SAN ANTONIO — In English and Spanish, the sign at a recent open house read, “Why are we here?”
“Why are we here? Why do we have to make hard decisions sometimes?” Jessica Shirley-Saenz said.
Questions the City of San Antonio’s Public Works department has to answer. For Shirley-Saenz, it’s providing explanations to San Antonio communities that are now deemed a floodplain.
“Once they understand why we can do certain things from a technical perspective,” Shirley-Saenz said. “Or why we can’t do things — I think that’s equally important.”
Precipitation data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, in 2018 showed major storms were more common in Texas than in years past — forcing Texas counties to update their Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) floodplain maps while coming up with solutions.
San Antonio’s Public Works’ previous proposals would have required 158 homeowners like Sarah Mauricio and Eddie Medina to move and make way for a detention pond. This solution is called the Concepcion Creek Drainage Project.
“They didn’t get any input from us; they did it (study) for five years, and they didn’t let us know anything,” Mauricio said.
Saenz says that plan has been scrapped, and it’s back to the drawing board with more community input. That includes one-on-one face time with city officials and engineers.
“The city engineers are very helpful, very transparent; it’s like talking to a friend,” Medina said.
Mauricio, who has been vocal about the initial solution, says the conversations are different now.
“It seems like they heard us; they are coming back with solutions,” Mauricio said. “They are letting us give the input, whereas before they didn’t.”
This differs from two years ago, when the community had tension with San Antonio Public Works.
Interim Public Works Director Juan Ayala says the community feedback was the overriding consensus to restart. The city is currently conducting a study of the affected areas and concluding it in 2026.
“The safety piece of it for us, that’s the top priority,” Ayala said. “Public Works priority is the safety of our community.”
The city used a $1.3 million grant from the Texas Division of Emergency Management to hire a consultant to map out a preliminary design.
Just 80 miles north, the City of Austin is working on its floodplain maps and is offering flood insurance assistance to residents who, according to FEMA’s drafted maps, are in a 100-year floodplain.
“I think you would find it rare that we want to solicit the good, the bad, and what we can do better,” Shirley-Saenz said.
Mauricio, who has been in this neighborhood her entire life, says it’s about the city keeping its word about no displacements.