Following several feet of measurable rainfall from April 17 through early June that resulted in widespread flooding throughout the Greater Houston region, officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the Addicks and Barker reservoirs did what they were intended to when built more than 70 years ago.

“It’s amazing to think 17 inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period. [Meteorologists] projected we’d receive extra rainfall, but we didn’t. We did luck out,” said Sandra Arnold, public affairs officer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District. “Even though the dams worked perfectly and as expected, there was still flooding.”

The rains of April and May led to record high water height levels in the two reservoirs, Arnold said, noting that the water height level in the Addicks dam set a record at more than 102 feet while the Barker dam set a record with a water height level of more than 95 feet.

The Addicks and Barker dams are located near the intersection of II10 and Hwy. 6—Barker dam is south of I-10 and Addicks dam is north of I-10. The two earthen berms—each several miles long—hold back water that has flowed eastward from the 265-square-mile watershed on the Katy Prairie toward the Greater Houston area.

The water held back by the two reservoirs is gradually released into the Buffalo Bayou watershed, said Richard Long, a natural resource management specialist with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“Everything is working very well. The dams are doing what they’re supposed to do,” Long said.

Long said the Barker Reservoir can hold 210,000 acre-feet of water, and the Addicks Reservoir can hold 200,000 acre-feet of water. On April 23, Addicks Reservoir had 123,000 acre-feet of water in it; and on April 25 there was 86,000 acre-feet of water in the Barker Reservoir, he said.

“Those are ‘dry’ reservoirs. The normal acre-feet level is zero,” Long said. “We got rid of more than half the water [that was in] Addicks and one-third of the water in Barker.”

Releasing all the pent-up water in both reservoirs will possibly take several months, Arnold said, adding that citizens should be patient with the process and understand the releases will be done in a safe manner.

“We monitor it 24/7 before we make any increases or decreases [in the amount of water released], we have teams on the ground,” she said. “If you release too much and we get additional rains, it could cause more flooding. We know that humans are affected by this.”

The Army Corps of Engineers is embarking on $71 million upgrade to both dams—the Addicks and Barker Dam Safety Program. The project will involve rebuilding the spillways and other aspects of the earthen dams.

Following the devastating floods of 1929 and 1935 that inundated downtown Houston with floodwater, state and national officials decided to build the two dams in an effort to prevent similar disasters.

The two structures were built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1940s as a way to stop water flowing eastward from the Katy Prairie and flooding the areas of Houston centered around the Buffalo Bayou.