The catastrophic flooding in Houston, where Hurricane Harvey dumped more than 50 inches of rain over the weekend, could have been curbed had the city implemented zoning laws, environmentalists and experts in land use told The Washington Post.
Houston is by far the most populous city in Texas, and population grew by 25 percent from 1995 to 2.2 million. In Harris County, which is primarily made up of Houston, there was a 42 percent spike in population over that time and now the county has 4.4 million residents.
Houston expanded, in part, by paving over wetlands, which can soak up large amounts of flood water. The city, the biggest in the U.S. without a formal zoning code, also allowed developers to build homes in the 100-year floodplain, a federally designated area that is at higher risk of being hit by a bad storm.
"Houston is the Wild West of development, so any mention of regulation creates a hostile reaction from people who see that as an infringement on property rights and a deterrent to economic growth," Sam Brody, head of the Center for Texas Beaches and Shores at Texas A&M University, told The Washington Post. "The storm water system has never been designed for anything much stronger than a heavy afternoon thunderstorm."
Harris County lost almost 30 percent of its wetlands between 1992 and 2010, according to a Texas A&M study, which means "a substantial loss in the ability of the landscape to detain and remove pollutants from stormwater."
"The results are increased flooding and degraded fishing grounds in downstream bayous and marshes," the report warned.
So far, 22 people are dead because of the hurricane and 30 percent of Harris County is underwater. At least 30,000 people will need shelter from the storm, FEMA announced before Harvey's rain stopped falling.
"You would have seen widespread damage with Harvey no matter what, but I have no doubt it could have been substantially reduced," Jim Blackburn, co-director of Rice University's research center on severe storm prediction and disaster evacuation, told the Post.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.