HOW IT LOOKS FROM THE DRY SIDE OF THE BAYOU 
Chronicle features editor Lisa Gray says her Meadowcreek Village home escaped water damage during the flood, but it was close — and many others weren’t so lucky: “Berry Bayou — the middle of which forms my back property line,” she writes, “received more than 45 in. I’ve seen it in national weather-nerd articles where people are marveling how fast a bayou can rise. My husband says we were half an inch away from the bayou coming out of its bank in our back yard. He sent a graph, showing that on Saturday night, at the monitor I can see from my back yard, it was literally at bank level. But the water broke first on the other bank, into the yard of one of my favorite people in the neighborhood, and up and down the yards on that side. Lots of houses flooded. ‘Dry privilege’: That’s the headline of the essay I ought to write.” [Previously on Swamplot]Â Graph of Berry Bayou water levels at Forest Oaks Blvd. on August 26th and 27th: Harris County Flood Control District
Sign up for the Newsletter
Tag: Berry Bayou
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE BAYOU Lisa Gray gets a glimpse of the “chai-colored” waters of Berry Bayou behind her 1966-model Meadowcreek home: “Most of the new houses sprouting in the neighborhood did their level best to ignore the bayou. Most of them still do; it’s rarely a selling point. A year ago, I was delighted to find that not only was it possible to buy a non-flooding bayou house for $150K, but that it might not cost any more than a similar three-bedroom house on a neighboring suburban lot. On har.com’s real estate listings, bayou frontage either went unmentioned or hid under the faint praise ‘no backyard neighbors’ — the same thing sellers say when a house backs up to train tracks. When first looking at the house I now live in, I had to stand on an overturned bucket to see over the privacy fence and down to the water.” [Houston Chronicle]