Life along the Brazos
Historically the Brazos River has flooded many times. Back in the 1800s and early 1900s it would combine with Oyster Creek and the San Bernard River to become one vast flood plain. This 1900 era photo shows the old Imperial Sugar Mill in Sugar Land in the background as the flood water pours over the Southern Pacific railroad tracks of the Sunset Route.
As Houston grew, the suburbs expanded to the southwest and the old farmland along the Brazos was developed. The developers created Levee Improvement Districts (LIDs) to protect the properties. The LIDs were each responsible for maintaining their own levees, flood gates, storm water pumps and a system of storm water canals or ditches to receive the runoff from the storm sewer system. Over the years a mosaic of LIDs have sprung up across the flood plain.
The canals all feed into a large ditch that flows through the flood gates into the Brazos. When the Brazos is at flood stage, and the storm water can no longer flow by gravity, the gates are close and the pumps take over. The pump capacity is nowhere near that required to drain the canals during an epic rainfall event but were considered sufficient to keep the water out of homes and businesses. The storage capacity of the canals, lakes, greenbelts, golf courses and eventually streets, was deemed enough. However the canals and storm water sewer system worked in reverse in many cases. The water from all over the LID flowed to the lowest spot or sump in the area, flooding entire neighborhoods. It was not common knowledge before Harvey as to where these sumps were, but we all know now. Fortunately my home was not in one. Here is the main canal that flows to the flood gates and pumps in my LID. It is down to normal level now.
Here is how high it was on August 29 as seen from a friends back door.
