It wasn't the story they wanted, I suspect, so it wasn't something they bothered to look for. However, it makes their big number, $100 million, a weak foundation for anything else.
Harris County is large. Much of it is inside Houston. Much is being developed and needs new infrastructure. Most of the $100 million isn't spent inside Houston these days. Note that Harris County ex Houston has had some flooding, but it's a no-win situation with bayous rising to record heights. (Remember, this is at least two different kinds of floods--one from bad drainage and not getting water to the watercourses, the other from watercourses' cresting.)
Houston has its own taxes and infrastructure program, and also has put something like $25 million/year into drainage maintenance and improvements. That clearly wasn't enough, politicians like "what's going to get me elected next year" projects. Pointing to a dry street and saying, "I didn't fund day care or street improvements, but look at all the houses not destroyed during the last non-flood" is called "losing." By next spring most voters who were flooded would probably say they'd rather see better day care and roads than drainage improvements. So the mayors always put money into "get me elected and make people happy" projects. They're worthy projects, but people prefer spending on them and not on equally worthy but utterly boring stuff nobody can see and won't help them this week but in 2023. So $25 million wasn't enough. Enter the previous Houston mayor.
Houston, for the last 6 years or so, has had a dedicated drainage infrastructure tax. Last year the "organization" responsible for using it had a budget of $227 million. Potentially twice the size of the HCFCD. It could have spent nearly $1.5 billion or more over the last six years for upgrades to drainage.
It was sold as a drainage tax, but was written as a streets & drainage improvement tax. I can't find out how much is used for drainage. The new mayor, when he took office, criticized the outgoing mayor (who got the tax voted into place) for not maintaining the roads and allowing potholes. So there's a "next day pothole repair" program--you report it, it's fixed next day. Houston roads have been better the last few times I traveled south into the city. Streets are a priority. You wreck your suspension on a pothole, you get mad today; you fix a storm line and you may simply not get mad in three years.
Of that $227 million, $200 million could be going for street repairs to keep people happy, and $27 million for drainage to keep people safe. Or maybe it's the other way 'round. Or some other numbers. I can't get the information I want out of their publicly posted budget statements. "Drainage" is mentioned once in the most recent completed budget (so that's 2016), as a goal: "Better streets. Better drainage." Doesn't make me hopeful.
It'd be nice if The Atlantic had dug up the numbers. I'd really like to see them. But they found $100/yr million and missed something like $250 million/yr. I give them a 100/250 or a 40/100 on that article.
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