THURSDAY APRIL 21, 2016
@HCC_EGALITARIAN
THE EGALITARIAN
WWW.HCCEGALITARIAN.COM
5
Officials checking dams after storms Juan a. lozano ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON — Two aging dams deemed “extremely high risk” by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are at record pooling levels in Houston’s west side after this week’s torrential rainfall, but are working well and have undergone improvements in recent years, authorities said Wednesday. The dams — at 50 percent capacity — are classified as high risk only because they’re about two decades beyond their life expectancy and in a populated area, said agency spokeswoman Sandra Arnold. However, a Corp report issued on the dams in 2012 offered more worrying criteria for the classification, noting that such structures are “critically near failure or at extremely high risk under normal operations.” In the unlikely event that the dams collapsed, downtown and the highly populated area in sprawling West Houston would likely see deaths as well as $60 billion in property damage, said Richard Long, a project operations managers with the Corp. But the current conditions are no reason to panic, he added. While the dams still have these critical classifications, improvements done the last few years have shored up the
David J. Phillip/AP Photo Residents are evacuated from their flooded neighborhoods by airboat Tuesday in Spring, Texas. Storms have dumped more than a foot of rain in the Houston area, flooding dozens of neighborhoods. seven-decade-old structures and an ongoing $72 million construction project will greatly strengthen them. “The dams are in good condition,” he said. “We have 24-hour surveillance occurring. ... Integrity wise, we’re in real good shape.” The monitoring of the dams comes as the Houston-area deals with the effects of heavy rain — 18 inches in some spots — that walloped the area Sunday night and Monday. Creeks and streams getting runoff from the rain have continued to rise above their banks, prompting neighborhood flooding and
additional evacuations on Wednesday by residents from homes and apartment complexes. Officials said another person had died in the Houston-area flooding, raising the toll to eight. Kim Jackson, spokeswoman for the Harris County Flood Control District, said crews assessing damage on Wednesday were still hindered by rain and floodwaters in some areas. Officials have so far catalogued about 1,000 homes with flood damage — a number she said “will go up considerably.” Long said it will take a long
time to drain the reservoirs behind the Addicks and Barker dams in controlled releases. There is about two months’ worth of water to get rid of. Each dam held about 100,000 acre feet of water on Wednesday. The dams were constructed in the mid-1940s and were created to collect excessive amounts of rainfall. The collected water is released downstream at a controlled rate, preventing flooding in downtown Houston and other urban areas located to the east. While the dams are not expected to reach 100 percent capacity, part of the reservoirs
are located on public property, meaning that additional water that continues to come into the reservoirs from rivers and streams is expected to flow into surrounding public roadways and some subdivisions, possibly flooding a number of homes, Long said. Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said officials are considering acquiring sandbags for deployment on “nongovernmental land” behind the Addicks and Barker reservoirs due to the potential flooding of homes in the area. But he said the damage should be limited. “I know people’s nerves are on edge,” he said. “There should be very few homes. “We probably are, or certainly are past the worst of this. And we have to make sure we do the recovery right.” The Corps of Engineers’ recent improvements on the dams include additional filters to control seepage, additional lighting and emergency power “to have around the clock ability to operate the dams and to ensure their inspections and function when we get pools like we’re having right now,” Long said. “From this one flood event ... the operations of (the dams) ... have prevented over $3 billion in damage downstream of these projects,” he said.
LGBT law puts McCrory in precarious position JonatHan Drew & Gary D. robertson ASSOCIATED PRESS
RALEIGH, N.C. — When Republican North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed a far-reaching LGBT law that critics called discriminatory, he said it wouldn’t hurt the state’s ability to attract jobs. It did. When he signed an executive order seeking to lessen the law’s impact, it upset some of his conservative supporters who said he “went too far” in bowing to national pressure. In yet another blow Tuesday, a federal appeals court that oversees North Carolina issued an opinion that now threatens part of the state law. Through it all, McCrory has emerged — perhaps reluctantly — as the public face of the law and could become the biggest political loser as he suddenly finds himself in tough re-election fight already swayed by the issue. “He’s in a tough spot,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. “The executive order probably isn’t going to mean a lot policy-wise. He’s running the risk, no matter what he does,
of alienating the average North Carolina voter. He’s sort of stuck in the political middle.” In a nod to the balancing act, McCrory described during an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” ‘’the disconnect we have between the corporate suites and main street,” saying he was recently praised by smalltown voters shortly before fielding a phone call from a concerned corporate leader. After McCrory signed the law in late March, condemnation from the business community was swift. Deutsche Bank halted plans to add 250 North Carolina jobs, while Paypal reversed a decision to open a 400-employee operation center in Charlotte. Local tourism boards say they lost millions of dollars in economic impact because of cancelled conventions and business meetings. Chris LaCivita, McCrory’s chief campaign consultant, rejects the idea that the governor has stumbled. He said there’s no doubt McCrory is getting hammered because the governor is the top target for national Democrats in a presidential battleground state. He faces Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper, who has refused to defend North Carolina’s law in
court. Both have already used the conflict to boost donations. “So if anyone doesn’t believe that politics is at play here, they’re living in a cave,” LaCivita said. During his first gubernatorial campaign and 14 years as Charlotte’s mayor, McCrory cultivated an image as a moderate “business Republican” who prioritized economic development over social issues. But things appeared to change when he signed a divisive voter ID law in 2013, and an immigration bill last year restricting local governments’ policies on ID cards and police tactics. Now, McCrory is in the difficult position of trying to appear business-friendly without watering down his appeal to social conservatives. “Once he cast his lot with one side it makes it real difficult because if you backtrack, now you risk alienating the people that gave you a bunch of attaboys when you signed the legislation,” said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia. On Tuesday, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a transgender teen’s arguments that a Virginia school board violated
Gerry Broome/AP Photo North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory makes remarks during an interview at the Governor’s mansion in Raleigh, N.C. McCrory says he wants to change a new state law that prevents people from suing over discrimination in state court, but he’s not challenging a measure regarding bathroom access for transgender people. Title IX by forbidding him from using the boys’ restroom. In the North Carolina law, a provision requires transgender students in public schools and universities to use bathrooms corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate. McCrory said he wants to hear from state lawyers about whether
schools can keep implementing the law while the Virginia defendants consider whether to appeal. Several other southern states recently enacted or considered legislation restricting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people. But nowhere else has the fallout been as harsh as North Carolina.