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Saturday
March 13, 2010 Since 1922 |
Beach City residents alarmed about flooding
By Jessica Robertson
Baytown Sun Published June 1, 2007 After the storm clouds cleared earlier this week, Beach City residents Gary and B.J. McCoy were left with an unpleasant reminder of the heavy rains that doused the area over the weekend — a large pool of water in their front yard that’s inching close to their home.
The runoff stemmed from a state-owned drainage ditch along FM 2354, where the McCoys live, and impacted a handful of homes on the north and south sides of the road. It brought several inches of water into homeowners’ yards and obscured the McCoys’ driveway.
“All we do is stand over there and shrug our shoulders,” Gary McCoy said, gesturing toward the water inching closer to his door. “There’s not much more we can do.”
The couple calls city, county and state officials each time a storm leaves the yard flooded, he said, but nothing has been done to fix the problem so far.
Beach City Mayor Guido Persiani, Pct. 4 Chambers County Commissioner Bill Wallace and representatives from the Texas Department of Transportation have all stopped by to assess the flooding, McCoy said.
“There’s been a lot of finger pointing about who’s responsible for what,” he said. “Everybody’s pointing at someone else, but no one is really taking action.”
Persiani said he plans to get more concrete information on what could be done to stop the flooding and will bring up potential fixes at the June 26 Beach City Council meeting.
“We’re going to look at possibilities to relieve that situation,” he said, adding that some of those possibilities could be funding a flood control district or creating a dedicated easement to nearby Trinity Bay for a drainage ditch.
The McCoys’ property actually lies just outside of the limits of Beach City, making resources hard to come by.
“But that doesn’t mean water knows boundaries,” Persiani said. “There are a few issues, but you’ve got to start out with whether or not there is a drainage problem. That was a large storm in a very short period of time, and it could have been somewhat isolated to a heavy rainfall.”
The ditch causing the problem is owned by the state but sits on private property, so the couple has found it difficult to determine who can control the flooding, McCoy said, calling the confusion a “Bermuda Triangle of governmental ineptitude.”
The city has jurisdiction to work with private owners to allow easements to be granted to maintain a drainage ditch, Persiani said, but right now, there is no water supply or sewage infrastructure for residents, who acquire water through individual wells and each have their own septic tank system.
Poor planning and a lack of regulations for private development are also contributing to the situation, McCoy said.
“There’s no single factor that’s causing this,” he said. “It’s a host of issues, one being that the county has regulations for new subdivisions but none for older subdivisions or private individuals.”
Growth in West Chambers County is transforming Beach City from a sleepy-eyed bedroom community with little governmental control into a city that needs better infrastructure, he said.
“The time has come to put in measures to manage growth,” McCoy said. “You cannot ignore it. They feel like if they don’t spend any money on infrastructure, the growth won’t come, but it’s really the opposite.”
The proximity of Beach City to Mont Belvieu’s Barbers Hill school district has contributed to a population boom in the city, which has expanded to nearly 1,700 residents.
If nothing happens, McCoy said, the homes being built along FM 2354 could be destroyed if there’s a major storm.
“Something is going to happen here, and it’s going to be bad for hundreds of people,” he said. “If a hurricane comes, I can guarantee we’ll have substantial damage in this area. There will be million dollar homes underwater.”
McCoy, who works as an insurance agent, said one thing is certain — he and his wife don’t plan to sit idly and wait for the runoff to reach their front door.
“The last thing we want is to sit back and let it happen to our home,” he said. “We don’t want our property values to go down because they can’t control a darn ditch.”
Baytown Sun Published June 1, 2007 After the storm clouds cleared earlier this week, Beach City residents Gary and B.J. McCoy were left with an unpleasant reminder of the heavy rains that doused the area over the weekend — a large pool of water in their front yard that’s inching close to their home.
The runoff stemmed from a state-owned drainage ditch along FM 2354, where the McCoys live, and impacted a handful of homes on the north and south sides of the road. It brought several inches of water into homeowners’ yards and obscured the McCoys’ driveway.
“All we do is stand over there and shrug our shoulders,” Gary McCoy said, gesturing toward the water inching closer to his door. “There’s not much more we can do.”
The couple calls city, county and state officials each time a storm leaves the yard flooded, he said, but nothing has been done to fix the problem so far.
Beach City Mayor Guido Persiani, Pct. 4 Chambers County Commissioner Bill Wallace and representatives from the Texas Department of Transportation have all stopped by to assess the flooding, McCoy said.
“There’s been a lot of finger pointing about who’s responsible for what,” he said. “Everybody’s pointing at someone else, but no one is really taking action.”
Persiani said he plans to get more concrete information on what could be done to stop the flooding and will bring up potential fixes at the June 26 Beach City Council meeting.
“We’re going to look at possibilities to relieve that situation,” he said, adding that some of those possibilities could be funding a flood control district or creating a dedicated easement to nearby Trinity Bay for a drainage ditch.
The McCoys’ property actually lies just outside of the limits of Beach City, making resources hard to come by.
“But that doesn’t mean water knows boundaries,” Persiani said. “There are a few issues, but you’ve got to start out with whether or not there is a drainage problem. That was a large storm in a very short period of time, and it could have been somewhat isolated to a heavy rainfall.”
The ditch causing the problem is owned by the state but sits on private property, so the couple has found it difficult to determine who can control the flooding, McCoy said, calling the confusion a “Bermuda Triangle of governmental ineptitude.”
The city has jurisdiction to work with private owners to allow easements to be granted to maintain a drainage ditch, Persiani said, but right now, there is no water supply or sewage infrastructure for residents, who acquire water through individual wells and each have their own septic tank system.
Poor planning and a lack of regulations for private development are also contributing to the situation, McCoy said.
“There’s no single factor that’s causing this,” he said. “It’s a host of issues, one being that the county has regulations for new subdivisions but none for older subdivisions or private individuals.”
Growth in West Chambers County is transforming Beach City from a sleepy-eyed bedroom community with little governmental control into a city that needs better infrastructure, he said.
“The time has come to put in measures to manage growth,” McCoy said. “You cannot ignore it. They feel like if they don’t spend any money on infrastructure, the growth won’t come, but it’s really the opposite.”
The proximity of Beach City to Mont Belvieu’s Barbers Hill school district has contributed to a population boom in the city, which has expanded to nearly 1,700 residents.
If nothing happens, McCoy said, the homes being built along FM 2354 could be destroyed if there’s a major storm.
“Something is going to happen here, and it’s going to be bad for hundreds of people,” he said. “If a hurricane comes, I can guarantee we’ll have substantial damage in this area. There will be million dollar homes underwater.”
McCoy, who works as an insurance agent, said one thing is certain — he and his wife don’t plan to sit idly and wait for the runoff to reach their front door.
“The last thing we want is to sit back and let it happen to our home,” he said. “We don’t want our property values to go down because they can’t control a darn ditch.”