Emotions ran hot when hundreds of homeowners from a repeatedly flooded subdivision gathered Tuesday night for a panel discussion hosted by U.S. Rep. Ted Poe.

Six months after the Addicks Reservoir hit its highest point on record during the Tax Day flood, swelling up out of its theoretical bank and into the Bear Creek subdivision on its northwestern edge, residents there bemoaned the lingering effects. Beside financial ruin, some said, they still were living out of boxes and replacing appliances. And they were living in terror of the next big rain.

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Poe gathered an expert panel, which included City of Houston flood czar Stephen Costello, Harris County Flood Control District chief operations officer Matt Zeve, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District natural resources manager Richard Long, plus spokespeople from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other groups.

Tension mounted at times as the crowd's frustration with their fate boiled over, prompting Poe at one point to tell and audience member, "Do not yell at me."

There were tears, raised voices, and some mild catharsis, but not many substantive solutions.

The audience wanted to know why the Addicks reservoir had infiltrated their living rooms, and what could be done to prevent it from happening again.

That West Harris County reservoir, like it's sibling, Barker, was built after floods all but destroyed downtown in 1929 and 1935.

Addicks, which drains into Buffalo Bayou, is created by an arched berm at its southern and eastern edge. As the water accumulates, it rises against the sloping base toward the northwest, eventually past the dedicated park space and into neighborhoods. It is managed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

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In urgent situations, Long said the Corps is authorized to store floodwaters on lands beyond the confines of the Addicks Reservoir itself.

"Part of that is the Bear Creek subdivision," he said, eliciting gasps from the crowd.

A 1930 law, he explained, said the reservoir's sole purpose was to keep downtown dry. If Buffalo Bayou was already full, like it was on Tax Day 2016, he said the Corps could not release water from the Addicks floodgates. So, the reservoir would rise into the subdivisions on its northwestern cusp.

"So are you saying," Poe interjected, that the Corps would seal the floodgates "to the detriment of this area?"

"That is, unfortunately, correct," Long said. Gasps again.

A man stood up in the crowd. "What gives you the right to flood an individual's land?" he shouted.

Long reiterated: when Congress authorized the Corps to manage the reservoirs "it said, do A: protect Houston. There is no B."

A man in the audience later stood to ask about changing the 1930 law, which was set when Houston was a small urban speck in the middle of a wet wilderness, void of suburban sprawl. That would take an act of Congress, Poe said.

The crowd moved to explore options for keeping the flood level low inside Addicks. The crowd alleged that construction of a bridge on Clay Road by the city of Houston was backing up flows on Langham Creek, also forcing water into the northwest.

Costello said he would have to see the initial construction analysis done before the bridge was built before he could determine if it was having that effect. Unfortunately, he said, that initial analysis seemed to have been destroyed when Tropical Storm Allison flooded a trove of documents in Houston's City Hall.

People alleged that the raising of Clay from a ground-level thoroughfare to a road atop a long berm amounted to creation of a levee, bisecting the reservoir and forcing water into the northwestern subdivision.

"Let the water out of the reservoir and get it out of our homes," shouted an audience member, garnering cheers from the crowd.

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No one on the panel denied the effect from the road and bridge was real, but said a study must be commissioned to investigate.

How about starting a program to remove the half century of silt that has been deposited at the base of the reservoir? That would make it deeper and able to hold more water. Long said that also would require a study.

How long would that study take? the audience asked.

About three years, Long said to sarcastic laughter.

First, he said, Congress would have to appropriate about $1.5 million, which means a spending bill would have to pass the House and Senate and be signed by the president.

"We will make that request as soon as we go back into session," Poe said. "We'll try to do it this year. I can't promise anything."

Kanani Hoover, 35, said she was a newcomer to the neighborhood. She'd bought a house there in March — her first house — and it flooded in April. She stopped to wipe a sudden welling of tears.

"Since this is going to take forever," she said, referring to the study to improve the reservoir, "we need something else."

She said she had applied for a FEMA grant to raise her home so it could be spared the next time waters inevitably rise in Bear Creek. She was denied the grant, which was only available to residents of the City of Houston.

A FEMA spokesman said that limited grant money was managed by state and local authorities. "They set priorities for which areas they want to target," he said. This time, it seems they targeted Houston. The spokesman also promised to personally explain to Hoover how to have her application reevaluated.

Poe raised a hopeful possibility: federal legislation providing $500 million in relief for 2016 floods in Texas, Louisiana, West Virginia and Maryland has passed the Senate, and now awaits passage by the House and a signature from the president. That money would cover some home improvements, although the majority would go to Louisiana, which took the biggest hit.

When the meeting concluded, a few residents stormed out angrily, frustrated with the lack of solutions. Many, however, stayed for personal conversations with the panelists, and many expressed appreciation for the opportunity to vent.

Karen Meyer, a Bear Creek resident whose home did not flood, offered thanks to Poe for calling the meeting.

"These people have been ignored for so long that they're happy with this meeting because they finally got to talk with someone," she said. "This was very healthy for our community."

She also voiced gratitude to the Bear Creek United Methodist Church, which had donated the space for the meeting, and which had provided care to flooded neighbors in the aftermath of the springtime storms.