My daughter sent me the links to the Ft. Bend Emergency Management page today with maps, etc. to refresh my memory since we moved from Quail Valley in 1982. The scary thing is that it showed all the evacuation areas but then added that “All Evacuation routes are blocked!”
As of this AM, the areas in Quail Valley that have always had a water problem are the areas that are now flooded. My former home was still high and dry this AM, but I remember that it was ONE INCH higher than the surrounding neighborhood. Supposedly we were in the 500 year flood plain, but that record has been breached a number of times in the past few years. We always carried flood insurance, although my husband didn’t think we needed it. I remember standing in my front yard more than once watching the water rise either side of me and across the street. The one inch saved me then, but I wouldn’t count on it for the future.
No flood plain map will save you if you mess up the grading around your house with your landscaping, or if the golf course across the street doesn’t manage their ponds properly, or if your neighbor dumps his grass clippings in the storm drain (all things that happened to me during the 10 years I lived there.)
One time, my teenagers all had summer jobs watching various neighbors’ houses and feeding their pets while they were on vacation. We had heavy rains and the water rose almost up to the back doors of a couple of houses across the street that we were watching. Scary. One house (new construction) had a sunken living room. Filled up like a swimming pool! The house next door was under construction with a different builder. He and I got out in the rain with our shovels and dug a ditch around the house he was building to drain the rising water away.
In the Houston area INCHES matter. Even a few trees can make a disaster. We lived near Oyster Creek when we first moved to Houston. In 1989 some storm came through and water rose steadily to our first step then second step from the street and curb. It was just about an inch from entering the house. The reason? construction debris in a new development just down stream were blocking some of the drainage. The drainage district channelized the drainage and we never saw water that high again in the 6 years we lived there.
I’m sure glad we are gone from that place in First Colony.