Tale of two Houstons: Thinking about Harvey, and a city’s future

I’ve lived in Houston for 20 years; here is where I have raised my children and spent most of my career. So, while my home stayed safe and dry—we got “only” about 25 inches of rain, half that of the worst-affected neighborhoods--Harvey was personal for me. Now that the worst is behind us, I offer two thoughts.

First, Houston has much to be proud of. People took care of each other. In true Texas fashion, they didn’t wait for the metaphorical cavalry—although of course we are grateful for them, in the form of the National Guard and first responders, and also FEMA—Houstonians organized themselves to find people and get them out of their homes and into shelter. The volunteers were out in force almost immediately—so many, in fact, that managing this unpaid workforce was a challenge. There was almost no looting, and local refineries, which account for almost a third of US output, were up and running less than a month after the rain stopped. Three weeks after Harvey hit, 95 percent of Houstonians felt that life was back to normal.

Houston has a reputation of being a loosey-goosey, don’t-tread-on-me kind of place. It is home to lots of Big Oil, lots of guns, and lots of people for whom football is a secular religion. (And we have a lot of religion, too.) I know that many people regard the city with distaste for precisely these reasons. But Houston’s critics overlook its strengths. The city is attracting new residents because of a healthy job market and low cost of living, making home ownership and a comfortable life broadly possible. In 2016 alone, Houston added 100,000 people, despite the crash in oil prices; the median house price is $152,000. Houston is a young city, highly diverse and open. There is lots of opportunity, and people feel free to manage their own lives. We want to preserve that.  Because one of the things that happened during Harvey is that much of the world saw Houston as how I have come to see it—as a truly civil society.  As a columnist in the Houston Chronicle put it, the response to Harvey was “evidence that our distinctive approach to self-governance works, even under the stress of a major storm.”

That is right, up to my second point, which is that Houston can do better. Openness and a light regulatory touch are part of Houston’s soul. I get that. But any modern society still needs drains. This is not an ideological matter.

Geographically, it cannot have escaped people’s notice that Houston is a flat, low-lying city sited on a flood plain; it attracts hurricanes the way a barnyard attracts flies. To a large degree, though, our model of development ignores these facts. Massive road construction (and its cousin, parking lots) inhibit the land’s ability to absorb storm realities. Homes are developed in areas all but certain to be flooded. It cannot make sense for buildings to have been constructed in the path of two 1930s-era local dams.

No city can (or indeed should) prepare for everything. To start, then, Houston should at least prepare for the obvious. One has to do with finishing the cleanup. While 95 percent of Houstonians feel that life is back to normal, the other 5 percent are in tough shape. So are their homes; developing an immediate strategy to deal with mold, garbage, and resettlement is the highest priority. Less urgent but still crucial is the need to do a first-class damage assessment to map where and what the problems are. Examining what actions did and did work well can help to guide future actions—indeed, post-Katrina analysis and reform along these lines helped Houston considerably.

In the long term, Houston needs to take a hard look at itself and start to address questions related to  drainage and density. As the country’s fourth-largest area by population—almost 7 million people in the metropolitan area—Houston matters.

Houston can be proud of how it reacted during Harvey. It would be better still, however, if such heroics were made unnecessary through smart long-term decision-making. As individuals, Houstonians showed themselves to be capable of effective action and considerable resiliency. It is not too much to ask that their city show the same qualities.  Drainage and flood control is the kind of smart, focused investment that city leaders and residents of all backgrounds can support because it makes for a city that simply works better. Many ideas have been floating around for years, such as the “Ike Dike,”  a proposed coastal barrier against storm surges, and the “spine along the coast.” And of course the federal government should do the same; why the national flood insurance program effectively subsidizes people to build (and re-build) in areas known to be prone to flooding is beyond me. But it is the case.

The experience of Harvey, says Wesley Highfield, an expert on disaster recovery at Texas A&M, is one that the city “needs to use.  Revise our flood maps. Redesign our infrastructure. Require people to build more resilient houses—or not to build at all. And in an ideal world, we would.”

Of course we do not live in an ideal world. But it isn’t too much to think that a more sensible one is possible, and that the tragedy of Harvey could lead to a stronger, more resilient Houston.

 I keep hearing that Harvey was a once-in-a-century storm. That may be the case. But then I heard the same thing about other Texas storms, such as Allison (2001), Rita (2005), and Ike (2008).  So, it strikes me that once-in-a-century is certainly a flawed description; frankly, it’s not much of a metaphor, either. Surely the relevant point is that Houston specifically, and cities in general, need to think ahead and not assume that just because Harvey has occurred means that such a thing cannot happen for many decades to come. It is much less costly—in terms of both money spent and, more important, in human suffering—to prepare for predictable problems, rather than to scramble to cope with them. After all, the next once-in-a-century storm could be around the corner.

Harvey has ended, but Houston’s chance to make the city better is just beginning.