Houston’s relaxed approach to development should not be blamed for the destruction caused by Hurricane Harvey, an unprecedented storm that dumped as much as 50 inches of rain on the city, say planning experts and engineers.
“In America today, any time there is a disaster, we say somebody did it,” Wayne Klotz, a Houston civil engineer who is a former president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, told the Washington Examiner. “It’s very convenient in Houston to say we would not have this level of flooding if we would not continue to allow people to build subdivisions, shopping centers and things like that. If I live in a low-lying area of the city, I may think that, too. But I do this for a living, and we just had an unprecedented, 1,000-year storm. In a 1,000-year storm, you are still going to flood.”
