I received this email and was asked to place it on the blog. I thought that I would put up a thread to see if others would like to comment on this situation.
This was League City's chance to shine. Local rains produced local flooding at multiple sites throughout the city. This happened twice during the month of April 2009. April 18th was the worst for the Landing subdivision. Two 911 calls I know were made to the League City Fire Dept. (LCPD) for assistance due to flooding. More than 25 homes in the landing flooded, some had 3 inches some had 3 feet. When I went to speak to the city engineer, Mr. Murphy, on May 11th he showed me a color coded map of flooding in the Landing based on a call in log he was given. He was aware of water in the streets but not of water in peoples' homes, despite the two 911 calls that LCFD responded to.
This indicates to me a fundamental breakdown in communication between LCFD, Emergency management and the city engineer. I blame Emergency management. They failed to make the 2 known 911 calls available to the City Engineer so he can make an improved flood plan. They failed to actively gather data in order to get an accurate picture of what happened in the Landing subdiv. I was told by a representative of Emergency management that they went out and drove around after the flood on April 18th to look for damage. I asked her if she got out of the car and asked citizens about the flood damage in various neighborhoods she said no. She said she and the others just looked for trash and debris curbside. How she missed the huge volumes of trash on Knoxville and Traveller that appeared on April 19th and that Ameriwaste, the city garbage collector, still refuses to pick up, is beyond my understanding.
It would be logical to me after a flood to send someone to the home of a person and ask the simple question how much water got in your home and ask who else flooded. This person should also ask, at a minimum, the resident of the home on the right and left of the house in question, the house across the street and the house behind them. Hardly ever just one house floods. One unpaid citizen spent 4 hours covering a 6 block area and came up with approximately 25 addresses of flooded homes. A paid professional from Emergency Management came up with zero. This "professional" could not even capture the 911 calls from LCFD. I do not expect the city to knock on the door of every single house after a flood and interview. I do however, expect somebody to get out of the car and interview the immediate area of every 911 call involving flooding or any other disaster.
I have been told by Mayor Randell the city will do better next time. Chris Reed, the city Administrator, was let down by Emergency Management in my opinion. I assume Mr. Reed will locate the personnel who did such a poor job of data collection and make sure this does not happen again.
Forrest Sory
Landing Homeowner
