It has been more than two months since the federal government, in February, committed $89 billion to communities recovering from natural disasters in 2017, including Texas. Since then, flood officials in Harris County have been making plans for how Texas’ share of the money could be used locally.


Roughly $1 billion will be made available to the state of Texas in the form of hazard mitigation grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. At a March 27 Harris County Commissioners Court meeting, commissioners approved a request from the Harris County Flood Control District to apply for the first round of hazard grant funding since Hurricane Harvey hit last August.


The application for $165 million will exclusively be used for home buyouts, including for roughly 195 volunteer buyouts in the Cy-Fair area. However, future requests could help fund other priority flood projects, including a part of the Little Cypress Creek Frontier Program, which involves protecting homes along Little Cypress Creek in north Cypress.


“The district is targeting several key locations that have very good possibilities to try to leverage any grant or funding source that we can,” said Erwin Burden, an HCFCD project manager who has been working through the grant process for the Little Cypress Creek program. “We think we have a good chance, but we’ll see.”


On top of that, Congress provided $17.4 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers,
$10.4 billion of which will be used to expedite flood projects in areas that were affected by 2017 hurricanes. Flood control officials said they are hopeful projects where the county has already partnered with the Corps—including a channel improvement project on White Oak Bayou—will benefit.


At the March 27 meeting, commissioners authorized the county to begin negotiations on the White Oak Bayou project, including on the portion that runs through Jersey Village.


“Although we hope that federal funding will reimburse some costs associated with this project, we have no guarantees when or if funding will become available specifically for this project,” HCFCD Project Communications Manager Karen Hastings said.


City officials in Jersey Village have championed the effort.


“It improves the efficiency and capacity of the bayou, allowing the bayou to stay our friend for longer,” said Council Member Andrew Mitcham, addressing commissioners at the March 26 meeting.



Little Cypress Creek


The Little Cypress Creek program consists of channel and drainage improvements, including the construction of stormwater detention basins.


The grant, if approved, would be used for channel improvements to protect houses along the creek downstream of Cypress Rosehill Road, Burden said.


“There are some [houses] that are going to have to be buyouts,” he said. “They were just built too low. A lot of them were built before flood regulations were in place. The fact they are flooding doesn’t mean anybody did anything wrong; it’s just we didn’t have enough information at the time.”


As of press time, the exact size of the grant application for Little Cypress Creek has not yet been finalized. Applications are due to FEMA by June 30.


The remaining aspects of the program include several detention basins. Construction began on a Zube Park detention basin in 2017, and two other basins—one near Mueschke Road and one near Bauer Road—are both in the design phase.


Stormwater detention basins are used to hold stormwater during heavy rainfalls and release it in a way that mitigates flooding downstream, Burden said. He said they are particularly crucial in the Little Cypress Creek watershed, where stormwater drops a total of about 150 feet in elevation as it travels from the west end to the east end.


The structure of the Zube Park basin was already in place at the time Harvey hit, which Burden said may have protected 50 homes in the nearby Ranch Country subdivision from flooding.


The Little Cypress Creek program has been under construction for more than 10 years, Burden said. The goal is to have the bulk of the program in place by 2024, he said.


“After the main pieces are in place, it becomes a matter of monitoring development to keep track of future needs,” he said. “The Grand Parkway is really sparking development in that area. We want to get in there and do our work before the developers do.”



White Oak Bayou


Construction on the $166 million White Oak Bayou project started in 1998 as a collaboration between Harris County and the Corps. Previous elements included a bypass channel completed in 2010 to divert floodwaters around Jersey Village.


At the March 27 meeting, commissioners allowed the county to begin negotiations on channel improvements from FM 1960 to Tidwell Road, which is considered the final piece of the puzzle.


Bayou improvements will involve reshaping the existing grade level so the channel can accommodate more flood water. County officials said they hope to begin construction on the project around mid-2019.


The news brought relief to city officials in Jersey Village, which was spared during Harvey but experienced flooding at 238 homes during the Tax Day Flood in April 2016.


“We are very excited that the Commissioners Court approved this request from HCFCD,” Jersey Village City Manager Austin Bleess said. “We are hopeful that the negotiations move forward quickly and that they can move into the design and construction phase soon.”


Bleess said the channel improvements were identified in a long-term flood recovery plan the city adopted in 2017, but the city itself had little power to move things forward without the county’s help.


The flood study identified about 163 Jersey Village homes that would flood in a 100-year event, which is a type of flood that has a one percent chance of occurring in any given year. About 62 if those homes would be removed from the flood plain by completing the White Oak Bayou improvements and a second project to expand storage capacity at the Jersey Meadow Golf Course, according to the study. The city also moving forward on the golf course project with hopes to finish it by the end of 2018. 



Bond referendum


At the March 27 meeting, commissioners continued to debate the size and timing of a bond referendum for the HCFCD that could exceed $1 billion. The bond—which would help fund a variety of channel projects and buyouts, as well as a potential reservoir along Cypress Creek—might be called in November or during a special election in June.


Even with federal grants available, HCFCD still needs to contribute matching funds to each project that receives grant funding, which puts the district in danger of going over budget.


To receive the $165 million for buyouts, for example, HCFCD would need to contribute $66 million in matching funds, Executive Director Russel Poppe said. However, the district’s budget for nonmaintenance projects is $60 million each year. Commissioners are now looking to the bond election as a way to raise the funds needed to match federal grants.


Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said the court could call a bond election as early as June 16, but he argued the turnout could be low. He also asked if $1 billion would be enough to fund priority flood projects.


“I’ve heard various numbers from $1 billion to $2 billion,” he said. “There were rumors of higher numbers. … What’s the difference if there’s $2 billion or more, and what can be done with the $1 billion?”


As of press time, no decisions have been made on if or when a bond election will take place.