Houston seeks solution to flood woes in San Antonio's underground tunnel system

Flooding is a problem the City of Houston knows all too well, especially during the last decade.

The Memorial Day flood of 2015, the Tax Day flood of 2016 and, of course, Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which inundated thousands of residences and businesses and drew comparisons to 2001’s Tropical Storm Allison.

Engineers in the city searching for a solution have looked westward toward San Antonio for inspiration.

According to Austin NPR affiliate KUT, San Antonio, Texas’s second-largest city, has a decades-old underground tunnel that Houston hopes to emulate with a flood tunnel system of its own.

Many San Antonio residents are unaware such infrastructure exists.

Aside from San Antonio, Austin also has a similar piece of infrastructure while Dallas’s is in the works, leaving Houston, the largest city in the state and the country’s fourth-largest, the odd one out.

"I think a lot of people think these flood tunnels can be a good solution for urban environments where there just isn't that much room to be expanding bayous or adding detention ponds or a big third reservoir,” Houston Chronicle reporter Emily Foxhall told the Texas Standard in an interview. “So that's why other cities have turned to look at them."

The Harris County Flood Control District’s Scott Elmer told the Houston Chronicle that it presents a huge challenge to such a project with its flat, swampy terrain.

Those who support an underground system for Houston, however, insist if San Antonio and Austin can successfully operate such, the Bayou City can as well.

Last year, flood relief – or the denial of it by the Texas General Land Office – prompted Houston’s state and federal lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to issue a bipartisan demand.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo also joined the call.