Posted 5/10/2009 12:16:00 PM by Douglas

When water comes in your house, who do you blame? Let's start with the city.

Scores of homeowners — many whose homes flooded for the first time — blamed new development and the explosion in the city’s population for the failure of the city’s drainage system.

But the city said it drainage system didn’t fail. When that much rain falls that quickly on a flat coastal plain already soaked by a rain the night before, flooding is inevitable, Jack Murphy, city engineer, said.

The city’s infrastructure, designed to drain off 2 inches of rain per hour, was not capable of handing the amount of water falling from the sky, Murphy said.

“I tell you right now, the amount of water that fell in that hour and a half was of epic proportions,” Jim Nelson, a city council member, said. “No normal drainage system dictated by the state can handle that amount of water in that short of period of time. It’s just impossible.”

Impossible? Really? Making water flow downhill isn't "impossible." If the city wanted to improve drainage instead of promoting builders making more taxpayers, this wouldn't be a problem.

“Everything that has been done has been done right,” he said. “It might be another 100 years before we have a rainfall like that again.”

Really? It might be next week. Remember Allison?

In League City, Allison dropped 4.5 inches of rain in one hour and 9.5 inches of rain in 12 hours; the April 18 storm dumped 6.26 inches of rain in one hour and 9.92 inches of rain in one day.

That much rain is going to put damn near anything underwater, and I realize that not everything is the city's fault. But to immediately start patting yourself on the back and tell the flooded public what a great job the city's drainage system did is disingenuous at best.