Houston may add a new feature to 5 neighborhood parks: storm drainage
How Houston's flood protection works and why it sometimes fails
“The ultimate goal would be to help with flooding in a big storm, but on a daily basis these parks would still function the way they always have,” Ondracek said. The plan to convert five city parks into stormwater detention sites has been in the works for two years. Paresh Lad, a Public Works analyst, said designers took inspiration from Spring Branch’s James W. Lee Park, which was converted into backup detention for Brickhouse Gully, a concrete-lined channel that drains part of the White Oak Bayou watershed.
While Cortez and other neighbors initially were concerned the park “would always be a pool of water,” their fears proved unfounded. The field dries up quickly when the water drains, she said. While the city has not indicated whether additional funding would be made available to speed up post-storm trash collection, a planning document for council members said such considerations “will need to be accounted for in maintenance plans” due to the high amount of debris likely to collect in storm waters.