‘Big, bold, historic’: Texas unveils first-ever $55 billion State Flood Plan

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Seven years after Hurricane Harvey killed 88 Texans and left $125 billion in damage, Texas has set forth an ambitious plan to combat flooding statewide — a first-of-its-kind assessment of flood risks in every corner of the state and a $55 billion plan to mitigate them.

The plan finds that flooding poses a significant risk across Texas. About 5.2 million people — roughly one in six Texans — live or or work in areas in danger of hundred-year or five-hundred-year floods. More than 1.6 million buildings are at risk, including almost 6,300 critical buildings like hospitals, fire stations, and schools.

The Texas Water Development Board identified more than 4,600 flood risk reduction solutions at a cost of $55 billion.

“It is a huge day for the State of Texas,” TWDB Chairwoman Brooke Paup told Nexstar. “This document will help save lives and property throughout the state.”

Nearly half of the cost would be allocated to the “Ike Dike,” a barrier meant to block catastrophic storm surge when a major hurricane makes a direct hit to Galveston Bay.

“This is an unprecedented effort,” TWDB’s flood plan lead Reem Zoun said. “There are other states that are looking to us, looking at what we’re doing, and literally doing some of the things that we’re doing.”

Practically, the document includes plans to construct storm sewers, ditches, detention ponds, levees, and “nature-based solutions” that utilize and curate the environment to hold and control water.

The plan is the result of more than 550 public meetings across five years, catalyzed by the legislature’s Senate Bill 8 in 2019. However, it is just the beginning of a long and ambitious effort to implement the plans. The TWDB will now need to take the plan to lawmakers and ask for the funding — not an easy ask at $55 billion.

“It’s a huge need,” Zoun said. “This will need to be met by local funding, federal funding and state funding. Moving forward with this, we have smaller communities who don’t always have the resources to do the complex modeling that is needed to identify and find a solution. So there are a lot of big next steps.”

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