Bellaire Working to Clear Storm Problems

City of Bellaire officials and staff have been working around the clock to clear debris and help residents recover from an unprecedented Memorial Day flood that dropped more than 10 inches of rain on the low-lying city.
During the storm, Bellaire firefighters and paramedics “used extraordinary means” to assist a pregnant woman who went into labor on IH 610, according to Shawn Cox, an aide to Bellaire City Manager Paul Hofmann.

“We had resources coming from all over the city to get her to the hospital,” Cox said “Luckily, the baby held off long enough for the water to recede. We don’t know what happened after she was delivered to the hospital.”
The woman was transported from the 610 and Beechnut area in a dump truck to the Bellaire Fire station, where four paramedics were prepared to assist in the delivery of her baby. Once the floodwaters went down, she was transported by ambulance to the hospital.
In addition, the Fire Department responded to one other request for rescue, and the Police Department rescued several people who were stranded in their vehicles.
It is too early to make an estimate of the property damage in Bellaire. An estimated 100 Bellaire homes and two businesses were damaged by floodwaters.
About 80 percent of the city of Bellaire is in the floodplain of Brays Bayou, and city officials have been working since Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 to rebuild the city’s streets and drainage systems to deal with widespread flooding issues.
Many homes in the Southdale neighborhood near Newcastle were damaged by floodwater. That neighborhood, on Bellaire’s southeast side, is closest to Brays Bayou.

There was also some flooding on the northeast side of the city, Cox said.
Although 297 Bellaire homes were without power at noon on Tuesday, there were currently no reported power outages in the city by Thursday, Cox said.
Efforts to alleviate such flooding will continue, as the City Engineer asked Bellaire residents to mark “debris lines” showing how high water rose in different residential neighborhoods. The city urged residents to use extreme caution in the immediate aftermath of the flood.
Lafayette Park and the low-lying Public Works Department on Edith St., in that neighborhood, were filled with flood water run-off.
Since 2000, the city of Bellaire has spent about $64 million to rebuild the city’s streets and drainage system. In 2000, Bellaire voters approved a $45 million bond program, which included $23 million to upgrade the city’s streets and drainage. In 2005, Bellaire voters approved $41 million in bonds to finance more storm drainage and street improvements.
The Bellaire City Council is likely to consider asking voters to consider $24 million in new bonds for further street and drainage improvements from 2016 through 2020, with an additional $8 million for water and sanitary sewer system improvements in those years.
Those earlier drainage improvements, however, were designed to deal with a “two-year” flood event, unlike the Memorial Day deluge. In addition to the heavy rains, the entire Houston area has received heavy rainfall this month.

“There is no design for a stormwater system that the City could reasonably implement that would address extreme storms like this one. When the areas we drain to are full, the water has nowhere to go,” Cox said.
“The Rebuild Bellaire Program and its predecessors were designed to accommodate a two- year storm. This storm exceeded that significantly. However, the recent improvements to the City system do ensure more efficient releasing of the water to outfalls as long as there is a place for that water to go,” Cox said. “If there is capacity in the receiving stream (Brays Bayou) then the water is going to leave Bellaire more efficiently, which is beneficial. In the case of Tuesday’s storm, once the level in Brays receded, the water levels in Bellaire dropped quickly. The improvements to the system facilitated that.”

Continuing to implement street and drainage improvements will provide Bellaire “with expedited relief during normal flood events,” Cox said.
Although most city personnel worked “normal” hours during the flood, Fire Chief Darryl Anderson worked 36 hours straight and most police officers worked about ten to 14 hours straight, Cox said.