COMMENT OF THE DAY: WEST END WALMART IN DETENTION “. . . The only negative to the city to me has to deal with drainage. The developer (under current city policy) can claim the site was previously developed which means no storm water detention needs to be provided for the tract. The mayor and several other local groups believe that all new large scale development should provide detention regardless of the previous conditions of the site. It’s not an easy policy change to implement even in the strictest of regulatory environments.” [kjb434, commenting on In the Mail: Walmart Gets Its Game on for Central Houston]
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Tag: Flooding
Then you saw it, now you don’t: Part 2 of FEMA’s buy it, then demolish it plan for the oft-flooded home at 1954 N. MacGregor Way in Idylwood is now complete, reports a reader. “The plants around the trees seem to be all that’s left. And, that funny knotty thing on the tree on the right.” A source scores the low-lying property as the 10th FEMA buyout of Hurricane Ike-damaged homes in the neighborhood, though more residents have turned down similar offers. Just across the street from the property: The uppity banks of Brays Bayou.
- Previously on Swamplot: Another FEMA Find Leaves the Shores of Idylwood
Photos: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SPILL! “I’m looking forward to the dedicated thread on Swamplot about the Renew Houston proposal. Until then, I’ll keep my comments to myself . . .” [Random Poster, commenting on Swamplot Street Sleuths: Too Many Bumps]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON’S METHANE-POWERED TSUNAMI APOCALYPSE WON’T CHANGE A THING, REALLY “People will still drive their cars into the high water.” [Matt, commenting on And Now a Tall Blast of Hot Air from the Gulf]
Readers in Idylwood have been watching Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report for the appearance of this house at 1954 North MacGregor Way, as it wraps around to Sylvan Rd. in their neighborhood. A local resident tells us the 1950 home will be the 10th Hurricane Ike-flooded house bought up by FEMA and torn down. (Other homeowners on the same street have turned down similar early-retirement deals for their properties, claims the resident.) But focusing on that singular pre-storm flooding event in 2008 only doesn’t do justice to this home’s long history of seaworthiness: Our source says this house had 4 feet of water in it on at least 2 occasions, along with several less dramatic Brays Bayou baptisms. Water from the bayou came back to play in the street in front of the house just 2 Fridays ago.
Idylwood scored 3 FEMA buyouts in the wake of Tropical Storm Allison, in 2001.
- Previously on Swamplot: From Show House to Wet House to No House: Saying Goodbye the MacGregor Way
Photo: Swamplot inbox
AND NOW A TALL BLAST OF HOT AIR FROM THE GULF See, this ginormous methane fart is gonna shoot up from deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico, and then we’ll all be outta here like the dinosaurs: “BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling operation may have triggered an irreversible, cascading geological Apocalypse that will culminate with the first mass extinction of life on Earth in many millions of years. . . . If the methane bubble—a bubble that could be as big as 20 miles wide—erupts with titanic force from the seabed into the Gulf, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will immediately sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists participating in the salvage operation will die instantly. Next, the ocean bottom will collapse, instantaneously displacing up to a trillion cubic feet of water or more and creating a towering supersonic tsunami annihilating everything along the coast and well inland. Like a thermonuclear blast, a high pressure atmospheric wave could precede the tidal wave flattening everything in its path before the water arrives. When the roaring tsunami does arrive it will scrub away all that is left.” [Helium; deprogramming available on Reddit; both via Rex Hammock]
GALVESTON’S NEW RINSE-OFF NIGHTSPOT 
A lawsuit will determine whether Scott Arnold can collect the remainder of the insurance money he expects for the loss of the famed Balinese Room to Hurricane Ike. In the meantime, the former owner of the waterside bar wanted to make sure his next nightspot would survive another big Galveston flood. So . . . is his new Granite Room, which opened on July 4th as part of the Voodoo Lounge complex at 26th and Mechanic streets, on an upper floor or something? Naaah. It’s mop-down friendly: “This building got nine feet of water during Ike,†he tells HBJ reporter Allison Wollam. “So I designed the club with granite and marble so that if it floods again, we can just hose everything down and be open again within a week or two.†[Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Granite Room
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY HOUSTON NEEDS THAT NEW WALMART BY THE BAYOU “With all this rain, surely pollutants are leeching out from the soils of this brownfield site and flowing into White Oak Bayou. If there were a Wal-Mart here, the surface would be impermeable with only trace amounts of leaked motor oil contaminating the bayou. And as a kayaker that enjoys high water, that means less cancer for me!” [TheNiche, commenting on Only a Little Off Target: Walmart Heading Right Between Washington Ave and the Heights]
LIVING IN THE SOG ZONE As Hurricane Alex heads for the northern banks of Mexico more than 300 miles away and the National Weather Service issues a coastal flood warning, the Chronicle‘s Clear Lake website offers this bit of advice: “Residents throughout Clear Lake and the rest of the Houston area should watch for street flooding in the usual areas.” [Ultimate Clear Lake]
THAT FLOOD OF DOLLARS Flooding means big bucks for Houston! And just think of how much more cash we could be raking in here if more than 1 in 5 households bought in: “Since 1978, Houstonians have received more than $1 billion worth of flood insurance checks, according to the National Flood Insurance Program. That ranks fifth among cities and counties nationally. Harris County, not counting Houston, ranks seventh. Flood Control District spokeswoman Heather Saucier cites the figures as proof that locals who have flood insurance use it. ‘If you don’t live in a mapped floodplain, It doesn’t mean you don’t need flood insurance. It means you get cheaper flood insurance,’ Saucier said. She said most insurance companies carry it, and since agents just pass through NFIP policies at set rates, no shopping around is necessary. Congress has let the flood insurance program lapse, but Linda Delamare, the federal government’s senior regional insurance specialist for Texas and four other states, said the lapse is temporary. Congress routinely reauthorizes the program in short order, and consumers should still pursue policies, she said.” [Houston Chronicle]
KING READY TO LAUNCH 700-YEAR WAR Will the new Gulf Coast Community Protection and Recovery District be leading the battle to build a 60-mile-long “Ike Dike” to gate off Galveston Bay from hurricane storm surges? “I think there’s a growing consensus that something’s got to be done,†board member and former Kemah mayor Bill King tells Eric Berger: “Whatever gets done, says King . . . it’s important not to view it as a magic bullet. ‘I think it’s a big mistake to think about this issue as a single project,’ he said. ‘One thing I learned from the Dutch is that they’ve been doing this for 700 years. We’re starting a war, trying to hold back Galveston Bay from inundating the area, that’s never going to end.’†[Houston Chronicle]
HURRICANE IKE’S LOUSY AIM Director Phil Bedient comments on a report released today by Rice University’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center (SSPEED): “‘Ike was a Category 2 hurricane, and it caused $30 billion in damage. Had that same storm struck 30 miles farther south, it could easily have caused $100 billion in damage. Had it struck that location as a Category 4 storm, like Carla, the results would have been catastrophic.’ . . . Bedient said one need look no further than the Houston Ship Channel to get a clear sense of the region’s vulnerability. The ship channel is home to one of the nation’s busiest ports and about one-quarter of U.S. refineries. The Coast Guard estimates a one-month closure of a major port like Houston would cost the national economy $60 billion. Despite this, government regulations require dikes and levees that can protect ship channel facilities against only the 100-year flood of 14-15 feet. Bedient said that based upon results from supercomputer models at the University of Texas, Austin, Ike could have caused a 20- to 25-foot storm surge along the ship channel if it had struck about 30 miles farther south.” [SSPEED, via Memorial Examiner; report (PDF)]
CASH FOR KASHMERE GARDENS A few residents of Kashmere Gardens are fighting Harris County Flood Control District plans to buy and demolish 40 homes in the upper Fifth Ward neighborhood: “The $175 million Project Hunting will widen and deepen a half-mile stretch of the bayou and create a 75-acre stormwater detention basin. The district plan purports to remove 5,000 homes from a 100-year flood plain. The engineer-speak means those homes currently face a 1 percent chance of flooding each year. The 1 percent happened to at least some neighborhood homes during Allison and Hurricane Ike. It also happened, according to district information, in 1979. And 1980. Again in 1983. And again in 1989, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998, 2006 and 2007. But a group of holdouts does not believe that. Their homes flooded only during Allison, they said. The real numbers the district is acting on have dollar signs in front of them, residents said. Houses in their neighborhood can sell for as little as $30,000. ‘(The district) wants to go cheap because they consider Kashmere Gardens as poor, poor people,’ neighborhood resident Deborah Butler said. District officials insist the buyouts are about protecting residents, not cutting corners.” [Houston Chronicle; map]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR SHARE OF THE SOG “1 inch of rain falling on 1 acre of land equals roughly 27,154 gallons of water. The City of Houston is roughly 600 square miles, or 384,000 acres (as there are 640 acres in 1 square mile). So 1 inch of rain on the City of Houston gives about 10,427,136,000 gallons of water. With 50 inches of annual rainfall, that comes out to 521,356,800,000 gallons of water a year. All of it freely provided by the heavens. The City of Houston has 2.2 million people. So each person essentially gets 236,980 gallons of ‘free’ rainfall a year.” [Random Poster, commenting on Flushing for Dollars]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE THE WATER AND THE MONEY WERE “wow. in 2007 lenders doing 66% debt on raw land. raw land that looks flood prone. wow.” [JPSivco, commenting on Pearland Heads Cut Off: The WaterLight District’s Giant Presidential Bust]