Tag Archives: Houston

More on Dam Problems for Harris County

The Barker and Addicks Reservoirs are reaching historical levels after the recent rains in Harris County.   For the first time ever, the National Weather Service has issued flood warnings for both reservoirs.  The Army Corps of Engineers also released a statement warning residents living behind the reservoir to be ready for flooding.

The water level in the Addicks Reservoir was measured Wednesday night at 101.4 feet and is expected to crest at 103.2 feet, surpassing the previous record for the reservoir of 97.46 feet set in March 1992. The Barker Reservoir was 93.8 feet and expected to crest at 97.7 feet, also exceeding the March 1992 record of 93.6 feet.

Officials say the dams are not expected to reach 100 percent capacity.  However, part of the reservoirs are on private property.  If the water levels rise more than anticipated, area roadways and some subdivisions will be flooded.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said officials are considering acquiring sandbags for deployment on “non-governmental land” behind the Addicks and Barker reservoirs due to the potential flooding of homes.

Today in Texas History – April 19

From the Annals of the Traveling Capital –  In 1837, Houston became the capital of Texas  two months before the community was actually incorporated as a city. The former Harrisburg had been founded by the Allen brothers only a year before and named after Gen. Sam Houston -hero of the Battle of San Jacinto. The capital remained on Buffalo Bayou until January of 1839 when Austin was approved as the new capital.

Photo of the building that served as the Capitol from mysanantonio.com.

UT is Coming to Town

The Houston Chronicle reports that the University of Texas system will in fact be making its presence known in Texas’ largest city.  UT will be paying $450 million over a period of 30 years for a 300 acre campus just south of the South 610 Loop.  The land is likely the largest open parcel that close to central Houston and is surrounded by several other slightly used tracts that could be used for expansion.  The purchase has raised outcries from University of Houston supporters who are feeling the heat of real Tier One university coming to town.  For a city its size, Houston is severely under-universitied. Houston has UH and Rice as major universities and then a small number of other players including UH-Downtown, the University of St. Thomas, Texas Southern University and Houston Baptist University.  Six real universities for a city of over 4 million is totally inadequate.  Red welcomes UT to town.  UT System Chancellor William McRaven said he wants to “astound people with our boldness.”

Perhaps this offends the powers that be at UH – who are more accustomed to astounding people with corruption and ineptitude.  If they had any vision, they would see that adding another major university center to Houston can only benefit UH by making Houston a university city and expanding opportunities for cooperation.  But they are too busy attempting to build walls to protect their fiefdoms, building expensive stadiums that are underutilized, and covering up any hint of scandal.

Houston Hammered

Red will confirm that Houston was indeed hammered last night and into the early morning.   CNN can fill in the details.  When woken by Mrs. Red this morning at 3 am, Casa Rojo was completely surrounded by water.  Around 5:30 Red was pretty sure it was going to flood, but the rain stopped.

“We got hammered,” Houston Emergency Management Coordinator Rick Flanagan told CNN’s “New Day,” echoing sentiments by many others in the region in recent days. “We had cars that were stranded, mobility was stopped … signals didn’t work. It was just a madhouse.”

It still is. While the sun appeared Tuesday, more rain remains possible. And even though some parts of Houston were “high and dry,” others were not, Mayor Annise Parker said.

 

“The sun is shining out here right now and the city is slowly getting back to normal, but this is a little bit of a situation of a tale of two cities. Much of Houston was unaffected by the weather, but the parts that were affected by the weather were very severely hit,” she told reporters.

Underpasses, patches of highways and areas near waterways such as the San Jacinto River, Cypress Creek and Buffalo Bayou, already strained by weeks of heavy rain, remain inundated.

“The defining feature of Houston is the small rivers that run through the city,” Parker said. “Many of them went over their banks and began to flood neighborhoods.”

The result of the flash floods and river overruns is “lots and lots of abandoned cars” and large pools of standing water, making for a logistical and traffic nightmare in the United States fourth most populated city.

The mayor said that as many as 4,000 properties in Houston may have suffered “significant damage,” although the assessment is complicated by all the water.

Image of worst high-water spots from http://www.chron.com.

Who Isn’t Running for Mayor of Houston?

It might be easier to list those who aren’t interested in running the nation’s fourth largest city. The already crowded field for the Houston Mayoral election in November just got a bit more crowded when Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia announced his resignation and candidacy yesterday.  Garcia has high name recognition and an appeal to the burgeoning (yet lightly voting) Hispanic community.  He also carries the baggage of recent exposure of negligent operation of the Harris County Jail.

The field now includes:

Adrian Garcia – former Harris County Sheriff

Chris Bell – former U.S. Rep., Houston City Councilmember and Democratic candidate for Governor

Ben Hall  – former Houston City Attorney

Sylvester Turner – current State Rep. and former mayoral candidate

Stephen Costello – current Houston City Councilmember

Bill King – former Mayor of Kemah

Joe Ferreira  – retired United Airlines executive

The list of other potential candidates is still too long to post here.