Texas flood prevention initiative would create nation’s most ambitious barrier system

A plan being developed by the Texas General Land Office and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would spend as much as $32 billion to protect the Houston-Galveston area from storm surges.

The project would construct the nation’s most ambitious and expensive coastal barrier system. It would consist of 12-foot-high sand dune-topped levees to protect beachfront homes and businesses as well as a storm surge barrier system.

The plan has already gone through revisions to make it more effective and more environmentally friendly. The plan has drawn criticism from the Galveston business community which says a proposed ring levee would hinder cargo and passenger loading at the Port of Galveston. Environmentalists are concerned that a gate system between Galveston and Bolivar to block storm surges would diminish exchange of saltwater and freshwater between Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico that is important to marine life.

The Houston-Galveston region, home to millions of people and the nation’s largest petrochemical complex, is vulnerable to massive storm surges and currently has no comprehensive storm protection system.

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.