Flooding in Houston

Flood control has long been a challenging issue in Houston, dating back to the city's infancy on the banks of the Buffalo Bayou when its first flood was recorded more than 170 years ago.
Major reservoirs built in the 1940s helped alleviate some of problems, but a population explosion and urban sprawl since then enveloped the reservoirs. Experts said the city's efforts since then have fallen woefully short of the massive needs. And there is climate change, which has increased the frequency of large rainfalls, climatologists said. The result this week was that sudden downpours overwhelmed infrastructure and inundated whole sections of the city, leaving at least seven people dead.
"To throw up your hands and say we're going to be vulnerable and have hundreds of millions of dollars of impact every year in Houston just because it rains a lot is not the attitude we need to take," said Sam Brody, a professor of regional planning at Texas A&M University at Galveston. "We are not thinking about the big picture."
Thousands of people were routed from their homes and major highways when Houston's spaghetti-like web of bayous spilled over banks after rains that began Sunday night.