What's Causing Floods Around Kingwood??

@uneasyrider:  While there is definitely more concrete that the apartments had, I cannot venture to guess what the effect will be.  Let's hope they put adequate drainage into the design and construction.
4951

I haven't seen the parking lot lately, trees soak up a lot of water as well as provide shade for the car while shopping. That said it would be nice to see more trees in the parking lot. And the use of the lattice concrete pavers that allow rain water to soak directly into the soil. Of course this may already be planned. 4951

With the way the ditch looks on KW and WLHP through there, my vote would be to just go on ahead and put in a lazy river around the place.  It'd be the one spot stop, shopping, swimming, dining - fun for the whole family. 4951

You have mentioned it yourself on this topic dredging should help the flow because right now it is just striming overflowing the banks on a hard rain just observe and study it's flow, let's my best answer. 4951

Does anyone have a translation? 4951

Also in 1994 when it flooded so bad, a Kingwood resident that owned his own company offered to dredge the San Jacinto around 59 and back through Kingwood for no charge.  He only wanted the sand/soil removed (I know that could be expensive product) and the Harris County turned him down.  The County or City of Houston would not have to had put out a dime.  Doesn't make any sense.Now there are long stretches on the San Jacinto that barely have a trickle of water flowing through, so there is the majority of the flooding issue in the Kingwood/Humble area.  Add on top all the new building that is being permitted, and there you go. 4951

@uneasyrider:  After thinking about this some more, the ground is not like a sponge and can only absorb so much water and it doesn't do so immediately (unless it is dust dry and very sandy).  A brief heavy rainfall will result in only soaking the ground "maybe" an 1" deep and the rest runs off (unless the water is trapped and sits there until it is absorbed or the heavy rain lasts a long time).  But the majority of rain water during a heavy rain will run off, the same as will happen with concrete.  The ground does a better job of absorbing rain when it is a long light rain.  Even then, due to the clay in our soil, I can't imagine the ground absorbing rain water more than a few inches deep.  In my back yard, when I dug a hole to bury a dead bird (requested by my young daughter), I hit a clay layer about 3" deep.  My front yard had so much clay that I could not keep grass alive.  I finally got a landscaper to till the yard while adding truckloads of compost before resoding.As others have mentioned, trees can absorb a lot of water.  The water absorbing roots are more prevalent out at the "drip line" of the tree.  Unfortunately, when designers plan a commercial lot, they put a few token trees in but they are usually surrounded by concrete, which not only reduces their water absorption capabilities, but can stunt the trees.
4951

Estebanp: a lot.pour.their.saw.we've been.No regard at all for basic grammar, punctuation, and/or syntax? I'd say illiteracy is just as bad a problem as flooding. I curse the day it became "politically correct" to encourage Ebonics, "tweeting", and reverence for "feelings" over facts.
4951

I've come to accept grammar and spelling errors, during these "modern" times, as a result of Smart Phone texting which obviously isn't too smart!   4951

Dredging, while allowing more water capacity, will do jack for flooding. Until they figure a way to get water over the Lake Houston dam faster than Lake Conroe can release, we will have flooding in a big rain event. Dredging will scoop out the bottom but in a short period of time the lake will refill to the maintenance level. When Conroe opens it will be the same problem. I do think they ought to dredge but will really only help with droughts. I was surprised at how shallow the lake is when it almost dried up a few years back. As for trees, true they absorb, but very small amounts over a period of time. Not very helpful with the billions of gallons we dealt with in the flood. 4951

www.harriscountyfws. org/FAQs#howaccuracy My bet is that the gage site is not reporting accurately.  I know we have a problem with subsidence of our land but not that much. 4951

There is no basis for the comment the guages or specifically the guage at the RR crossing of San Jac bridge was/is inaccurate. The data it provided was consistent with precipitation received and consistent with historical river stages. Also during both the april an may events, the lake houston damn was releasing in excess of 50k CF/S. In april, Lake Conroe peak release was 14k CF/S. In May it was just over 22k CF/S. 4951

Well something is wrong in the numbers, can't have higher water and less flooding in a dam basin. Everything is driven by elevations, with water level across the area. Unless everything you mentioned sunk many feet over the years the numbers are wrong. 4951