John Bogna
At Rice University’s recent Urban Flooding and Infrastructure Conference, Houston received what some may consider bad news.
Videos by Rare
Houston drainage gets an "F"? At 4, @EricaOnABC13 talks about solutions with the experts and some Houstonians may not like the answers. pic.twitter.com/Ej7lGwadc9
— ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) February 21, 2018
Flood control researchers in the area presented their findings on the city’s drainage system at the conference, and reportedly awarded it a failing grade:
“The problem in Houston is pretty bad. We decided to build our city in swampy area,” Rice researcher Antonia Sebastian said in an interview. “We decided to build our city somewhere where we have really extreme rainfalls.”
HAPPENING NOW: Urban Flooding and Infrastructure Conference at @RiceUniversity. 🌧💦☔️ Fascinating conversation post-Hurricane Harvey. pic.twitter.com/mPbZ3lXerr
— Erica Simon (@EricaOnABC13) February 21, 2018
Dr. Jim Blackburn, co-director of Rice’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters center (SSPEED), explained some prominent flaws in Houston’s infrastructure via his presentation.
RELATED: Houston City Council members call for more time to debate mayor’s flood control plan
He highlighted the disparity in infrastructure investment related to flood control between areas of lower income and higher income.
Low income areas, Blackburn said, don’t get the same amount of flood prevention resources funneled into them, like other parts of the city do.
My takeaway from the SSPEED Conference today: Flooding problems and solutions in Houston are way more complex than anyone (including me) wants to admit. And actually solving them needs to be a long-game.
— Matt Lanza (@mattlanza) February 21, 2018
Thursday marked the second day of the conference, which reportedly included information from the Houston Flood Mitigation Consortium, a comprehensive collection of data on flooding and flood prevention to inform the everyday Houstonian on flood danger and its prevention.
According to the agenda, Blackburn and others spoke again on flood prevention and planning for Houston’s future, on topics including communicating future flood risk, cyclone forecasting and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:
“We’ve got to up our game, we’ve got to protect the public and the public is going to demand it if we don’t give it to them,” Blackburn said during his speech Wednesday.
RELATED: Federal agency commissions $3m study on flooding in Houston post-Harvey
