Two months after Hurricane Harvey struck Houston, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, who is also the county’s director of emergency management, proposed a set of 15 responses, including some new construction and restoration work, aimed at protecting Houston from future floods.
“Harvey was the worst flood in our history, but Harvey was not a singular event. It followed two other major rain events in recent years. This area has seen three of these so-called 500-year rains in the past two years,” Emmett said Oct. 25. “Either our definition of a 500-year rain needs updating or we can hope that we are safe for the next 1,500 years. Obviously, we cannot assume the latter.”