Since Sunday, multiple rounds of rainfall have soaked the region, causing rivers and creeks to swell and rise out of their banks.
The Lake Livingston Dam is seen on Jan. 31 in Livingston. The Southeast Texas reservoir reached capacity during several days of intense rainstorms this week.— a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state.
Lake Livingston, a reservoir located in the East Texas Piney Woods; Lake Houston, a reservoir on the west fork of the San Jacinto River, 15 miles northeast of downtown Houston; and Lake Conroe, a reservoir located north of Houston in Montgomery County, were all at capacity and releasing water downstream.
As the rivers swell with the reservoir releases and with other rainfall draining into them, low-lying neighborhoods are going underwater. Rick Warner, a superintendent with the Coastal Water Authority, which operates the Lake Houston dam, said that when operators see the weather forecast alerting people of potential rainfall, they can open the dam’s gates to release water before the storm hits.
That calculation might be harder for a reservoir farther north, like Lake Conroe. If the rainfall prediction is off, and neighborhoods to the south of the lake get hit with hard rainfall at the same time the river swells with an early release, that can create a major problem.
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