HOUSTON (AP) — After the floodwaters earlier this month just about swallowed two of the six homes that 60-year-old Tom Madigan owns on the San Jacinto River, he didn’t think twice about whether to fix them. He hired people to help, and they got to work stripping the walls, pulling up flooring and throwing out water-logged furniture.
What Madigan didn’t know: The Harris County Flood Control District wants to buy his properties as part of an effort to get people out of dangerously flood-prone areas.
Back-to-back storms drenched southeast Texas in late April and early May, causing flash flooding and pushing rivers out of their banks and into low-lying neighborhoods. Officials across the region urged people in vulnerable areas to evacuate.
Like Madigan’s, some places that were inundated along the San Jacinto in Harris County have flooded repeatedly. And for nearly 30 years, the flood control district has been trying to clear out homes around the river by paying property owners to move, then returning the lots to nature.
Shooting injures 2 at Missouri high school graduation ceremony
Amtrak train hits pickup truck in upstate New York, 3 dead including child
Red Lobster seeks bankruptcy protection after closing some restaurants
Pentagon vows to keep weapons moving to Ukraine as Kyiv faces a renewed assault by Russia
Bella Hadid goes braless in a thigh
Supreme Court declines to hear challenge to Maryland ban on rifles known as assault weapons
The fightback begins: Boss of London's Queen Mary University tells pro
Four people killed in a house explosion in southwestern Missouri
Kate Hudson hits the stage to debut songs from her new album Glorious at star
Biden says Brown v. Board of Education ruling was about more than education
Kristin Cavallari, 37, ignores critics of her age