Dear Neighbor,
This week’s welcome rains arrive as we mark the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Harvey and the 50 inches of rain it brought, devastating our district and shaping our community profoundly.
So many of my thoughts of Harvey today focus on the silver linings – neighbors helping neighbors, communities coming together. We saw the best of our community in those trying times. But we know that, five years later, too many of our neighbors are still struggling to recover. And many more are still worried every time that it rains.
Since I became your congresswoman, I have worked with city, county, and federal officials on both sides of the aisle to help recover, rebuild, and prepare for future storms. While there is still much work to do, I am pleased that we have worked together to make meaningful progress—from obtaining FEMA funding to restore the capacity of the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs to completing Project Brays this year. On this anniversary, I want you to know that I am committed to continuing the work to protect our community from flooding and continuing the fight to ensure our community receives the funding Congress intended to do so.
With that in mind, I want to highlight a few things that have happened in the last few years as we work toward our goals:
- Last year, I was able to announce the award of more than $45 million in federal funding to Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): $9.8 million to help repair Barker Reservoir Watershed from damages caused by Hurricane Harvey and restore channels, including Mason Creek and Upper Buffalo Bayou, to pre-Harvey levels of conveyance, and $36,717,825.60 to help repair Addicks Reservoir channels and to restore those channels to pre-Harvey levels of conveyance. I was also pleased to announce a FEMA grant of $1,656,849 for repairs to the Kendall Library and Community Center.
- This year, as we marked the completion of Project Brays, I was so glad to be able to secure several flood mitigation and water infrastructure projects through the congressional appropriations process, including: $9,950,000 for Harris County Flood Control District to design and construct the Meyergrove Detention Basin, a 7.5-acre stormwater detention basin for the conveyance of more than 50 million gallons of stormwater away from nearby homes, businesses, and community resources in areas that have experienced repeated flooding events and severe damage, and $625,000 for the City of Jersey Village for new storm sewer lines on Seattle Street that will help prevent street flooding and reduce the risk of home flooding on these blocks.
- At the same time, people across our community are hard at work on regional solutions and ideas. I have been glad to work with them on facilitating an extension of the public comment period and an extension of the Buffalo Bayou and Tributaries Resiliency Study, which was approved along with additional funding for the study, to help develop a community-supported proposal. As a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I worked to include provisions in the Water Resources Development Act of 2020 to invest in Houston’s water infrastructure and improve flood protection projects in the Houston region and to testify before the same committee in support to request that the Committee authorize the projects identified in the Coastal Texas Study (aka the Ike Dike) in the Water Resources Development Act of 2022, which it did.
Together, we are making progress on projects of all kinds. But there is much still to do. Please know that I remain committed to doing the work, and remain available to you have thoughts or concerns to share—about flooding or anything else. I am honored and proud to represent you and this community in Congress.
Sincerely,
