The Woodlands drainage: No short-term fix

Spring Creek, pictured near Montgomery County Preserve, rises with rains from Hurricane Harvey on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017, in Spring. Spring Creek, pictured near Montgomery County Preserve, rises with rains from Hurricane Harvey on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017, in Spring. Photo: Michael Minasi, Staff Photographer Photo: Michael Minasi, Staff Photographer Image 1 of / 6 Caption Close The Woodlands drainage: No short-term fix 1 / 6 Back to Gallery

While residents in a few villages of The Woodlands continue repairing their flood-damaged homes – some for the second or third time in less than two years - more than a dozen agencies are scrambling to find solutions to a problem with "no short-term fix."

Despite having no official authority over matters related to drainage, The Woodlands Township is preparing to hire a professional engineering firm to assist its task force in reviewing flooding in the Spring Creek watershed, which caused nearly 100 percent of the flooding in The Woodlands, said Bruce Rieser, township board director and drainage task force chairman.

Watershed study

The intent is to study the local watershed - a geographic area that flows into a particular creek - so that officials can apply for federal disaster funding to help mitigate future flooding, said The Woodlands Township Board Chairman Gordy Bunch.

But county commissioners have been preparing a proposal for a study of watersheds across the county, said Bunch, who met with Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack and others last week.

That study would include Bear Branch, Panther Branch, Spring Creek and the San Jacinto River and might be broader and more encompassing than what the township has planned, Bunch said, noting that board members would re-evaluate the need to hire an engineering firm for the drainage task force if the county moves forward.

The best way to resolve drainage issues is to have a "countywide consolidated approach" that would include all the key players, he said.

Drainage task force

The township's drainage task force formed last year after two major flooding events in April and May, as a way for the township to be involved in the review of drainage systems and to corral the many organizations that have drainage responsibilities in the community, Bunch said.

"Our task force is trying to coordinate those efforts to make sure the community has improvements and mitigation to limit the amount of flooding that occurs," he added.

Between the Tax Day floods and Hurricane Harvey, municipal utility districts – taxing entities directly responsible for drainage issues – have spent $3.5 million on improvements, including ditch and drainage maintenance and construction of drainage easements, Rieser said.

Following the floods of 2016, the township board authorized the purchase of flood gauge monitors, Bunch said. Gauges work in real-time and collect rainfall and stream response data.

The two events in 2016 were at the time considered unprecedented and "in weather statistical terms, this is highly unlikely, but happened," according to a Woodlands Joint Powers Agency report released in April.

The agency responded to at least 130 Woodlands-area calls regarding drainage concerns at the time, said Jim Stinson, WJPA general manager.

The township received numerous calls from concerned residents, who were seeking drainage relief after the two events dropped roughly 15 inches each, according to a drainage task force July meeting summary.

Even homes that "did not lie within the 100-year floodplain" experienced damage; and the task force at the time was overloaded with coordinating responsibilities with overlapping authorities, the report showed.

Since inception, the task force has met five times, including a recent Sept. 28 meeting where the board heard complaints from residents whose homes had flooded multiple times in the last two years. Reports scheduled to be presented were put aside.

During each meeting, the task force hears updates on activities conducted by local MUDs, the San Jacinto River Authority, Precinct 3, village association presidents and development companies.

Harvey's havoc

Harvey hit the Texas coast Aug. 25 as a Category 4 hurricane and dropped 30 inches of rain in The Woodlands – double that of the 2016 Tax Day Floods. By Monday, Spring Creek had crested, overflowing its banks and spilling into neighborhoods that ran alongside it. Near Kuykendahl Road, the creek reached 140 feet at its height; and near Interstate 45, it reached 111 feet, according to information from the Harris County Flood Control District.

"Anybody on the board (when it was created) had no idea that in less than 18 months, we'd have another flood event," said Rieser, who was not part of the original task force. "We knew we had issues that needed to be addressed and there were some places that we could take mitigating action.

"I don't know that there is a credible engineering solution that would have prevented Harvey."

At a Sept. 5 special township board meeting, residents, specifically homeowners in the Village of Creekside Park, vented their frustrations at board members demanding action and recovery funding.

"When I hear the rain, I know it's time to get out," Jeremy Oehmen, a homeowner in Timarron Lakes, told the board. "It's time to take action. You've got to do something. We pay a lot of money in taxes. You're on notice. We need answers."

About 300 homes in the Village of Creekside Park, located along the west side Kuykendahl Road in North Harris County and south of Spring Creek, were damaged, causing some to raise questions as to whether the development should have been built in the first place or whether homes in some neighborhoods met the standard of a 100-year floodplain.

"That's a stretch. That would be wrong and unconscionable," Rieser said. "It would be really easy to say they shouldn't have been built there, but then you have to go up to other neighborhoods (that flooded) and ask, 'What about Grogan's Point?'"

But Stanley Okazaki, a homeowner in Creekside Park who started a coalition for residents who believe neighborhoods should never have been developed there, said The Woodlands Development Company should be held accountable. They are hoping to receive compensation for losses caused by three "historic flooding" events.

"We're demanding action," he said.

A spokesman for the Development Company did not respond to comment, but at a Sept. 21 township meeting, officials with Harris County said they approved the development plans for the company and that they met the standard.

The real question people should be asking is whether the 100-year standard is sufficient in Houston, Rieser said.

Raising the standard by base elevation is moot, Bunch said.

"For areas along creeks and lakes, I think the standard should be higher; but then again, what's that standard?" Bunch said. "I don't know. I'm not a hydrologist. I don't know if going to a 125-year flood level provides you that extra layer of protection.

Until they look at what level of elevation would have made a difference for our folks in Creekside Park, that would be the level that I would say would be sufficient."