The Struggle Waged By Texas Throughout Its History

Hurricane Harvey was a Category 4 storm that hit southeastern Texas on August 25, 2017. The storm wreaked unprecedented devastation in the highly populated city of Houston and surrounding regions. In the article “How to Fix the Houston Floods.” Dylan Baddour of the Houston Chronicle explains, “Harvey displaced more than a million people from their homes and caused upward of 42,000 to seek emergency shelter.” At least 39 people were reported to have died in the storm and over one million people were forced to evacuate their homes. (Gallagher) The most destructive force of Hurricane Harvey was the amount of rainfall that occurred over the short time period that the storm lasted. Throughout Houston and many regions of southeastern Texas over 50 inches of rain was recorded. This amount of rain in such a short time led to massive flooding. (Gonzalez) This is not the first time this region has dealt with extreme flooding. Due to lack of an effective drainage system Houston has experienced many floods throughout its history. This problem has only gotten worse in recent years as urban development increases and wetlands are threatened.

Throughout history this region has struggled to deal with the threats that geography and development have created. There were 16 major floods in Houston within the first century since it became a city. (Baddour, 2) Michael Barbaro of the New York Times explains how the geography of Houston consists of a flat coastal plain, containing many slow-moving bayous, composed of clay soils that do not easily absorb water. In 1908 a publicly funded drainage system was finally created to deal with the the issues of flooding. At this time 44 miles of canals were created but it was still not enough to avoid flooding. Currently the Houston region has more than 2,500 miles of waterways that help drain the region each time it rains. (Barbaro) However due to current factors such as development and loss of wetlands, these waterways are not enough to stop flooding in the region.

Due to increased development in urban areas, 25 percent more pavement has been created in the last 15 years. This development has led to the replacing of soil-rich wetlands with concrete suburban areas. (A Look at Why Houston Floods) Wetlands are areas where water covers the soil, or is either at or near the surface of the soil. These areas benefit the surrounding areas by storing floodwaters, filtering pollutants and serving as a carbon sink. (United States) According to John Jacob of Texas A&M, “Wetlands clean storm water runoff and act as a landscape-scale sponge to hold storm water”. Within the last 25 years about 5.5 percent of wetlands in the Houston area have been paved over and developed. It would cost nearly 600 million dollars to build basins that could fulfill the same purpose as those lost wetlands. (Jacob et al.)

Robbie Gonzalez of WIRED magazine emphasizes that development in the region will continue and in turn lots of new pavement will be added. Gonzalez states that, “As long as the economy supports it, the development will continue, and Houston will spread”. Houston is set to gain another 3 million to 4 million people in the next 30 years, which means an incredible increase in development. (Gonzales) In “More Flooding, Fewer Fish: Freshwater Wetland Loss in the Houston Area” Jacob states that much of this development occurs without any investigation by regulatory agencies. After a flood the goal would be to build in order to resist the next disaster, however that would make that area’s insurance go up for the home owners resulting in no actions being taken. (Jacob et al).

One useful way of mitigating flood risk is to use the Dynamic Modeling of Storm Surge and Inland Flooding which can analyze and predict situations in storm surges/hurricanes and help with the planning of dealing with floods. (Ray et al.) In the article “The Monumental Task of Restoring Houston After Harvey.”, Gonzales argues that the most vital step forward is to limit and regulate development of wetland areas in Texas. He states, “If the new development does not take in to account the preservation of wetlands, the flood risk will dramatically increase.” (Gonzales) In “More Flooding, Fewer Fish: Freshwater Wetland Loss in the Houston Area” Jacob explains how some measures are being taken to regulate development. He states, “In Houston, any developer who seeks to repurpose wetlands must get a CWA (Clean Water Act) permit to do so and Coastal resource managers must be able to correctly analyze a wetland that is important to the community.” The Clean Water Act is a federal act that regulates water discharge and pollutants. (Jacob et al.) Baddour states that “it is clear how to fix the problem” but that the public's attention and the large investments it would require to implement solutions only exist while the destruction is fresh. (Baddour 2) The issues of wetland loss and development are clearly problems that need to be solved but the process of finding solutions is complex.