Melissa Ramirez tells Edward Ramirez the status of their flooded home on Sept. 1, 2017, after she returned to it by canoe for the first time since Harvey floodwaters arrived in Houston.
Credit: Rick Wilking/Reuters

Part 1: Overflow

Dean Bixler used to go golfing near the top of Brickhouse Gully, a neglected drainage canal, at a course called Pine Crest. It was near his house in west Houston, and not a bad place to play until it closed down a couple of years back. In the months after Hurricane Harvey, savoring his $30,000 floodproofing investment, including metal doors with gaskets that had kept water out of his house, Bixler heard from a neighbor that the golf course was being developed. The neighbor was concerned that the new subdivision would replace low-lying grass with roofs and roads and that the runoff would flood their neighborhood in a heavy rain. In Brooklyn or Boston, residents worry new neighbors will take their sunlight or their parking spaces. In Houston, the concern is new […]