Danielle Husband
According to a statement released by the agency, angry residents whose homes flooded after Harvey are calling in death threats to the San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA).
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Homeowners are starting to rebuild after the floods from Harvey, but some people are asking if their home really needed to flood, making the SJRA, which oversees the area’s dams and reservoirs, a target for angry homeowners who believe it didn’t.
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“I think the results could have been much different if [the SJRA] would have done their job the right way,” Kingwood resident George Rittenhouse said in an interview with ABC13.
As the SJRA released water from overflowing dams and reservoirs, the water flowed into homes and businesses.
The agency said the releases were necessary to prevent worse damage to many others, but, of course, those words ring hollow to homeowners who lost everything.
Houston City Council member Dave Martin is calling for an independent investigation into the agency’s decision-making before and after the storm to help determine if the agency was acting in the best interest of the public.
“We’re wanting an independent investigation that gives us the facts,” Martin said in an statement.
At the press conference on the situation, Martin shared his concerns for how the SJRA potentially made the wrong decisions when it chose to release water, as well as how much to release.
However, the SJRA called his remarks inaccurate and a threat to the safety of its employees.
RELATED: As most of the city recovers, west Houston lags behind
In its rebuttal statement, the SJRA clarified it did not intentionally flood homes, but, as maintained from the beginning, its decision prevented additional flooding:
“A number of statements were made in a recent press briefing in Kingwood that are false and misleading. Since the press briefing, SJRA employees have been receiving angry calls and emails and even death threats. The misinformation provided in that briefing is sadly misleading residents into believing that SJRA somehow caused their harm when, in fact, the Lake Conroe dam actually REDUCED the severity of their flooding.”
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