Think your street’s drainage is bad? Listen to this: In 2015, Kris Handoyo was heading north on Travis St. in the backseat of a Mazda when the downtown storm drain cover pictured above came loose and punched through the floorboard of the car, severing half of his right foot. Handoyo, a digital content employee of the Houston Rockets, filed a lawsuit against the city asking for up to $1.25 million in recompense. And this morning the city voted to give it to him. Well, some of it: After mediation, the parties had settled on $200,000.
The drain in question — shown above in the Travis St. bus lane just north of Clay St. — is still there, although the particular grate that impacted Handoyo has been removed and patched over with concrete. Many of its relatives remain in their asphalt habitats however, where they’ve been since the late ’90s and early 2000s.
And where neighbors in Downtown and Midtown have been complaining about them for at least a decade:
Harris County is looking for the state’s permission to make floodplain violations a criminal offense — reports the Chronicle’s Mihir Zaveri — arguing that “
“I had this problem at my house. Over the course of 100 years, about 6 to 8 inches of soil had been added around the house. The ground comes up almost to the top of the first step to my front porch. I dug down and found an old gravel walkway under all the built-up soil. During heavy rain, a lake would form under the house and take about a day or 2 to drain out. I had 4 different contractors come out and look at it. Quotes ranged from $3,000 to $24,000 for several variations on french drains and more elaborate drainage systems. I would have gone for it, except that all of the drainage designs would direct water to the drainage ditch in front of my house. That ditch fills up and holds water about as long as the lake under the house does. I then decided to wing it with a DIY solution. I put down gravel paths along both sides of the house. I dug out about 6 inches of dirt for the path and put the dirt under the house. The gravel path had about 2 to 3 inches of sand under 2 to 3 inches of gravel. Problem solved. The gravel paths fill up with water during a downpour but drain out pretty quickly. The added soil under the house keeps it from filling up with water. All in cost was about $500 plus a weekend of back-breaking labor.” [
“The soil here is something like 80% clay, so the most important thing is drainage. Water cannot be trapped under the house; it has to have a way to drain to the street, or you have problems. Many of the older homes add soil to their yards causing the space under the house to be lower, and they don’t provide a way for the water to drain — which is necessary.” [
Tomorrow City Council is scheduled to approve a new municipal utility district for a proposed development on the Pine Crest Golf Course at Gessner and Clay Rd. in Spring Branch that would include enough new homes to house 800 residents. MetroNational is 
“Every editorial and study which I have seen fails to consider the plug in the bath tub. Every drop of rainwater in the metro area ultimately finds its way to Galveston Bay (and then the Gulf of Mexico). During the major flood events this spring, the tide was exceptionally high and there was a strong steady wind from the southeast. The waters of Clear Creek and the San Jacinto River were nearly three feet above normal before the first drops fell. There was no outlet for the rain and it backed up and up and up. Nothing had changed for this flood except the wind and the tide did not work in favor of Houston.” [
A reader wants to be sure Swamplot readers are alerted — as city inspectors, the HPD’s environmental division, and the property manager have already been, the reader says — to the “recurring” problem of raw sewage flowing out from the Takara-So Apartments at 1919 W. Main St. and into neighboring storm drains. The photo at left, taken on Monday, shows the sewage (“you can smell it”) along Colquitt St., pausing for a bit of sun on its way to lower-lying bayous and waterways. [
Embedded in a profile of 99-year-old artist Elinor Evans, who taught freshman design at the university in the sixties, seventies, and eighties — and whose exhibition of collages at the Moody Gallery opened earlier this month — is this bit of 
City councilmembers voted 15 to 2 yesterday to pour out $31 million from the ReBuild Houston drainage fund Houston voters put into place in 2010 and use the money “to speed up projects and help resolve smaller neighborhood problems sought by their constituents,” according to Chronicle reporters Mike Morris and Kathryn Driessen. Separately, councilmembers approved an amendment to the measure that would help pay for a $1-million-per-district allocation that would let councilmembers themselves decide how to spend city funds in their own districts, by drawing $6 million from the city’s capital improvement funds. 
San Felipe St. near Mid Ln. and the Loop is going to be out of commission for about 2 weeks, according to the Harris County Flood Control District: After tonight’s rush hour subsides, workers will move in to 
