Hurricane Harvey Should Have Taught Houston To Rethink How We Grow. We Haven’t Listened.
When it hit five years ago this week, Hurricane Harvey was an unprecedented disaster: 68 people dead, 200,000 homes damaged or destroyed, a half-million cars wiped out, $125 billion in damage.
But Harvey also held the potential to change the trajectory of the Houston region so that it would be more sustainable. Like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Harvey — at least at first — seemed to be the wake-up call Houston required to question and rethink the way the region has developed — and maybe change course in the future.
Five years later, this hasn’t happened. Almost no major infrastructure projects have been constructed in response to Harvey (though a few are making progress). We keep paving over areas like the Katy Prairie that play a vital role in flood protection. Many families still have not seen their homes repaired; many still live with mold. We are still building housing in the flood plain. We are still hoping that somehow, someday, the Ike Dike will be built. Most important, we have not rethought how our region is developed and how we might do things differently in the future.
This is not an uncommon pattern with disasters. The initial reaction is, “Oh my God, we must change the way we do things!” Then, after a few weeks of watching on…
