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Hurricane Marco and Tropical Storm Laura Informational Update

Hurricane Marco (National Hurricane Center: Hurricane Marco) and Tropical Storm Laura (National Hurricane Center: Tropical Storm Laura) are currently predicted to make landfall in Louisiana/Texas on Monday and Tuesday, respectively. The Sugar Land/Missouri City area is inside the cone of likely impacted areas.

As of 1:00 p.m. Sunday August 23, 2020, the Brazos River Richmond gauge (link to Brazos River Richmond gauge) is at Stage 8.9 ft. and is expected to hold steady for the next several days.

The District’s Operator has implemented the Preparation Phase of the Emergency Action Plan. At this time, with the river predictions to be well below bank-full conditions, the District drainage facilities, both north and south of SH 6, will operate under gravity flow conditions. As conditions change over the next few days, the District will post additional updates on this website and by text and e-mails for those residents signed up for those services.

Residents should monitor their respective City and County websites for information and news releases:

Critical Elevations within the District are shown on the District’s website by viewing this PDF.

Update on District Study

Since Hurricane Harvey, the First Colony Levee Improvement District’s (FCLID) Board of Directors has cooperated with the other districts in the Steepbank Creek watershed in developing a comprehensive watershed model for use by all districts. Steepbank Creek is the receiving stream for the drainage systems within FCLID south of SH 6, certain parts of Riverstone (MUD 115, LID 19 and the eastern side of LID 15) and a small area in LID 2 (the powerline easement).

The new watershed model was developed through a cooperative effort by LIDs 15, 19, MUD 115 and FCLID. The districts engaged an independent engineering consultant, APTIM, to develop this model. The model was developed using a recently released hydraulic analysis computer program named HEC-RAS, available from the U.S Army Corps of Engineers. This program incorporates traditional channel computations and new advances in 2-Dimensional (2D) modeling. It allows the model to simulate both channel flow and surface flows in the areas outside of the channel through the use of a surface elevation grid in the overbank areas. Additionally, the model uses a rain-on-grid technique to simulate the rainfall over the entire studied area. This provides the ability to “see” the runoff traversing the grid and flowing along the channel.

Several rainfall events were simulated in the model, including Hurricane Harvey and several hypothetical rainfall patterns traditionally used to design and analyze drainage systems. One series of these hypothetical events uses the newly released Atlas 14 rainfall data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The resulting 100-year design rainfall event in Atlas 14 is now 16.5 inches in 24-hours for traditional flood studies, an increase of almost 1/3 more rainfall.

Recently, APTIM presented their preliminary results to the boards in an on-line meeting. During the course of the model development, Costello, Inc., the District Engineer for all of the participating districts, reviewed and guided the model development to ensure that the results produced by the model would closely represent actual conditions within the watershed. The resulting models are now complete, with APTIM preparing their final report and exhibits for presentation to the boards.

The next steps in this process will be for the boards to evaluate the results, identify components of the system which may need improvement and develop a comprehensive plan for the future of this watershed.