ReduceFlooding reported Wednesday that the San Jacinto Regional Flood-Planning Group has finished an inventory of how ready local governments across the region are to handle a major flood, as part of its work updating the Texas State Flood Plan. The review looked at what each of the 11 counties in the region makes publicly available, and it found more gaps than completed plans.
This is local by definition. The San Jacinto region is the basin Lake Houston sits in, and it takes in Harris, Montgomery and Liberty counties, the three counties whose flood alerts and drainage decisions reach Kingwood, Humble, Atascocita and Huffman.
What the Inventory Found on Preparedness
- Three counties in the region, Galveston, Montgomery and San Jacinto, have no publicly listed hazard mitigation plan.
- Of the 11 counties, only Brazoria had an emergency action plan available to the public.
- Eight counties operate flood gauge websites.
- Liberty County has no emergency operations center.
- No county publicly documented a flood preparation team, and none maintains a public list of flood shelters.
- High water rescue resources across the region were rated only moderately high.
What It Found on Recovery
- No county identified a public flood damage assessment team.
- Five counties publicly share debris removal costs and contracts.
- Harris, Brazoria and Fort Bend counties are the only three that publish housing rehabilitation information.
- No county keeps a public database of aid distribution.
- All 11 counties do maintain records of past disaster events.
One point of caution on reading these results: the inventory measures what each county publishes, not necessarily what it has. A plan that exists but is not posted online counts as a gap here. Lake Houston Today has not independently reviewed any county’s filings.
Next Meeting
The planning group meets next on November 10 from 9 to 11 a.m. at United Way, 50 Waugh Drive in Houston. ReduceFlooding notes the group no longer offers online access to its meetings, so attending means going in person.
