After historic flooding during and after Tropical Storm Harvey, Katy-area residents are asking local officials why their communities were not better prepared for Tropical Storm Harvey’s flooding. Their questions include why improvement projects have not been implemented since the Tax Day Floods of 2016. A variety of flood control measures are in place in Fort Bend and Harris counties as well as the city of Katy. These include storm drain systems, drainage ponds, roadside ditches and larger projects along Buffalo Bayou. More initiatives are under consideration but the state-regulated processes can draw out work for months or years, Katy Mayor Chuck Brawner said. “A project life cycle can be and usually is several years,” said Karen Hastings, Harris County Flood Control District project communications manager. “That’s why sustainable and predictable funding is important, because once you start a project one year, you want to be sure you will have the means to take it across the finish line.” After the Tax Day Floods, Katy had to determine how to best counteract flooding. The city hired Costello Inc. to perform a flood control study. The firm’s initial report in April recommended continued maintenance for infrastructure, drainage improvements for Morton and Franz roads, and expansion of a detention pond near Pitts Road. The second report was issued in June, and a third report was originally scheduled for an August release but was delayed to include data from Harvey, the city said. “The city is working on a [Katy] Town Park area detention pond, but the majority of the flooding issues are related to our northern neighbors and Cypress Creek [watershed],” Katy Finance Director Becky Wilkins said.

Getting started

Unlike private owners, municipalities cannot immediately start digging trenches when their property floods. The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts regulates public contracts to ensure funds are spent responsibly. Project timelines may vary due to weather, cost, vendor availability or other factors. Generally, the municipality determines the need, puts the contract out for bid, reviews the bids received, proposes an award and then must wait through construction time,  Wilkins and Hastings said. “[The process] varies based on what it is, what purchasing cooperative it is, and if the vendor is in our local area, or somewhere else in the state,” Wilkins said. Katy’s Town Park project is one example. Similar to the Barker and Addicks reservoirs in Houston, a detention pond will be used as a park during dry weather. The park is part of the Morton Road widening project that finished in August. Katy City Council Member Jimmy Mendez, whose home near the future Katy Town Park flooded, campaigned for improved drainage along Morton Road and adjacent neighborhoods in 2015. “My home had been flooded, and I went door-to-door and talked to my neighbors, and they all had been flooded at some point,” Mendez said. Crews broke ground June 10 and the projected completion date is in mid-December, but Brawner said that could be pushed back due to weather delays. The detention pond will cost slightly more than $3.1 million. Mendez acknowledged future flood mitigation projects will take time to implement. “If it requires a lot of money or different things like that, we may have to do it in stages—maybe do some one budget cycle, and some the next until it’s done,” he said.

Ongoing costs

Maintenance and future planning continue long after a project is completed. HCFCD is familiar with upkeep costs for drainage infrastructure, Hastings said. Half of the district’s $120 million budget is for implementing new projects, and half is for maintaining existing ones. Fort Bend County has no flood control district, but it does have a drainage district. The two work differently, according to Mark Vogler, chief engineer and general manager of the Fort Bend County Drainage District. Drainage districts maintain existing infrastructure, which for the county includes drainage channels originally designed for cropland and pastureland runoff. The county’s maintenance standards are from 1979, but more paved roads and parking lots have changed the needs for Fort Bend. “Some developers have gone in and improved the channels, so some of our channels have better capacity than that,” Vogler said. “We maintain them as they are with their designed capacity, and that’s what our funding is based on.” The drainage district’s annual budget is about $10 million and is funded by the county drainage district tax. The district does not create new projects, and Vogler said it is rare that new flood control measures are implemented by the county at all. Levee improvement districts in Fort Bend County tackle flood control, but no Fort Bend County LIDs extend into the Katy area. LIDs in Fort Bend County spend more than $12 million annually on flood control projects. “The county does some improvement projects on a couple of channels, but they have to sell bonds to do that,” Vogler said.

Future of flood control

Fort Bend County was still fixing Tax Day Flood damage, which affected about 22 miles of drainage channels, when Harvey hit. Its drainage district maintains water channels entering Barker Reservoir and Buffalo Bayou, which both filled and contributed to flooding in west Houston. “We were working on desilting and erosion problems, and then this flood, which was about one and a half times bigger than the Tax Day Flood, caused even more damage,” Vogler said. Homes flooded by the reservoirs were in Fort Bend and Harris counties. Now, the city of Katy and Harris County are reviewing what needs to be done to better protect them. HCFCD has 44 active projects across Harris County to mitigate the flooding risk to vulnerable homeowners through programs, such as home buyouts or levee and drainage upgrades, Hastings said. Within incorporated Katy,  Avenue D is also designed to retain water during a major rainfall, Brawner said. However, more efforts are needed, officials said. Katy has used emergency purchasing to speed up bringing Costello Inc. back for a post-Harvey needs assessment. Studies done since the 1940s by Katy, HCFCD and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers indicate the Cypress Creek watershed needs improvement, and Brawner hosted a meeting Oct. 6 with U.S. Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Texas Rep. Mike Schofield, R-Katy, to discuss completing a third reservoir that would complement Addicks and Barker reservoirs. McCaul said he would push funding for a third reservoir through Congress. However, Brawner said the Katy area has suffered enough flooding. “We don’t have time to do any more studies,” Brawner said. “We need to get it done now.”