OnlyForNow said:
They picked high ground, did some FANCY deep underground engineering, and worked with the on-site drainage to their advantage.
Their site wasn't swampy at all though; the property they built on had a topographic ridge down the middle and they built on the north side of it which was very dry when compared to the southern side (drained towards the RR tracks and Spring-Stuebner).
The area west of I-45 and south of Woodlands Parkway all the way to 99 (and even a bit further south than that) isn't all low, swampy land. In fact MOST of the houses in this area didn't flood, or even come close to it. As I said above, I'm within 2 miles or less of most of the houses in Creekside that flooded, and my home is over 20 ft in elevation higher than the houses that did flood. The homes in Creekside that did flood were the ones that were closest to Spring Creek (they essentially all backed up to the George Mitchell Nature Preserve). There were also houses in Northampton, along Willow Creek (which is a subsidiary of Spring Creek) that flooded.
Actually, if you look at the maps, Spring Creek runs at least as close to the XOM campus (if not a hair closer) than it does to the houses in Creekside that flooded (which are the houses featured in that article), and the elevation at the XOM site is
I haven't been following the story as closely as I probably should have the last few weeks, but to the best of my understanding residents might have a claim that the drainage in the Creekside area wasn't properly designed or built to adequately prevent flooding, and this poor drainage design compounded the flooding problem. IIRC, there is some evidence that the MUD allowed developers to cut corners when it came to the drainage and, had they been held to the appropriate standards to begin with, all of this could have been prevented. XOM is in a different MUD (and, interestingly, is about 20 ft lower in elevation than the houses in that story).
Compounding the problem is the fact that all of these lots that flooded were sold as "premium" lots. HCAD has some that back up to the George Mitchell valued at $100k+. Many of the houses that were built on them are $500k+. The long-term financial hit to those residents is likely to be much larger than just the cost of rebuilding.
Also, thinking back to when I bought my house about 4 years ago, I know it took a while for the flood maps to catch up. The year after I got the initial policy (through my homeowner's insurance agent), FEMA sent me a letter saying that the flood maps had recently changed and it was up to ME to send FEMA documentation that my home was still in zone X. When I went to the FEMA flood maps to find that documentation (why FEMA expected me to send them copies of their own maps, I will never understand), the maps didn't even show my house/neighborhood. I ultimately went back to my agent and they sent in whatever necessary documentation FEMA wanted.
Most of those houses that flooded are even newer than mine. I'm definitely a believer in personal accountability - as I said before, I would own flood insurance on any property located in Harris Co, unless it's on the third floor or above of a high rise. But if you look at the demographics of this neighborhood, it's extremely diverse and transient, and a lot of the residents are not from here (or anywhere near here). For better or worse, those people are relying on their mortgage companies and realtors to interpret flood maps and tell them about the flood risk - and those are probably the least qualified groups to be providing that information. Because this event was so severe, I don't necessarily expect the flood maps in my area to change, but what does need to change is how information that documents previous flooding events is shared going forward.
