Hurricane season is here

By George Slaughter, News Editor
Posted 6/1/23

While tropical storms and hurricanes are not welcome anywhere, they are part of life in Southeast Texas.

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Hurricane season is here

Posted

While tropical storms and hurricanes are not welcome anywhere, they are part of life in Southeast Texas.

Hurricane season begins June 1 and runs until Nov. 30. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, better known as NOAA, predicts between 12-17 named storms this season, of which 5-9 are expected to become hurricanes. Between one and four of these hurricanes will be major hurricanes, NOAA said.

Signing up for KTALERT

The City of Katy has an alert system, KTALERT, that shares time-sensitive information with subscribers. The system is free and one does not have to be a Katy city resident to sign up. However, one must have a Katy address when enrolling.

Subscribers can decide how they wish to receive information, whether it be one’s home, cell, or business phone, email, text messages, hearing impaired receiving devices and more.

For more information, visit the website member.everbridge.net/306355722256401/login.

Planning for a potential storm

The City of Katy disaster preparedness web page, the abbreviated URL for which is bit.ly/3oCsWDz, provides instructions on planning one’s home and business for a storm.

In addition, the National Weather Service’s Houston/Galveston office has prepared a 32-page hurricane in severe weather guide, which is free to download from the website weather.gov/media/hgx/HurricaneGuide2021.pdf.

The booklet is slightly outdated in that the storm names listed are from 2021. However, the booklet provides accurate information on hurricanes, storm surge flooding, heavy rain flooding, and damaging winds and tornadoes.

The booklet also covers topics such as preparing disaster kits, preparing contact lists, preparing one’s home, preparing one’s business and pets.

New pump station opened in Fort Bend County

Local governments are also getting ready for hurricane season. A Sugar Land neighborhood where nearly 600 homes flooded during Hurricane Harvey now has a massive new pump working to protect its residents and their homes, just in time for the start of the 2023 hurricane season.

The pump moves 150,000 gallons of water per minute, protecting Sugar Land’s Riverstone neighborhood. It works alongside a pre-existing pump that moves 80,000 gallons of water per minute.

Levee Improvement District (LID) 19 and LID 15 worked together on the $9.1 million project, their most significant major capital improvement for flood protection for Riverstone since Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

A May 26 ribbon cutting at the Steep Bank Creek Pump Station in Fort Bend County’s Precinct 3 commemorated the project's completion.

“Safety and security are critical priorities for me and my team,” said Fort Bend County Pct. 3 Commissioner Andy Meyers. “Hurricane Harvey reinforced the importance of our levee systems and prompted these improvements, which were completed without raising taxes.”

The devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey resulted from unprecedented rainfall and coincidental flood levels for the Brazos River. The Steep Bank Creek Pump Station had a total capacity to pump 80,000 gallons of water per minute. Today it can pump 230 gallons of water per minute, enough to have kept Riverstone from flooding during Harvey.

With contributed reports.

hurricane, KTALERT, NOAA, Steep Bank Creek Pump