HOUSTON – Frustrations grow as families in a northeast Harris County neighborhood blame the flooding problems on drainage issues.
“Speaking for all of the neighbors, everybody’s frustrated,” Henry Solano said.
After days of heavy rain, homeowners in the Miller’s Landing Subdivision said the road in and out of the neighborhood was flooded and that the water level was so high, it got uncomfortably close to some of their homes.
“We’re surrounded by water. We can’t even get to our cars,” Melanie Gomez said.
So what’s the problem?
Solano said the culverts in front of his house and many others in the community are full of mud, which keeps the drainage ditches from doing what they were designed to do.
“If the ditches don’t get cleaned up then it’s going to get worse,” Solano said.
The Harris County Flood Control District told KPRC 2 a work order for a desilt project has been created in the area.
“We are working with a couple of different property owners ... to remove ... fence encroachments and livestock in the area ... that is currently preventing HCFCD from performing the work,” Sheldra Brigham said in a statement.
“I’ve been dealing with them for about a year and a half,” Solano said.
When the neighborhood association first brought it to the attention of Harris County, he said they were told, in an email, that “Myron Jones, Flood Control’s Precinct One Liasion, has made sure that the desilt of that drainage channel gets prioritized.”
Solano said that was back in June 2020.
“We are still waiting. When we get another heavy rain then maybe somebody will get water eventually in their home,” Solano said.
The Harris County Flood Control District told KPRC 2 the flooding in this area is due primarily to sheet flow, which means that water has to move across the roadways when the ditches become overloaded.
“The homes are not built high enough to avoid shallow flooding during large storm events. Cleaning the ditches may help reduce the sheet flow during normal rainfall,” Sheldra Brigham said in a statement.
