When a tropical cyclone hits, the damage it does can be fatal, severe, and long-lasting. Although lifesaving aid arrives quickly, it takes years to recover.
Hurricane Rita in 2005 taught this to southeast Texas, which became a region of blue tarpaulin on the remains of rooftops, while almost all of the neighborhood electrical systems were down for weeks, and in some cases, months.
Rita, a violent wind storm, felled nearly a million trees and those horrors remain.
In 2017, Tropical Storm Harvey turned into a heavy rain storm that gulped almost the entire Texas Gulf Coast and made five landfalls when it hit between two vast weather systems and eventually turned inland in Louisiana until it dissolved.
This storm turned Beaumont into a virtual island, almost destroying the city’s freshwater system and sinking entire neighborhoods as if they were ships going down at sea.
Earlier this month, the Texas General Land Office announced $ 9 million in recovery funding for Sour Lake, Hardin County, as part of the first round of more than $ 2.3 billion in recovery funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban development are managed.
The money is intended not only for salvaging Harvey, but also for major floods in other parts of the state in 2015 and 2016.
The Land Office received 290 applications from disaster communities, and eligible applicants with the highest scores on a variety of metrics received restoration funds.
Sour Lake said in its motion that since Rita in 2005, the city has had to protect its freshwater supplies from the effects of storms and creek flooding. Pine Island Bayou is notorious for jumping over its banks in heavy, persistent rain.
“There are thousands of meters of asbestos-cement water pipes with short connections that both leak and pose a serious health hazard to local residents,” the city said in its application. “The transmission line that carries the water from the well to Sour Lake is over two miles long, crosses two streams, and is prone to flood fractures.
The city said it needed an additional well and increased storage tank capacity to serve the population.
The company plans to drill a new 650 gallon per minute flow well to complement its two existing 650 gpm and 500 gpm flow wells and install a 100,000 gallon elevated storage tank and 68,000 linear foot replacement water line to accommodate the Elimination to eliminate leaks and ensure better reliability.
That’s about 13 miles, Sour Lake Mayor Briuce Robinson said in a prepared statement.
“This will be a historic change for our community,” said Robinson.
Dan Wallach is a freelance writer.
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