Residents in Montrose area frustrated with flooding for years want answers from Houston Public Works

Yahoo

19 hours ago

The Brief
Residents on Haddon Street in Montrose are frustrated after flooding.
Neighbors say they have lost cars and seen damage to their driveways
Public Works is taking action and one Houston City Councilmember shares her efforts on fixing issue.
HOUSTON - Neighbors in the River Oaks/ Montrose area are concerned about flooding on one street. They say that has been going on for years.
What they're saying
"We see whenever there are small rains, we get a lot of street flooding here and extreme street flooding here. Just not minor. It's really deep and really quick, and it takes a long time to go down, "said Kevin Pope. "So we see all of Driscoll has no drains on it. There are drains on Peden and then the drains are not here again until you pass Haddon, so the problem is all the streets drain to our street."
What we know
Pope says the flooding has caused issues to driveways, curbs, and sidewalks.
"As you see, the flooding is taking away our curbs and stuff, our sidewalk. Everything continues to get damaged, and we have all of this painted, but the rain constantly underneath it is bringing all of our coating," said Pope. "If you notice the boards on the side of the neighbors fence here, that's the water level, so that's how deep the water level was the other day."
Pope says surrounding streets such as Peden, Driscoll, and Morse have water that drains onto Haddon.
"It's frustrating because we can move our cars to this street, and they won't flood," said Pope. "So my Tahoe is here a lot of the time, and we cannot get vehicles out so fast that water comes up to the bumper or higher. So then what we have to do is open the door and drain the floorboards," Pope said.
Why you should care
FOX 26 did reach out to City Councilmember Abbie Kamin, who represents District C. She says her office has been working with neighbors and the city to get answers.
"We have been escalating this. I believe we have escalated this particular street through the public works department over 12 times in the last year. That includes emails that the mayor was on, that includes different divisions within public works, that includes site visits asking public works to assess this area," said Kamin. "In the past, when residents haven't reported this street to 311, we were told there wasn't sufficient data for consideration for drainage."
Kamin says she has been hoping for this issue to be resolved.
"However, it shouldn't be taking this long as the latest information we have is the drainage clearing process did not work so that it now can be referred to the local drainage program, but now we are hearing it's still being screened, it's still in the process of being reviewed," said Kamin.
FOX 26 did reach out to Public Works. We have been told they are meeting with a contractor in the morning to initiate construction to improve drainage.
The Source
FOX 26 Reporter Leslie DelasBour spoke with one homeowner who is affected as well as a Houston City Councilmember about the issue.