Jefferson County — Homeowners in parts of Southeast Texas are raising concerns about Jefferson County Drainage District 7’s response after heavy rain flooded streets, homes and businesses, particularly in Groves and Port Neches.
Some residents said DD7 pumps did not come on soon enough to make a difference. But DD7 General Manager Allen Sims said the pumping stations were operating and that the system is not designed to handle the kind of intense rainfall that fell in a short period of time.
“This is a very rare occurrence. It’s not unusual for us to see eight or ten inches of rain over a day or two, before it’s happened over an hour to an hour and a half. It is extremely rare,” Sims said.
Sims said pump stations were staffed early Sunday morning after the district’s monitoring system detected rainfall.
“We have a system, we have rain gauges scattered throughout our district. And when we get the first hundredth of an inch of rain, our system alerts us to what’s going on. So we had manned all the pump stations between four and 430 on this Sunday morning,” Sims said.
Sims said one pump station had already pumped about 11 feet of water since Sunday morning, but the district’s stations are built to manage heavy rain spread out over a longer period — not several inches in about an hour.
“Our pump stations can handle eight to 10 inches of rain normally over a full day. The abnormal position we were in yesterday or the situation that happened yesterday was the fact that we got that type of rain in about an hour to an hour and a half. So it just, the intensity of the rain was such that it overwhelmed the system,” Sims said.
First responders said the flooding did not last long, but the rapid rainfall overwhelmed drainage capacity.
Asked whether anything could have been done differently to prevent Sunday’s flooding, Sims said, “When it rains that fast, I don’t know if, you know, if we had spent another $100 million if we could have prevented that situation.”
Sims said DD7 has spent $4 million to upgrade pump stations.
In Port Neches, the fire chief urged residents to clear any remaining standing water on their properties to help prevent mosquito problems from becoming “worse” than expected.