The longtime head of the flood control district flat-out disagrees with scientific evidence that shows development is making flooding worse.Engineering projects can reverse the effects of land development and are doing so, Mike Talbott said in an interview with The Texas Tribune and Pro Publica in late August before his retirement after 18 years heading the powerful agency.(A host of cities in the United States and around the world are doing so.) But county and city officials responsible for addressing flooding largely reject these arguments.Houston's two top flood control officials say their biggest challenge is not managing rapid growth but retrofitting outdated infrastructure."I just don't think I can go through another flood." Many of Hansen's neighbors, who live in an area of Houston known as Memorial City, have had the same experience.
And it turns out that Houston has seen the most urban flooding of any other area in the country in the past four decades, according to recent analysis by Brody, the Texas A&M scientist.Eight months after the Tax Day flood, Hammond's home is still in shambles, with almost no furniture, kitchen cabinets or place to cook.She wants someone to buy her out, but she's not optimistic.Current standards that govern how and where developers and residents can build are mostly sufficient, they say.And all the recent monster storms are freak occurrences — not harbingers of global warming or a sign of things to come.And a significant portion of buildings that flooded in the same time frame were not located in the "100-year" floodplain — the area considered to have a 1 percent chance of flooding in any given year — catching residents who are not required to carry flood insurance off-guard.