HOUSTON — Widespread flooding that’s claimed eight lives and displaced thousands of people in the Houston area has caused more than $14 million in damage and inundated more than 1,700 homes — figures that authorities said Friday will increase significantly as floodwaters recede and inspectors get a closer look at ravaged neighborhoods.
Houston and nearby counties have been hit with more than a foot of rain since Sunday night, straining reservoirs and pushing rivers over their banks. Southwest of Houston, the Colorado River swelled to more than 48 feet, well past the flood stage of 39 feet, before slowly starting to recede.
In sprawling Harris County, which is anchored by Houston and its 2.2 million residents, emergency crews have determined damage in unincorporated areas from flooding has exceeded $14.4 million, which is the county’s threshold for requesting federal disaster relief.
The figure does not include a damage estimate for the city. A message left with the city of Houston’s emergency management office was not immediately returned Friday.
“That number is just going to grow on a daily basis,” said Francisco Sanchez, spokesman for the county’s office of homeland security and emergency management.
The region was walloped over Memorial Day weekend last year when more than a foot of rain fell, causing many of the same problems seen this week. Sanchez said he spoke with one family that had just completed repairs on their home from last year’s flooding, only to see it damaged again.
“We’ve still not resolved funding and relief efforts from Memorial Day,” he said.
Authorities are working to mitigate the impact of future floods, he said, but the Houston area is beset by a number of factors that contribute to flooding: soil heavy in clay that doesn’t absorb water; hundreds of watersheds, creeks and bayous; and its location at the tail end of riverways that make Houston a repository for runoff that’s traveled hundreds of miles.
“Not only are we dealing with 12 inches of rain in eight hours but we’re dealing with the rain north and west of us,” Sanchez said.
Authorities, meanwhile, continue to monitor the Addicks Reservoir, one of two aging reservoirs in west Houston that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers considered “extremely high risk.” The reservoirs are about two decades beyond their life expectancy.
The Harris County Flood Control District said the streets near the Addicks may be impassable over the next few days and reservoir water levels may remain high for days or weeks.
“It’s ruined; all this is ruined. We can’t even wash clothes,” Brant Grimes, a nearby resident whose home flooded, told KHOU-TV. “There’s my wedding tape right there, I don’t have another copy of it.”
Paula Favors, spokeswoman for the city of Wharton, a community of some 8,700 residents along the Colorado River about 50 miles southwest of Houston, said an evacuation order remained in place Friday for some low-lying neighborhoods. About 350 homes on the city’s west side were evacuated along the rain-swollen Colorado.
While the river dropped to 47 feet on Friday, officials continued to monitor the Colorado and homes around it to see if there is any danger to residents, Favors said.
Some homes have been flooded, but officials are still trying to tally the total, she said.
For those who evacuated, a shelter was set up at the city’s junior high school. About 74 people stayed in the shelter Thursday evening and the facility was expected to remain open for now.
Residents in the evacuated area have had to deal with flooding in the past, most recently last May, when heavy rains swelled the river and forced evacuations.
“People who live in that area … they are very well accustomed to the flooding,” Favors said.
In the last few years, the city has been working to address the problem by developing a project with the Army Corps of Engineers to build a levee and flood gates near the city’s west side. The project is still in the planning stages.
“We have to go through red tape to be able to move forward,” Favors said.
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Warren reported from Dallas.
