"Hurricane Harvey The Latest Threat To Flood-Prone Houston"

"HOUSTON — Hurricane Harvey slammed into the Texas coast some 175 miles (280 kilometers) from Houston, but the nation’s fourth-largest city has never needed a direct strike from a catastrophic storm to flood.

Regularly inundated by floodwaters ever since its settlement in the mid-1800s, Houston looked on warily even before Harvey roared ashore. In Houston, the chronic deluges that have repeatedly swamped its neighborhoods are getting worse and more costly — not just for locals, but for federal taxpayers.

An Associated Press analysis of government data found last year that if the county that is home to Houston were a state, it would have ranked in the top five or six in every category of repeat flood losses. That’s defined as any property with two or more losses in a 10-year period each totaling at least $1,000."

The Associated Press had the story August 28, 2017.

SEE ALSO:

"Why America Still Hasn’t Learned the Lessons of Katrina" (Politico)

"Trump Rolls Back Obama-Era Flood Standards For Infrastructure Projects" (NPR: 8/16/2017)

"Why Houston Is So Prone To Devastating Floods" (Huffington Post)

"Five Reasons Houston Is Especially Vulnerable to Flooding" (Wall Street Journal)

"The Great Lie of American Flood Risk" (Wired)

"Hurricane Harvey Is Going to Slam Into Texas and the National Flood Insurance Program Is a Mess" (Mother Jones)