam. The flooding on 45 and 59 was such that the news crews couldn't get to Lake Conroe to report on it, and by their own admission, they neglected coverage on the north side initially, because they just couldn't get reporters and cameras up there to document what was happening. So they sent out notices about the releases that got repeated a couple of times at most on the major networks, with nobody really realizing the severity of what was coming. I suspect in the future, SJRA will have somebody senior in the bunker with Lindner and the mayor to come out and stand next to them during the press conferences to make sure that issues in the San Jac watershed get proper camera time.

I don't dispute that there wasn't enough warning provided to help most people. But I do dispute vigorously the assertion that it was some kind of intentional act to save Conroe landowners at the expense of Kingwood or that they deliberately avoided letting anybody know a wall of water was coming their way. Every scrap of news coming out at that point was fighting for airtime against compelling images of people being rescued and so forth. Tragically, a press notice for urgent publication stating they would be making a record release from the dam didn't draw the attention it should have and didn't generate the reactions that were needed to create a response from the public in the affected areas. I suspect that will change next time.

Before high volume releases, the SJRA notifies Conroe police & fire, Montgomery and Harris County emergency services who than send out alerts; but you have to register your phone with them to receive the alert.

As for the dam operators, they have very limited discretion in their duties:

• No pre-release,
• Outflow has to remain below inflow (flood mitigation),
• Stay within the easement (6 ft. for Conroe), and
• Never let the water go over the top of the gates, ever.

It wasn't pretty; but six months of rain in three days limits your options.

SandAG said:

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Before high volume releases, the SJRA notifies Conroe police & fire, Montgomery and Harris County emergency services who than send out alerts; but you have to register your phone with them to receive the alert.

As for the dam operators, they have very limited discretion in their duties:

• No pre-release,
• Outflow has to remain below inflow (flood mitigation),
• Stay within the easement (6 ft. for Conroe), and
• Never let the water go over the top of the gates, ever.

It wasn't pretty; but six months of rain in three days limits your options.

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That last rule is the one that drove all the decision making about the releases and their timing, and rightfully so. They had to protect the dam to prevent a much worse disaster.

Authorities went door to door in some parts of kingwood suggesting they leave before the houses were under.

75AG said:

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I lived in Kingwood until 2011. Our house never flooded in in previous floods. Let me repeat. My house never flooded in any previous floods. Ever.

That said, I had flood insurance because we had a pool and I never knew exactly where that water would go. Plus FI was super cheap

It's a shame people didn't have FI, but I can certainly understand their decision.

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"My house never flooded before"
"It will never happen to me"

Two things I hear people say all of the time after something happens that leaves them shocked that something did happen.

Sorry man, but we live on the Texas gulf coast. There is absolutely nothing around here that is high. We are surrounded by rivers, creeks, bayous, bays and that little thing called the gulf to the south as well. If you don't have flood insurance, you simply aren't making a smart decision (not you personally, because you do have it). Especially if you have a reservoir, creek, river, canal, bayou or other body of water within about 10 miles of you - which pretty much narrows down every square foot of land from the coastal marshlands inland about 150 miles.

The flooding on the Brazos just below Richmond right now is about 11 miles wide. Think about that. The development of the greater Houston area has modified the drainage structure of the entire region significantly - the last few years should have been gigantic red flags that what didn't flood 10 years ago is subject to flooding now - and that is without the added burden of 24"+ of localized rain on top of things.

My house luckily just missed flood waters this year. By all indications, if my place doesn't flood during a 800-1000 year flood event, it's likely not going to flood. But you can bet your ass I'm not dropping my flood insurance, because while it does suck to pay my $675 deductible every year - I can pay for about 45 years of deductibles for the cost of a single event (using the $30k number mentioned on another post on this thread). Maybe I'm paranoid, maybe I'm a sissy, maybe I'm just not enough of a gambler...but that's a pretty simple and easy decision for me to make with regards to hedging my bets.

And also, it doesn't take a bayou rising to flood your house, a clogged storm drain system from all kinds of **** can do that for you just fine. Especially with the rain rates we get around here.

I'll admit that I am a moron and thought that since I didn't own my house, I didn't need flood insurance. I thought it was only for structure and my renter's insurance would cover it. Apparently not. Luckily, I didn't flood in this storm but you better believe that I am in the process of getting flood insurance now. It has gotten far to close and ruined too many of my friend's lives not having it.

So, that's what Bag has been up to since he left the thread.

Whipping up the townfolk into a frenzy.