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Elsewhere in Houston

On the source of Houston’s greenhouse gas emissions

This story is a lot more complex and nuanced than the headline would lead you to believe.

It may come as no surprise to anyone who has spent time on Houston’s roads at rush hour that just over half of all the city’s reported greenhouse gas emissions come directly from traffic. This is the greatest share among the largest U.S. cities that volunteered emissions information to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).

The data was collected by survey in partnership with CDP and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, and contains self-reported amounts of methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide as well as other notable greenhouse gasses and carcinogens. The data is broken out by 51 categories submitted by more than 1,100 cities, states and municipalities around the world.

Data like this is considered primarily a preparedness tool according to Katie Walsh, head of cities, states, regions and public authorities for CDP’s North America division. By compiling and submitting this data and by answering questions about climate change mitigation policies, Walsh says cities get a chance to assess where they stand and where they need to go to effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In a city reporting vehicle-oriented emissions as high as Houston’s, local governments and nonprofits can use that data to design initiatives that target specific  needs. One example, Evolve Houston, which grew out of the city’s climate action plan, is working to reduce carbon emissions from personal vehicles by pushing electric vehicle adoption and infrastructure.

The 2022 CDP submission marks the 11th year Houston has reported data to the CDP.

Stationary emitters like homes and businesses, as well as power plants, typically make up the lion’s share of emissions in cities, according to CDP city-level data. But despite a large oil and gas industry and booming housing developments, this is not true for Houston – traffic is king.

Although traffic is undoubtedly a top greenhouse gas emitter across the nation, its spot at No. 1 in Houston may have more to do with how well it’s tracked and how poorly other sources are monitored. For example, emissions from the Port of Houston – one of the largest ports in the US, mover of 55 million tons of annual cargo and representative of 20.6 percent of Texas’ total gross domestic product – are not accounted for in the city’s reporting. The city hopes to include emissions from “waterborne navigation” in future reports.

Looking at a city’s share of emissions by “sub-sectors,” which are the smallest buckets that emissions can be categorized by in the CDP data, reveals unique inventories for each city. These inventories can help city officials identify the most problematic sources of pollution as well as where they have deficiencies in emissions reporting.

There’s more, so read the rest. The main thing I took away from it is that categorizing the data can be helpful in telling cities where to prioritize efforts, but there’s a lot of subjectiveness in it, which limits the usefulness of those categories. Cities only have control over so much of the emissions in their vicinity as well. Having good data is helpful, but getting good data is easier said than done, and there’s a lot of room for improvement now. But it’s better than nothing.

Ashby Highrise 2.0 gets a permit

It’s happening!

Did you miss me?

For years a controversial proposal to build a high rise in the wealthy enclave of Boulevard Oaks appeared to be dead — a lesson in how land-use battles can erupt even in a city with virtually no zoning.

But after six years of sitting on the proposal — and the vacant, proposed site at Ashby and Bisonnet sitting dormant — the owners, Hunt Cos. of El Paso, last spring resurrected efforts to build the tower. They brought on a new development team, Dallas-based Street Lights Residential, to create a scaled-down version of the high-rise, now called The Langley, that they hope would win over neighbors who had fiercely opposed the earlier project dubbed The Ashby.

Almost a year after StreetLights filed updated plans with the city, the developer says it is weeks from breaking ground on the 20-story apartment building. The city of Houston granted StreetLights Residential a permit for site work and foundation work Monday, though it still is waiting approval to start vertical construction.

Stephen Meek, developer at Street Lights Residential, said the approved work could begin in early April.

“(The site now) is a brown field that looks like a black eye right at the entry of beautiful neighborhood,” Meek said. “What we’re proposing is bringing something beautiful and something as architecturally significant.”

The spacious units and high-end design of The Langley are aimed at attracting well-heeled empty-nesters, and Meek believes some neighborhood residents would want to live in The Langley if they decide to downsize but want to stay in the area.

Many of the neighbors, however, remain opposed. Several houses around the project site are adorned with bright yellow signs with a menacing carton caricature of a high-rise and the phrase “Tower of Traffic” and “Protect Our Neighborhood” — a nod to past protests against the previous high-rise proposal.

A small group of concerned neighbors have been quietly working to pressure city officials and Street Lights Residential to abide by a 2012 agreement reached between the city of Houston and the site’s owners that set certain parameters for size, traffic, noise and other concerns. (StreetLights rejects, saying it is following the 2012 deal to the letter.)

Neighbors also argue StreetLights should be required to follow updated city ordinances — rather than being built according to laws that were in place at the time Hunt Cos. and Buckhead Investment Partners first applied for building permits in 2007.

As of Tuesday evening, it wasn’t immediately clear if the city’s legal department had determined whether The Langley could be grandfathered.

See here for the background. As the story notes, some residents and neighborhood groups aren’t trying to stop The Langley – I will try to use the new name, but in my heart it will always be the Ashby highrise – but just want it to abide by the new 2012 rules. Which, hey, more power to them. The original 20-story concept never made much sense, but that doesn’t mean that some multi-story building there wouldn’t be a good fit. Could this story finally have a happy ending, or at least a tolerable one, for all? Maybe! Hopefully it won’t take as long to find out.

The Rodeo is more accessible now

Good to hear, though I’m honestly surprised this is a thing that has just now happened.

People with disabilities trying to get into and enjoy the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo will have an easier time this year because of an access compliance crackdown by the U.S Justice Department.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas on Thursday announced that the the livestock show and NRG Park had worked to make parking lots, bathrooms, ramps and countertops compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The changes were made after the Justice Department conducted a three-day investigation of the rodeo and its venue over ADA compliance complaints made during the 2022 event.

The findings from that investigation were used to make changes during this year’s event, according to a press release

“[The rodeo] did the right thing and made its facilities accessible to the entire community, including those with disabilities” said U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani. “With the cooperation of the [rodeo] and NRG Park, and after my office’s investigation, all individuals in the district will have a chance to enjoy the Rodeo.”

The investigation found “significant barriers to accessibility,” according to the press release.

To fix the issues, the rodeo increased the number of porta-potties and add more accessible dining areas, seating and paths. Some obstruction were modified or removed and a stair lift was installed in NRG Arena. NRG Park also increased the number of accessible parking spaces and drop-off points, and added a shuttle to the Orange Lot on Circle Drive, according to the press release.

The story comes from the aforementioned press release, which among other things notes that the investigation was opened last year at the start of the 2022 Rodeo. I had noted the Rodeo’s return last year but don’t recall seeing a story about this review. I’m glad it happened, I’m glad the Rodeo cooperated, and I’m very glad that the situation has improved, but I’m surprised that it took until the year or our Lord 2022 for it to happen. I don’t have a good explanation for that. Better late than never, but still.

Houston suspends “sister city” ties with Tyumen

Of interest.

Houston Mayor Turner Sylvester on Friday suspended the city’s partnership agreement with Moscow and its sister city relationship with Tyumen, Russia, on the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine.

Turner said that while he believes in the value of city diplomacy in times of crisis, Russia’s decision to censor the media and crack down on anti-war protesters has made it impossible to maintain city-to-city relationships.

“In challenging times, city to city, and people to people, diplomacy can sometimes be the only opportunities for exchange,” the mayor said. “This is the purpose of Houston’s more than 90 foreign consulates, including those from Ukraine and Russia and of our 19 sister cities – to create and maintain opportunities for global dialogue.”

Since Russian launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, at least 8,000 civilians have been confirmed killed, including 487 children, with the actual numbers likely to be substantially higher, according to estimates by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. More than 14 million people have also been displaced from their homes as the humanitarian crisis widens, further straining diplomatic ties with Russia.

“Russia has blocked the people’s access to social media and global news outlets, cracked down on protests and any form of discontent, and criminalized public opposition to the war,” the mayor said. “It is clear that we have lost the ability to have an open dialogue.”

Meanwhile, HTX4UKRAINE, a local nonprofit that raises money and that advocates for Ukraine’s cause, organized a rally Friday afternoon in front of the Russian Consulate in Houston to commemorate the war’s one-year anniversary.

My first reaction on reading this headline was “wait, we’re just doing this now?” Having read the story I get the rationale, and I understand wanting to maintain a diplomatic relationship even in times of war, but it’s still a little weird. I also had no idea this relationship existed. I knew we had a few “sister city” partnerships, though I couldn’t have said much about what that means beyond some fumbling about exchanging culture and stuff like that. I knew we had a few such relationships, with the one with Chiba, Japan, being the one that stuck most prominently in my mind, but again couldn’t have told you much beyond that. The list of Houston’s sister cities, which includes a brief overview of what that means, is here, though now that will need to be amended. I wonder if we will keep them there but consider them to be in a timeout, or if we will fully cut ties and go looking for a new sister to replace them. Maybe that will be a question for the Mayor’s race. Anyway, now you know.

The Houston coyotes

No, not another sports team. A bit of wildlife that has found a home in the big city.

As the Houston region continues to develop over the next few years, wildlife removal experts say that interactions between coyotes and humans will steadily increase until their encounters are a more common occurrence.

Coyote sightings in Houston used to be rare and could be the subject of viral moments, like the video last year of a coyote scaling a fence and roof in a Richmond backyard.

Mark Browning from Houston’s Elite Wildlife Services said that years ago coyotes would normally only be seen on the outskirts of undeveloped properties. But as more areas get developed, there has been an uptick in calls for coyote removal services in more urbanized zones.

For instance, a few weeks ago Browning said that his company received a call about a coyote on the top floor of a downtown parking garage, calling the ordeal a “spectacle” with people afraid the coyote was going to bite someone. There were also recent reports of coyote sightings near Memorial Park in Houston.

“They are absolutely increasing, and they’ve become very urbanized,” Browning said. “They learn our habits, like when we take our trash out. And they really don’t have any natural enemies so there’s really nothing to control the population.”

Brad Gurrerra from Quality Pest & Wildlife also says he’s been hearing a lot more concerns from residents living in the Heights and the Woodlands about coyote sightings.

“Even myself, I’ve had two outdoor cats that have been killed by a coyote,” Gurrerra said. “And we live in a suburban neighborhood. They’re pretty much everywhere.”

[…]

The Humane Society recommends hazing to attempt to change coyote behavior, such as yelling and waving your arms while approaching coyotes and using noisemakers, projectiles and other repellents to attempt to keep coyotes afraid of humans. TPW also urges people to not feed coyotes, keep pet food and water inside, secure garbage and compost piles, keep fruit trees fenced or pick up fallen fruit and not feed feral cats that coyotes can prey upon.

You can click on the embedded image to go to the Texas Parks and Wildlife page on coyotes. While your odds of encountering one of these critters has increased as the urban landscape has overtaken their original habitat, they’re not likely to be much bother. As a smug urban elitist I would of course prefer to not have to think about wildlife at all, but this is the world we live in now. Learn to cohabitate, our space is going to get more crowded as we go forward.

City donates to Winter Street relief

Good to see.

Nearly two months after dozens of artists saw their work and gallery spaces burnt away, the city of Houston offered a step toward recovery.

Mayor Sylvester Turner on Thursday announced that the city would donate $250,000 toward recovery efforts at the Winter Street Studios, which in December was destroyed, allegedly by an arsonist targeting one of the artists who worked there.

“I am so, so sorry for what happened.” Turner said. “To lose a lifetime’s worth of your artistry, hard work and livelihood is a hard pill to swallow, and the community and I will continue to rally around you as you move forward.”

The money was donated to the Houston Arts Alliance’s disaster recovery fund. While giving the check, Turner challenged other Houstonians to donate to recovery efforts and match the city’s donation.

“When we have faced tragedies in all different walks in our lives, this city has always responded,” Turner said. “These artists are Houstonians, and they are valued members of our city and our community. We want their work to be demonstrated and shown and showcased.”

See here and here for the background. Good for the Mayor and good for the city. I too would encourage you to make a contribution to the Houston Arts Alliance relief fund if you can. Every little bit helps.

The Evergreen Negro Cemetery

Wow.

City and METRO officials have discovered 33 burial sites, including three that appear fully intact, near a historic Black cemetery on Lockwood Drive, which the city apparently missed when it tore through the site to expand the street in the 1940s and ’60s, Mayor Sylvester Turner said Monday.

The remains were discovered in the esplanade that was installed between the lanes during the Lockwood expansion, which split the Evergreen Negro Cemetery in two and caused it to languish until a nonprofit restored it in the 1990s. The Fifth Ward cemetery includes remains of Buffalo Soldiers, the first Black police officer killed in the line of duty, and World War I veterans.

Turner said it was a “concerning and disappointing” discovery. It was one thing, he said, for the city to desecrate the cemetery in the first place by running infrastructure directly through it in the mid-20th century, but it appears Houston officials and contractors also failed to account for all of the bodies that lay there. Now, he said, it is up to the city to right that wrong.

“We owe it to those who were buried here and, quite frankly, to those who have yet to come, to remember these families and give them a final resting place with dignity and respect,” Turner said. “It is unfortunate we are having to address this in 2023.”

[…]

The city initially expanded Lockwood Drive in the 1940s, bisecting the cemetery. In the 1960s, it widened it further to include a median between the lanes at Market Street, Turner said. That work included moving hundreds of bodies and burial sites, and the city promised descendants it would move all of the bodies to the cemetery’s remaining sites.

Workers from the city and the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County found the remains as they prepared for work on the University Line, a new bus rapid transit route that will follow along much of Lockwood. The beginning stages of that work included an archaeological investigation, which led to the discovery.

Thirty of the 33 sites have what officials called “burial remnants” — coffin bottoms and other hardware, tiny fragments of bones — that indicate they were exhumed during the original work in the mid-20th century, said Mindy Bonine, a consultant from AmaTerra Environmental, who was the lead archaeological investigator on the project.

Three had “significant” remains, indicating they had been missed altogether and never exhumed or properly moved. Workers protected and reburied them until they could plan how to move them respectfully, Bonine said.

Turner said officials now will work with Project RESPECT, a nonprofit group that has worked since the 1990s to rehabilitate and maintain the historic cemetery, to do so. Metro Chairman Sanjay Ramabhadran said the transit agency would halt all work in the area, ensure the remains are respectfully moved and reinterred, and place a monument in the esplanade to recognize the significance of the site.

I’m glad that these remains were discovered before more damage could be done to them, and I’m glad they will be handled with care. May they rest in peace. Go read the rest, and read the earlier story about the origins of Project RESPECT. And maybe tell a Republican legislator that this history is worth teaching in our schools.

Houston Landing

Meet the new kid on the local media block.

More than a year ago, researchers studying local news in the Houston metro area learned something critical to the launch of the Houston Landing.

“The community often times feels left out of the news,” said a nonprofit director in east Harris County, who was one of hundreds of residents who participated in the study. “I think there’s a lot of feelings of being forgotten, being left out, and the light not being shined on the community since [Hurricane] Harvey.”

It shouldn’t take a natural disaster to make our communities feel heard, seen and valued.

It just takes a vision that is as big and bold as Houston.

This is why we are announcing today the launch of Houston Landing, an independent nonprofit news organization devoted to public service journalism that will be digital-only and nonpartisan.
introductory column by former Chron reporter Maggie Gordon. (Not surprisingly, a number of their staffers are Chron alums.) They also have an email newsletter that I got subscribed to either by someone else or by them having a starter list of either “media” contacts or Chron/Texas Tribune newsletter-getters. Which is fine, I was happy to hear about their existence directly, just a bit unexpected.

I don’t know what to expect from their coverage yet, but as a non-profit media source they have obvious models to follow, like the Texas Tribune, the San Antonio Report, the Fort Worth Report, and El Paso Matters. I consider the San Antonio Report to be the gold standard among the city-focused publications – if they can replicate that, they will be of great value to me. They have not yet announced an opening day for their stories, so we’ll just have to wait. If this sounds interesting to you, check them out and subscribe to their newsletter as you see fit.

(Shout out to Bob Dunn’s late, lamented Fort Bend Now, the real innovator in this space, and unfortunately about a decade ahead of its time.)

Can you print a house?

We’re gonna find out.

3D printing is taking home construction to new heights. In Houston, a giant printer is building what designers say is the first 3D-printed two-story house in the U.S.

The machine has been pouring a concrete mix from a nozzle, one layer at a time, in hot weather and cold, alongside a sparse on-site workforce, to create a 4,000-square-foot home.

While construction 3D printing has been around for over a decade, the technology has only started to break ground in the U.S. homebuilding market over the last couple of years, said Leslie Lok, the architectural designer for the project. Several 3D-printed homes have already been built or are currently in the works across a handful of states.

Lok, who co-founded the design firm Hannah, says her team aims to eventually scale up their designs to be able to efficiently 3D print multifamily homes.

“This Houston project is a step towards that, being a pretty large single-family house,” she said.

The three-bedroom home is a two-year collaboration between Hannah, Germany-based Peri 3D Construction and Cive, an engineering and construction company in Houston.

Proponents of the technology say 3D printing could address a range of construction challenges, including labor shortages and building more resilient homes in the face of natural disasters.

With the Houston home, the team is pushing the industrial printer to its limits to understand how it can streamline the technology, in the quest to quickly build cost-effective and well-designed homes.

“In the future, it has to be fast, simple design in order to compete with other building technologies,” said Hikmat Zerbe, Cive’s head of structural engineering.

The story doesn’t say where in Houston this is, so for all we know it could be anywhere in the greater Houston area. It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t know how much of a demand there is for concrete houses. From a design perspective, that seems awfully limited. That doesn’t mean this couldn’t catch on, I’m just not sure how big the market for this might be. But I’m sure the tech will improve, and from there who knows. What do you think?

Have you chipped your pet yet?

The city will begin enforcing its new ordinance requiring dogs and cats to be microchipped.

Houston is offering free microchips for dogs and cats before it begins enforcing a new ordinance that requires pets to have the identification devices.

City Council passed the law last year as part of broader effort to revise animals laws, but the city offered a yearlong grace period to educate residents about the new requirement. That ends Wednesday.

Pets owners in Houston already were required to register pets with the city and prove they have been vaccinated against rabies. The registration requirement historically has had low participation; city officials have estimated just 4 percent of Houston pets are registered.

The registration, microchip and vaccine requirements now form a three-step process to license a dog or cat with the city. Officials said that process helps protect and identify your pet if it is lost. The cost to register generally is $20 for neutered or spayed pets, and $60 for those that are not. It must be renewed every year at the same cost. It is $2 for a senior citizen, and free for service animals.

The city [offered] free microchips from 8 to 10 a.m. Tuesday at its animal shelter on 3300 Carr St. It will offer them during the same hours on Monday, Feb. 6, and Tuesday, Feb. 7. The city usually offers to install the devices for $15.

The microchips will enable animal control officers to return lost pets directly, without bringing them to a shelter first, according to Greg Damianoff, the shelter director for the city’s Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care.

See here for the background. I confess, we haven’t gotten our indoor-only dog chipped, but he does have a city registration tag from last year and a rabies vaccination tag from the vet, so I would think he’d be ID’ed easily enough if he managed to escape. Really, this is a good risk mitigation for you and a good cost savings for the city. Take advantage if you can.

“I bless the drains down in Africa”

Whoever came up with the Adopt A Drain program is a damn genius.

When it comes to naming storm drains, it seems Houstonians have a hard time keeping their minds out of the gutter.

In 2018, the city of Houston launched the Adopt-A-Drain program as a flood-mitigation effort in partnership with Keep Houston Beautiful. The premise was simple: Houston residents adopt a local storm drain through the Adopt-A-Drain website, give the drain a nickname, and commit to cleaning debris such as leaves and trash from the drain four times a year.

But without any clear oversight, what started as a fun, drain-related pun-off in naming the drains has morphed into a grab-bag of explicit jokes and politically-charged messages on a government website.

About 1,900 of the 80,000 storm drains in the Houston area have been adopted as of January, and about 1,750 of those adopted drains have been given nicknames by users. Though the majority of users chose harmless names for their drains – many of the names include puns – in our review of the program’s website, the Houston Chronicle found about 50 drains with explicit references in their names and 50 that had politically-charged messages in their names.

You can read on, and you can visit the Adopt-A-Drain website to see an active map. The guy who named a drain after his CashApp handle and the sex toy shop that adopted 200 drains to help promote their business are cited as some of the more cautionary examples, but the Chron didn’t print any of what they claimed to be the more salacious names, so we’ll just have to use our imaginations. The pun list at the end was funny – the one in the headline is my favorite – but I have to say, if no one took the opportunity to name a storm sewer after Ted Cruz, then what are we even doing here? Feel free to correct that oversight if you are so inclined.

COVID rates tick down again in Houston

Always a good headline to read.

COVID-19 data from the Texas Medical Center this week suggests the current wave may be subsiding, though experts urge caution as a new, highly infectious variant continues to circulate.

The average number of daily hospitalizations in the medical center had been rising steadily for a month, but dropped last week by about 20 percent, from 182 to 146. Regional COVID hospitalizations also have dropped from a five-month high of 1,002 on Jan. 5 to 836 on Monday, according to the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council.

Most significantly, the viral load in the city’s wastewater — the most reliable indicator of future virus spread — dropped by about 34 percent last week, according to data published Tuesday.

“I would be very surprised if we saw this (trend) reverse at this point,” said Dr. James McDeavitt, senior vice president and dean of clinical affairs at Baylor College of Medicine.

Even with a hopeful outlook, researchers cautiously are eyeing the progress of XBB.1.5, which public health officials say is the most transmissible form of COVID yet. It quickly has become the dominant strain nationwide. The variant accounts for 80 percent of cases in the Northeast, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though it has yet to beat out other infectious strains in Houston and much of the South.

Here’s that wastewater dashboard again. We’re still at a very high level compared to the July 2020 baseline, but at least we’re going in the right direction now. Hospitalization rate is the bigger concern, but again as long as we’re now trending downward, the overall picture is improving. There’s an argument to be made that we shouldn’t obsessively track each new alphabet-soup variant, at least not while they’re all about the same level of lethality. The fact that successive versions are more transmissible than their predecessors are just how viruses work. I’m not sophisticated enough to make a judgment about that, but I have limited my worry to the prospect of a deadlier strain.

There are still other things to worry about:

The United States has faced a triple threat of respiratory viruses over the past few months, with COVID-19, the flu and RSV driving infections and hospitalizations in the Houston area and elsewhere.

Each of the three are capable of causing mild to severe illness by themselves. But it’s also possible to contract more than one virus at a time — and a new study suggests a coinfection may lead to more severe illness in young children.

The term “flurona” became popular on social media last year as a surge in COVID-19 and the re-emergence of the flu caused a wave of infections. However, doctors were seeing patients — particularly young children — with coinfections before the pandemic, said Dr. Amy Arrington, medical director of the Special Isolation Unit at Texas Children’s Hospital.

“It’s not uncommon that we see younger kids getting co-infected,” she said. “I think a lot of parents today in Houston can say they feel like their child’s been sick for the past few months straight.”

Younger children might be more susceptible to coinfections because they haven’t been exposed to a respiratory virus before, Arrington said. They may be getting infected at daycare, or from an older sibling who picked up the virus at school.

Coinfections are uncommon, but doctors might be seeing them more frequently this fall and winter for a few reasons, said Dr. Luis Ostrosky, chief of infectious diseases at UTHealth Houston and Memorial Hermann Hospital.

The collision of COVID-19, the flu and RSV, as well as other respiratory viruses like rhinovirus and enterovirus, has created more opportunity for infection, he said.

“Tripledemic” was the word I heard. Fortunately, RSV and flu rates have been dropping as well. You can still get a flu shot, and for sure you can and should get your bivalent booster. Hell, I’m ready for whatever the next generation COVID booster is now. I’ll be among the first in line when that becomes available. You are your only real defense here, so do what you need to do.

A new Adickes statue is on the way

Been too long since there was some Giant Presidential Head news.

Where to start with all the David Adickes sculptures dotting Houston landscape? Perhaps his 44 gigantic heads paying homage to our U.S. presidents (still no Trump)? His giant cello downtown, a local landmark? His oft-photographed/Instagram fave We Love Houston sign? His 36-foot Beatles statues at 8th Wonder Brewery? Or the apropos Mount Rush Hour located at a notorious Houston bottleneck?

Indeed, the 95-year-old (yes, really) creator of iconic, white artworks (take his 67-foot, cement-and-steel statue of Sam Houston, which serves as a welcome off I-45 to his hometown of Huntsville) has become Houston’s resident artist of giant works. Apropos, his latest pays tribute to a worldwide giant.

Adickes will soon install a giant, 5-ton bust of the late President John F. Kennedy, the nation’s 35th president, on JFK Boulevard. Aside from a fitting nod and locale for the global figure who spent his final full day of life in Houston, the statue will also serve as a “welcome mat” to those visiting Houston and nearby George Bush Intercontinental Airport, the artist notes.

The JFK bust, which is hollow on the inside, is composed of two pieces; the head and shoulders are separate and will be welded together and then covered in plaster, according to Carlos Silva, chairman of the East Aldine Management District and its East Aldine Arts Coalition.

Heralding the famed speech given in1962 at Rice University, the statue memorializes the great declaration JFK made to a crowd of 30,000 at Rice Stadium — and to the world — marking his goals for the U.S. space program’s mission to land a man on the moon:

We choose to go to the moon, in this decade, and do other things — not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

Silva hopes to see the statue lit at night as a beacon for all who drive by and fly over. An opening ceremony is in the works, upon completion of the statue.

There will soon be a ceremony to celebrate the official installation of the statue, which Silva said he hopes to see lighted at night for people who drive by.

As you know, I’m a longtime fan of Adickes’ work. I just had a trip to IAH but the new statue wasn’t in place yet. I can’t wait to see it. The Chron has more.

More on the Winter Street Studios fire

The Chron profiles two artists that were affected by the recent fire at the Winter Street Studios.

At Winter Street Studios, red caution tape draped an X pattern over an entrance to the building, a workspace for Houston area artists. The door is gone and black stains from a fire around the outer entrance are a stark contrast on the exterior of the large white structure.

Further into the building, chunks of the pillars are blown off, revealing brick and concrete. In one hallway, clean white squares where paintings used to hang stand out against the charcoal of the wall. In the area where Montgomery County based artists Toria Hill and Rebekah Molander have their studios, hallways that were once white and adorned with vibrant artwork are now soot stained.

The scene is a heartbreaking one for them both, especially since a person who was tied to the arts community was deemed responsible for the fire. It is testing Molander’s sense of security.

“It’s a safe place. What would be safer than an artists’ community?” the 38-year-old Woodlands artist said. “Who targets a group of artists and who destroys art? Of all things, art and music bring people together. Now that feeling of safety has been damaged.”

Molander had 18 pieces on display at the gallery in Sawyer Yards when authorities said it was set on fire on Dec. 20. The arsonist targeted the first-floor worksite of Bohemian Photography, then died by suicide days later, according to the Houston Fire Marshal’s Office. Bohemian owner Jack Potts and the man who set the fire were friends and reportedly had a disagreement over $1,000 in equipment.

[…]

The fire destroyed hundreds of pieces of art at the gallery, where about 110 artists rent space among the 77 studios to create and store their work. Some of the artwork may be salvageable, Hill and Molander said. All the artists are sharing notes on how to recover their work.

Hill will soon turn to an art restoration group, hoping her work can be salvaged. She suspects, however, that nothing is resellable. She had what is called “show insurance” that covers six pieces. But that only covers the supplies, like paint and brushes.

“They all smell like they’ve been sitting in someone’s chimney,” Hill said. “We’re learning it’s hard to get the smell of smoke out of your canvas without ruining the work.”

She’ll be focusing on creating more work before big shows like the Bayou City Art Festival in March and The Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival in April.

Molander, part of an artist collective called The Seekers who work out of the Taft McWhorter Art Gallery, couldn’t get in the building until the week following Christmas. She and her husband donned masks because the smoke smell was so thick. They took the 18 pieces that were on display, wrapping them with commercial grade plastic.

Once home, they’ve been airing the pieces out in intervals.

“One issue is that some soot, especially from the back of the canvas, could seep in and further damage the paintings in the next six months,” Molander said.

She also purchased a tool called a soot eraser — a dry chemical sponge — to clean the canvas.

“When you swipe down, the sponge comes out black. It’s incredible the way it works,” Molander said. “Right now everyone is trying to be as positive as they can. This isn’t anything I’ve ever dealt with but it’s giving me a lot of hope.”

The Houston Arts Alliance has activated its emergency relief fund, first created in 2020 to support artists during the COVID-19 pandemic, to help those whose studios were damaged. Donors can contribute to the fund at the alliance’s website https://ready.haatx.com/.

See here for the background, and please do consider making a donation to the support fund. I went looking for more stories to see what news there has been in the intervening weeks, and I found this from about ten days after the fire. There’s a lot of background about the studio and its history and purpose, but what really caught my eye was towards the end, about its immediate future.

The arson victim was a behemoth of a building: the 75,000 square-foot space at 2101 Winter Street, a historic brick-and-concrete structure dating from 1928, originally built by E.A. Hudson for the Houston Transfer Company. The rambling two-story fortress later become Harris Moving & Storage, before being turned into studios for rent for professional artists by developer Jon Deal in 2005. Deal took a chance on rehabbing the rambling elephant of a building, betting artist-generated income could be financially successful.

The developer also had to convince the permitting department, which granted the building the first permit ever under the groundbreaking Artist Studio Ordinance in the City of Houston.

Flash forward 17 years, and Winter Street had become the bedrock of what would morph into one of the largest communities of working artists in the country. The thriving Sawyer Yards complex, that has also birthed under Deal and other partners, a plethora of pendant properties for artists, other creatives, stores and restaurants, led by Spring Street Studios, Silver Street Studios (home to the international biennial of photography FotoFest) and The Silos at Sawyer Yards. Winter Street Studios has also been the headquarters, thanks to generous owners, of countless fundraisers, mostly notably the art auction benefiting affordable housing and artists, the iconic Art on the Avenue presented by Avenue CDC.

[…]

What Deal once did to rehab the raw, cavernous space of Winter Street — later replicating that model throughout Sawyer Yards — makes many confident that he can and will do it again.

We reached out to Deal the Friday before Christmas. Within hours he emailed back details to PaperCity of his new plans that provide uplifting news to not only the Winter Street Studios artists, but also members of the Houston art family at large.

“Definitely arson,” Deal tells PaperCity of the cause of the devastating fire. “I reviewed some of the video with the arson investigators and it was a targeted theft and firebombing of a specific studio. With our building and campus cameras we were able to follow the thief/arsonist’s steps from the time he entered campus to the entry into Winter Street Studios then directly to the studio door without hesitation at any turn.

“Clearly he had been in the studio before (photographer Jack Potts’ studio). On the video you can see him leaving the studio at a rapid pace and then seconds later the explosion.”

“The eastern 1/3 of the building, Section C, looks like a war zone on the first level,” Deal details of the damage. “The remainder of the building (Sections A & B) suffered severe smoke damage, which left a thick soot. The second level of Section C shows signs of structural damage due to the heat of the fire.”

Now that a plan is in place. Deal has a timeline in mind.

“Our plan is to have Sections A & B (2/3 of the building) cleaned and ready for the artists to move back in in February,” he tells PaperCity. “Section C will require some structural repairs and complete rebuild of about one half the studios in that section of the building. We are estimating that it will be six months before we are able to get those studios ready for the artists to move back in.”

As to who will rebuild Winter Street, Deal dispatched his own crews immediately.

“The fire occurred at 5:20 am Tuesday, December 20,” Deal details.” We had crews on site at 7 am on Wednesday, December 21, and have already made it possible for artists to enter their studios in Sections A & B. Many already have. We made the decision to remediate in-house (Dealco) as we felt like we were able to mobilize quicker with more manpower and equipment than the remediation company could.”

Another silver lining is the nearby presence of warehouses under the Sawyer Yards umbrella.

“Silver Street opened up warehouse space that had recently been vacated and is allowing the Winter Street artists to store their artwork there until we can get them back in the building,” Deal shares. “We are prepared to open two of our warehouses a little further away if needed.”

And wall space will be provided, Deal notes.

“Alexander Squire, Sawyer Yards creative director, will be coordinating with management and other building artists to help the Winter Street artists to display what artwork they have left during the second Saturday event in January and in February if necessary,” Deal tells PaperCity.

You can click over to see some pictures. I’m very glad to hear there’s a plan in place to rehab and recover, and I look forward to the grand re-opening. The Leader News has more.

A walk through four districts, part 3: Try this at home!

In Part One I described my weird idea to take a stroll into four Congressional districts, something I decided I could do after taking a close look at the new map in Houston. In Part 2, I took you on that walk with me. Now I’m going to show how this could be done elsewhere and with different types of districts.

We do redistricting every ten years, so you might wonder why I picked Congressional districts as the object of this little obsession. Congressional redistricting had national implications, of course. As this recent DMN story points out, Texas Republicans squeezed out four more districts than the overall electoral numbers suggest they were entitled to, giving them nearly all of the seats needed to achieve a majority in the House. I wasn’t thinking of that a year ago, of course, but I definitely spent more time thinking about the Congressional map than about the others. It was that new Congressional map that I had zoomed in on, to see what things looked like in my immediate area, that gave me the inspiration.

But what about those other maps? How about in the State House, where the districts are smaller and there are 24 of them in Harris County? (There ought to be 25, but that’s a whole ‘nother thing.) In the previous map, my neighborhood was sliced in half for no particular reason, which meant that I’d travel between HDs 145 and 148 every day walking my dog. Our neighborhood has been reunited under the new map, so I would need to travel a little farther to cross State House boundaries. That made me think, which State House districts did I pass through as I did Wednesday’s walk? Let’s take a look!

I started in HD145, entered HD147 when I turned south on Heights after walking along the boundary once I passed Studewood, and then reached the boundary with HD134 at Washington. I was fully in HD134 once I was west of Shepherd.

But look closer! With a slight modification, I could have started in HD142, on Jensen south of Lorraine, walked north to Quitman, then followed the same route to eventually get to HD134, with a terminus at the HEB just south of Washington. I didn’t fool around with Google Maps for this, but that looks like a roughly equivalent distance. I’m not surprised that this was doable in such close proximity, but I would not have guessed that these would be the four districts involved. This is why it’s fun to play with maps, kids.

That wasn’t where I had picked for what may be the shortest walk needed to be in four State House districts. Take a look at this:

Just start on Yorktown and walk till you’re past Fayette. Google Maps shows this as 1.6 miles because it won’t let you cross San Felipe or Westheimer at Yorktown – it insists on making you hike all the way to Sage, then doubling back on Westheimer to return to Yorktown – so as the crow flies it’s probably not much more than a mile. Someone who knows that area better than I do will have to tell me why you can’t just walk all the way down Yorktown. Be that as it may, even with the detours, it’s a pretty short walk.

By the way, why is that tiny rectangle south of Westheimer and east of Chimney Rock in HD137 and not HD134? I have no idea. Either it’s a super-optimization of whatever evil redistricting software the Republicans used, or someone asked for that specific change for some reason. I’ll throw the question out to you if you think you know the answer.

There are a couple of other possibilities in Harris County. Zooming out a bit, south of I-10 and east of US59 you could get from HD142 to HD147 via HDs 142 and 145, and north of 610 you could get from HD141 to HD145 via HDs 140 and 142, though you’d have to cross US59 to do it, which might be dicey on foot.

Looking elsewhere in the state, I see possibilities in San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas, where I even see a possible five-district walk:

Start in that weird southern finger of HD108 and head south-ish to wind up in HD104, passing through HDs 114, 100, and 103 along the way. You have to cross the junction of I-30 and I-35, which sounds like a nightmare, but maybe it’s doable. Point is, these districts are all right up against each other.

You might think that State Senate districts would be too large for this, as there are eight fewer of them than there are Congressional districts. Challenge accepted:

Start on Piney Point Road near San Felipe and head south as it becomes Fondren, and go a few blocks south of Richmond, to have visited SDs 07, 17, 15, and 13. There may be other possibilities elsewhere, but I was happy enough with that to quit looking.

Going back to Congress for a minute, I see opportunities again in San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas as before. That DMN story highlights a couple of places where the distance between one district and another, with a third in between, is ridiculously thin, like less than a quarter mile in the Dallas case. But just to finish this post, let me show you what my original walk route looked like under the old map:

Starting a bit farther east on Quitman in CD29, I could have headed on Quitman to White Oak to either Studewood or Yale, then gone south to Allen Parkway and east to Shepherd to visit CDs 18, 02, and 07 along the way. That might even have been a slightly shorter walk. Just a reminder that this was a thing before I ever decided to try it out, and will likely continue to be a thing ten years from now when we do this all again. Now go play with those maps and plan your own walk.

PS: I should have noted sooner that John Nova Lomax did a great series of articles some years ago when he wrote for the Houston Press in which he walked the entire length of a well-known Houston thoroughfare – Richmond and Shepherd are the two I remember from the series – and wrote about the experience. Some of the walks he took were in excess of ten miles and took him all day; he had planned meal and bathroom stops along the way, out of necessity. I don’t have that on my itinerary any time soon, but I was thinking about it as I did this walk.

A walk through four districts, part 2: Now with pictures

In yesterday’s post I described my weird idea to take a stroll into four Congressional districts, something I decided I could do after taking a close look at the new map in Houston. On Wednesday, a bit more than a year after I first conceived of this silly idea, I finally did it. Here’s a little photo essay of my journey.

I started out as noted at the Leonel Castillo Community Center, on Quitman at South, just east of I-45.

CD29_LeonelCastilloCenter

This was in CD29, but I wasn’t going to be there for long. I intentionally started at a point near the boundary with CD18 – this walk was going to be long enough, I didn’t need to make it any longer. As I walked over the Quitman bridge, at some point I passed from CD29 into CD18. Where exactly that line is I have no idea – I have joked before about the crazy way that CD35 is drawn between Austin and San Antonio, and that you can cross into other Congressional districts by changing lanes on I-35 – but it’s there somewhere. We’ll discuss this a bit more later, as it’s a bit more relevant when there are houses and businesses there along the border. Here it’s just traffic.

CD29_OverI45

West of I-45 on Quitman and I am unquestionably in CD18. The White Oak hike and bike trail beckoned me to the south.

CD18_QuitmanNorth

As I passed Houston Avenue and Quitman became White Oak, I had a choice to make. As you saw on my Google map, my walking path was along White Oak. But the sidewalk isn’t consistent, there’s a lot of cars whooshing past, and the hike and bike trail will get me where I want to go as well. What would you choose?

CD18_PathNotTaken

The choice was easy for me, though I should note that the path to the left that led down to the trail wasn’t paved all the way and I had to step carefully to avoid getting all muddy. But it was worth it.

CD18_BikePathAndHeron

I didn’t even notice that heron as I was taking the picture. I only saw him later as I was putting this all together. Going this way gave me another excuse to walk across the new trail extension. The view of downtown from where the extension meets the MKT trail, especially on a gorgeous morning like Wednesday was, just can’t be beat.

CD18_MKTTrail

Don’t ever let anyone trash Houston’s aesthetics. The MKT trail put me back on White Oak the street, and soon enough I reached Heights Boulevard, which is where CD18 ends and CD07 begins. But unlike the CD29/CD18 boundary along I-45, the exact location of that invisible line matters. As in, my belief was that the east side of Heights was still in CD18 while the west side was in CD07. I know these things have to exist somewhere but that will always be weird to me.

CD07_YaleStreet

Yale Street, to my immediate right and visible as I crossed over the bayou again just south of I-10, is fully inside CD07. I started on the CD18 side of Heights but crossed to the CD07 side a bit before I reached I-10. When I reached Washington Avenue, I was at the southern border of CD18 and was going to be fully in CD07 for most of the rest of the trip.

CD07_HeightsWashington

I have to say, the sidewalks along this stretch of Washington Avenue were atrocious, especially after having been on the hike and bike trails as well as on Heights. Broken and occasionally missing, with utility poles right in the middle of a much narrower space – I could have only done this as a fully able-bodied person. I may do a separate post on that, but go see it for yourself if you can. One corollary to this is that I could have both shortened my walk and dodged fewer obstacles if I had taken a slightly different path. West of Shepherd, CD38 was only a few blocks to the south. I could have turned down Sandman, for example, and been in CD38 just before Shepherd and Durham merge together at Feagan.

CD07_SandmanShortcutToCD38

But I stayed the course, and soon enough I had reached the traffic circle at Westcott.

CD38_WashingtonTrafficCircle

That was the view from the west side of the circle, on what I believe was Arnot, though I didn’t see a street sign. It’s in CD38, whatever it was. Again, the boundary was likely somewhere in the middle of the road, in this case Westcott. Maybe if state law required that the state pay to create and install signs at every district border, we’d get slightly less goofy districts. Be that as it may, this is the end.

I’ll have a brief wrapup and a suggestion for further pedestrian research if you’re interested. Let me know what you thought of this little tour.

New year, new omicron variant

Stay safe out there.

A new omicron COVID-19 variant is spreading fast across the United States and beginning to make inroads in Houston, where the positivity rate continues to rise.

The new strain, XBB.1.5, was first detected on the east coast in late October and gained traction in December. Over the last four weeks, it has quickly edged out the previously dominant strains to make up 40 percent of cases nationally. It appears to be more transmissible than its predecessors, based on early lab results, with properties that help it evade vaccine immunity, said Dr. Luis Ostrosky, chief of infectious diseases with UTHealth Houston and Memorial Hermann Hospital.

Ostrosky and other experts say the new strain is likely contributing to the rise in cases throughout Houston, where the percentage of positive tests jumped from 8.1 percent to 11.1 percent last week, according to the most recent data from the Texas Medical Center. The average number of weekly COVID hospitalizations also saw a sharp uptick last week, from 529 to 663, including intensive care unit admissions.

The numbers are still a far cry from the original omicron wave one year ago, but infectious disease experts worry how waning immune protection will factor into the surge.

“We are at a moment in the pandemic where a lot of people got sick over the summer and immunity is going down from natural infection,” Ostrosky said. “Vaccine rates are not great and boosting rates are abysmal in this country … It does appear we’re converging into this immunity cliff.”

Only 15 percent of Americans over 5 years old have received the updated booster shot, first authorized for adults in August. About 30 percent of the country’s population has yet to complete the primary series, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the updated booster shot may not prevent infections from the newest variant, public health experts still say it’s the best way to prevent severe disease from COVID.

Same song, next verse. The good news for now, as Your Local Epidemiologist notes, is that this latest version of omicron, like all of its predecessors, isn’t any more virulent or deadly than before. Thus, hospitalization rates remain fairly stable, though they are currently going up. Flu and RSV infections are also declining, which helps. None of this matters if you or a loved one are getting sick. Get that bivalent booster and take the usual precautions. We will get through this.

The bats survived another freeze

A bit of good news.

On the fourth day of Christmas, Houston got 600 bats back.

As the sun set on Waugh Bridge over Buffalo Bayou Wednesday, the Houston Humane Society released hundreds of Mexican free-tailed bats that had been in the group’s care after last week’s freeze.

The bats were struck down — literally — by the sub-freezing temperatures that gripped Houston, according to the humane society. The hypothermic bats were recovered from under the bridge by volunteers. They’ve spent recent days warming up at the humane society’s TWRC Wildlife Center, and even in the attic of humane society wildlife director Mary Warwick.

After a couple of days of being fed and waiting for the city to thaw, it came time for the humane society to release the bats back into the wild. The society advertised the release on social media, and hundreds of people showed up at Waugh Bridge to watch the animals fly free.

Warwick stood with a kennel full of bats on top of a scissors lift, letting the animals go by the handful. The small brown bats flitted underneath the bridge, before joining the thousands of other bats still roosting in the underside of the roadway.

Warwick said the release was the first of its kind for the humane society. Usually the animals are released more quietly, as would be done later in the night, when a separate group of bats was planned to be released in Pearland.

“I think it was a whopping success,” Warwick said. “I’m really happy with how it turned out and glad we were able to save as many as we could.”

About 1,500 bats were planned to be released on Wednesday. Only about 100 died after being picked up during the freeze, Warwick said.

Nearly 1,000 bats were also rescued from underneath a bridge in Pearland.

If recent history is an indicator, it’s only a matter of time before some of the bats are struck down by a storm or cold again.

The pre-Christmas freeze wasn’t the first time the Waugh Bridge bats had been brought to the shelter because of Texas weather. Hundreds of bats were recovered and rehabilitated after the 2021 freeze. The bridge was inundated by floodwaters during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, leading people to scoop up bats and bring them home to dry out. The humane society is in the midst of a fundraiser to build a new headquarters, which officials hope will include a room dedicated to bat recovery.

Warwick asked people to support that effort, and thanked everyone who went out of their way to help during the recent crisis.

As noted in the story, the 2021 freeze was really hard on the bats, and that’s after their numbers were devastated by Harvey in 2017. At least we learned from the 2021 experience and were able to be more proactive this time. That’s great work on the part of the Houston Humane Society, which deserves a bunch of kudos for their efforts. You can see pictures and learn more about this recent bat rescue here, and if you want to donate to their efforts for the future, here’s the link for that.

It’s time to recycle your Christmas tree

If you’re in the city of Houston and you want your tree to get mulched, here’s how to do it.

Houston’s Solid Waste Management Department (SWMD) encourages residents to recycle live Christmas trees after the holidays. The holiday season is filled with the purchase of live Christmas trees by families which can be repurposed for mulch or other landscape materials.

On Tuesday, December 27, 2022, SWMD will open 24 residential Christmas tree drop-off recycling locations throughout Houston through Tuesday, January 31, 2023. Please find the locations listed below.

To recycle a live Christmas tree, residents must remove all lights, wire, tinsel, ornaments, nails, stands, and other non-organic decorative materials. Trees that are flocked, artificial, or painted will NOT be recycled. Your scheduled junk waste collection day can be used to dispose of any artificial trees.

Additionally, recycling is also available for live Christmas trees through the city’s yard waste curbside collection program.

Recycling trees will result in rich mulch that will be available in bags or bulk directly from Living Earth and other local area retailers.

Save the Date: Friday, January 6, 2023, and join Mayor Sylvester Turner, Council Members, SWMD, along with representatives from Reliant Energy, Living Earth, and the Houston Parks & Recreation Department for the 32nd Annual Christmas Tree Mulching event, at City Hall Reflection Pool, 11:30 a.m.

Locations and times are listed at the link. There’s almost certainly one not far from you. The regular neighborhood depositories and the Westpark consumer recycling center are included. Don’t throw your tree out, take it in to be mulched instead.

The Winter Street Studios fire

This is so awful.

A fire that broke out Tuesday morning at Winter Street Studios has damaged countless works of art and left many Houston artists without workspaces or gallery space. The fire, which began around 6:30 a.m., is being investigated as arson, according to the Houston Fire Department and numerous accounts from artists who work at the building.

The fire started on the first floor, in the studio for Bohemian Photography, a commercial photography business owned by Jack Potts. A GoFundMe for Potts states that someone broke into the studio, stole thousands of dollars worth of camera and production equipment, then set the fire. Per another artist at the studio, Potts is in the middle of switching insurance policies and is currently uninsured.

The Houston Arts Alliance has activated its Emergency Relief Fund, first created in 2020 to support artists during the COVID-19 pandemic, to help those whose studios were damaged. Donors can contribute to the fund at HAA’s websiteFreshArts has also created a list of resources, including emergency grants, for those affected.

The 100-year-old building, which was once a furniture factory, was converted to artist studios in 2005. There are 77 studios in the building, many of them shared between two or more artists.

On Instagram, the hashtag #winterstreetstudios was filled with photos and posts from artists detailing the damage to their workspaces. That includes water damage from the sprinklers and hoses, ash, smoke damage, and structural issues with the building that may require it to be demolished.

[…]

Renters at the studios were supposed to carry liability insurance, [painter Erika] Alonso said, and many of them did not have coverage beyond that. Aside from the countless, irreplaceable works of art that have been damaged or destroyed—some of which had already been sold but not yet delivered to their new owners—artists have also lost computers, materials, tools, paperwork, and other essential business items.

“There’s all these little personal investments artists make over the years,” she said. “But all the artists are helping each other, which is a beautiful thing.” Alonso said she had additional insurance, and hopes it can help recoup the cost of replacing her supplies and cleaning up her studio.

Just terrible. Winter Street Studios is a great place, a vibrant part of the community in an area where it’s often too expensive for creative types to hang their shingles. They have had regular Saturday art markets that are always fun to visit, and our elementary school used their space in the past for fundraisers. I’d really hate for this to be the end for them. The link in the story for HAA’s website is where you can make a donation to help these folks out if you’re so inclined. Thanks very much. CultureMap, ABC13, KHOU, and the Chron have more.

Grassroots pollution monitoring

Great story about a problem that deserves mush more attention from the state.

One by one, the residents filtered into the small community center and found seats in the rows of plastic chairs. Some were teenagers wearing yellow-and-black Galena Park High School letter jackets. Others were parents and grandparents juggling children. Many wore white headphones to hear the Spanish translator standing nearby. Everyone looked worried.

They had gathered on that chilly November night to learn what two new, high-tech monitors had found in the air in Galena Park and Jacinto City, neighboring towns in eastern Harris County, the epicenter of North America’s petrochemical industry. They were prepared for grim news.

“Everyone here knows pollution is a big problem,” said Maricela Serna, a former Galena Park commissioner who has one of the monitors on the roof of her tax preparation office. “But we want to know just how bad things really are. We deserve to know. And those in power, especially at the state level, need to know.”

Serna, 66, has lived in Galena Park since 1988 and the stench of chemicals is part of her everyday life. The odor inside her home was so bad one day that a visitor from outside the community thought there was a gas leak and called the fire department. Still, Serna held out hope that the news that night might be positive — that maybe, just maybe, the pollution wasn’t as bad as the odors let on.

But the data from the monitors confirmed her worst fears.

Nitrogen oxides, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has linked to asthma in children and lower birth weight in newborns, were consistently above the agency’s one-hour limit. Ozone, which can aggravate lung diseases including asthma and emphysema, was well above the EPA’s eight-hour limit. Particulate matter, which increases the risk for strokes and heart disease by settling deep into lungs and seeping into bloodstreams, hovered above the EPA’s annual limit.

The readings from Serna’s office, located a block from a thoroughfare lined with petrochemical plants, were especially high. Monthly levels of nitrogen oxides, for example, averaged 170 parts per billion from June through August — nearly double what the EPA says is safe for just one hour.

The data was presented by Juan Flores, a lifelong Galena Park resident and clean-air advocate. He oversees community air monitoring programs for Air Alliance Houston, the nonprofit he works for, and Environmental Community Advocates of Galena Park, a smaller group he helped create and where he is vice president. Over the past few years, the two groups have built a network of air monitors that gives residents basic information about the dangers they are living with.

Regulators and scientists are often skeptical of community-gathered data, because it’s usually less sophisticated than the data state and federal agencies collect. But the community data is still important, because it can be used to rally residents and prod elected officials to acknowledge a neighborhood’s plight. It can also complement the ongoing work of researchers by providing hyperlocal information about wind patterns and chemical readings of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, a diverse group of chemicals that includes some carcinogens.

“This lower-level monitoring … warrants further investigation, but it supports what we’re seeing at the city level,” said Loren Hopkins, the chief environmental science officer for the Houston Health Department. “There’s a huge educational component, too. Instead of just using traditional advocacy, they’re actually using science to support their claims.”

It’s great and necessary work being done by these residents, but they shouldn’t have to. This is what the TCEQ is for, except that it’s been neutered and corrupted to the point of uselessness. And unfortunately, that’s not going to change any time soon. In the meantime, folks like these will have to keep telling and documenting their story, so at least we can know what’s happening to them. Go read the rest.

We don’t love trash

Especially not in the bayous.

Courtesy of Buffalo Bayou Partnership

On a recent Saturday morning, around 20 volunteers gathered to clean up trash along the Houston Ship Channel. Armed with pickers and trash bags, they started tackling a small “trash beach” across the channel from a refinery. The sand was barely visible below the piles of discarded items covering the beach: tires, a child’s Croc, tennis balls, a plastic toy kitchen.

“We’re just surrounded by plastic bottles,” said Amy Dinn, an environmental lawyer and one of the volunteers. Beneath the larger items, pieces of styrofoam coated the ground, giving it the appearance of snow from a distance.

“We’ve seen way worse,” Dinn said.

The amount of trash that ends up in Houston’s waterways is substantial. In 2021 alone, Buffalo Bayou Partnership (BBP), one of the main organizations that cleans up trash in and along the bayous, removed nearly 2,000 cubic yards of trash – enough to fill more than 160 commercial dump trucks.

Besides being ugly to look at, trash can worsen water quality and harm plants and wildlife. It can also harbor bacteria, spread disease, and create blockages that worsen flooding.

[…]

[Buffalo Bayou Partnership field manager Robby] Robinson said one solution he’d like to see statewide is a bottle deposit where consumers receive money for returning plastic containers.

“If you give them value, you don’t find them on your shores anymore, they end up back into the system getting recycled,” he said.

Studies have shown places with bottle deposits have less litter and higher recycling rates, including reports by Australian researchers and the nonprofit Keep America Beautiful.

Oregon was the first state to implement such a system, and its program is considered to be the most successful. In 2019, the state reached a 90% return rate, meaning 90% of all items covered by its deposit program were returned for recycling.

Bottle bills have been introduced several times in Texas, but have never passed. A report prepared by an independent consultant for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in 2021, recommends further investigating a bottle bill for the state.

Beyond legislative action, Robinson said it’s also important to make people aware of the problem, which is where volunteer groups come in.

“Most people never get to see how horrific this problem is,” Robinson said.

You can click over to see more pictures if you want to get an idea of that. I like the idea of a bottle deposit, especially given its track record, but that’s still one small piece of the puzzle. We as a society need to do a better job of, you know, not littering. The solutions for that are a lot more complicated.

Recruitment of next summer’s lifeguards is already underway.

Better luck this time, we hope.

The city has begun recruiting lifeguards for next summer following a significant staffing shortage that led to the closure of two-thirds of Houston’s public pools this past season.

The Parks and Recreation Department, which operates Houston’s 37 aquatic centers, usually begins its recruiting campaign in November, reaching out to high school and college students who make up the majority of its summertime employees, according to Leroy Maura, the city’s senior superintendent over aquatics.

In the past two years, however, staff were unable to go to most schools and colleges due to COVID-19 restrictions on visitors, Maura said.

The city’s public pool system requires 188 lifeguards to operate at full capacity, but only 60 were on staff this past summer. As a result, 25 pools were closed, with the rest opening only three days a week on a rotating basis. On a given day, swimmers could go to only one of six operating aquatic centers.

This is the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic that department employees are able to carry out in-person recruitment events. So far, city recruiters have visited 10 local high schools and signed up more than 130 students as prospective hires.

“We would go on campus and set up a table there,” Maura said. “My staff would be carrying information about the job, some pictures and the uniform to just kind of give them an idea of what it’s going to be like to work as a lifeguard.”

Based on past experience, the department needs at least 1,000 initial prospects to eventually hire about 180 lifeguards, Maura said.

[…]

The city raised the pay for pool staff in May in hopes of attracting more applicants, from $13.66 to $16 per hour for lifeguards; to $18 for head lifeguards; and $20 per hour for aquatic center supervisors.

Anyone with swimming skills who will be over the age of 16 by May 2023 can call the Parks and Recreation Department at 832-395-7129 or email the team at [email protected] to apply.

See here for some background. I would not have guessed that recruitment for this normally starts in November, but given the numbers involved I understand. With the Parks and Rec department able to do more in person events in the schools now, as well as the increased pay, hopefully the problems from last year will be history. In the meantime, if you’ve got or know a teenager who would qualify and might be interested, let them know about this.

I regret to inform you that “tripledemic” is a word

The good news is that we may avoid it here in Houston.

A collision of three respiratory viruses — COVID-19, influenza and RSV — may not hit Houston as severely as other parts of the country, experts say, but pediatric hospitals are still preparing for a busy winter season with at least some virus overlap.

Texas Medical Center data published Tuesday shows early signs of another COVID wave, with an uptick in hospitalizations and the positivity rate, which jumped from 3.2 percent to 5 percent last week. COVID wastewater surveillance also offers a grim outlook, as the viral load rose for the fifth straight week, to 196 percent of the baseline set in July 2020. Newer variants make it difficult to predict the size and severity of the next wave of infections, experts say.

Meanwhile, RSV and flu, two respiratory viruses that commonly infect children, continue to circulate at high levels, weeks after patients began filling beds and prolonging wait times in Houston pediatric hospitals. Despite the ongoing strain, infectious disease experts believe Houston can avoid a so-called “tripledemic,” in which three simultaneous virus surges overwhelm hospital systems.

Statewide surveillance shows both RSV and flu have either peaked or declined.

“At least for us, here in Houston, the story that’s being written is we had this very early peak of flu and RSV and they’re starting to come down,” said Dr. Wesley Long, the medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist. “But then we’re probably going to see a winter speed bump of COVID.”

Dr. Melanie Kitagawa, medical director of the Texas Children’s Hospital pediatric ICU, said there are roughly 50 children admitted to Texas Children’s with RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, which usually causes mild cold-like symptoms but can be severe for infants and older adults. That number has remained steady for at least a month, but flu admissions have been decreasing across the hospital system, she said.

Flu and RSV admissions have stayed at consistently high levels at Children’s Memorial Hermann for weeks, said Dr. Michael Chang, an infectious disease pediatrician at the hospital who is affiliated with UTHealth Houston.

Chang expects RSV to become more manageable before COVID ramps up. The percentage of positive RSV tests has dropped across the state since early October, from roughly 25 percent to less than 15 percent, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

For him, flu rates are more of a concern. Texas’ flu infection rate of 29 percent is among the highest in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“For flu, what I really worry about is that people have returned to normal behaviors, and vaccine uptake doesn’t seem to be really good,” he said. “From what I’ve seen of the new COVID numbers, we may see an unfortunate confluence of (COVID) and significant flu cases. But luckily I think we will avoid a full ‘tripledemic.’”

There are recent signs that the flu is waning as well.

See here for some background. We have milder winters here, so because we can still do stuff outside we can have a smaller winter effect from COVID. But the bottom line is the same as it always has been for minimizing the spread of these viruses. Get your COVID boosters, especially the bivalent booster. Get your flu shot. Keep wearing your facemask in crowded indoor spaces, and avoid such spaces where possible. You have the power and the choice to minimize your risk.

Concept Neighborhood’s Second Ward project

Sounds really cool. I hope they can pull it off, and in a reasonable amount of time.

Plans to turn a swath of the East End into a walkable district are getting larger and more ambitious – setting the groundwork for what could become Houston’s next 15-minute neighborhood — where everything a resident needs is within 15 minutes of walking distance.

Houston real estate firm Concept Neighborhood – a group of entrepreneurs that include some of founders of the Axelrad beer garden — previously unveiled plans to convert the former W-K-M warehouse complex in the East End into a mixed-use destination with hyperlocal businesses and walkable streets.

Now, the scale of the project — estimated at $350 million — has grown to 17 acres, and developers plan to incorporate up to 1,000 mixed-income apartments with 250,000 square-feet of retail and office space over the next decade. Working with global architecture firm Gensler on a master plan, Concept Neighborhood is expanding its vision for the district after purchasing additional land from Union Pacific Railway and a handful of other property owners over the past few months.

While some neighbors are nervous about gentrification, the developers, if successful, could achieve what urban planners say could be the first project of its kind in the city: a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood of adaptive reuse buildings where low- and middle-income residents can live affordably, and where owning a car would be optional.

“Houston does not have a neighborhood for people that want to rely on micro mobility, biking and transit,” said Jeff Kaplan, principal with Concept Neighborhood who lives in the district he’s helping to redevelop. “People can choose to have a car if they want to, and if they want to live car-free, they can.”

In the project called The Plant/Second Ward, developers are stitching several parcels together to create a nearly mile-long corridor of streets lined with small businesses, restaurants and housing across a mix of about 21 old and new buildings — starting from Harrisburg Boulevard in the south and extending north to Navigation Boulevard, a critical thoroughfare in the East End a few blocks south of Buffalo Bayou. Concept Neighborhood also plans to convert a section of a former Union Pacific railway into a hike-and-bike trail running one-third of a mile through the development from Commerce Street to Navigation Boulevard.

Concept Neighborhood’s website is here and a website for this project, called The Plant/Second Ward, is here. The southeast end of this neighborhood abuts the Coffee Plant/Second Ward light rail stop on the Harrisburg (Green) line, as you can see in the embedded image. One of the bigger issues they’ll be dealing with is maintaining affordability for the mostly lower-income residents already in the area. It’s safe to say that if this succeeds it will be the first of its kind in Houston. I’m rooting for them, but I also know that we often hear of large planned real estate projects that seem to go nowhere. I hope this one achieves its vision. (And boy do I wish Swamplot was still around to have a take on it.)

Houston leads the way in resettling Afghan refugees

Nicely done.

The sudden crush of thousands of Afghans who arrived in Houston last fall forced local refugee resettlement agencies to drastically expand services in a matter of weeks.

Houston’s role as the top destination for evacuated Afghans stressed these agencies, which had diminished in scope following Trump-era cuts to refugee resettlement.

But leaders for these groups say there’s an unforeseen silver lining to the logistical hurdle of resettling more than 5,500 Afghans: Refugee resettlement in Houston is back and organizations are better prepared to welcome refugees from around the world.

“That was a test,” said Ali Al Sudani, who oversaw the quick expansion of refugee resettlement at Interfaith Ministries of Greater Houston last fall. “That’s going to help us prepare for coming years.”

[…]

In the unpredictable world of refugee resettlement, organizations rely on a mix of public and private funds to maintain their programs. Agencies get money from the U.S. State Department for each new person they resettle. So when the Trump administration dropped the number of refugee arrivals to a fraction of Obama-era numbers, that funding stream largely dried up.

The Houston area has been a historic hub for refugee resettlement. During the time of these funding cuts, local agencies took a major hit, limiting their capacity to serve local refugees. Larger groups got help from the region’s deep-pocketed philanthropists. But one small Houston-area organization retained just a single staffer to handle all new arrivals; other agencies shuffled positions or didn’t replace staff when people quit.

Elsewhere in the U.S. small refugee resettlement agencies shut their doors.

Then, about a year ago, everything changed. In September 2021, planes began shuttling beleaguered Afghan families from U.S. military bases to Houston. Many were starting new lives with just a suitcase, limited or no English and still wrecked from the trauma of a violent and sudden departure from their homes.

Agencies staffed up and scaled up their operations — refugee resettlement was back.

It was a rough ride. Some frustrated Afghans waited weeks in extended stay hotels and overworked caseworkers drove pregnant mothers, who suddenly had to worry about insurance and health care costs, to doctor appointments. Social Security cards were mailed to addresses people had left.

Staff stepped up, working long hours to meet Afghan families’ needs, and faith communities, veterans, hotel owners also came together to lend a hand — one person even donated a cow that could be slaughtered according to halal guidelines. A significant boost in support could be attributed to Americans’ rare bipartisan support for this particular immigrant population, due in part to the fierce allyship of U.S. veterans who depended on Afghans during the 20-year occupation of their country.

More evacuated Afghans resettled in Houston than any other U.S. city — in fact, Houston took in more of these families than 47 U.S. states — some 5,600 evacuated Afghans. Houston became home for about half of all Afghans who resettled in Texas.

Now that early interventions — the airport pickups, the apartment placements and school enrollments — have concluded the next phase of services involves language education, career counseling and time-intensive case support to help immigrants file the paperwork to remain in the country legally.

I don’t really have anything to add here except “welcome”. It’s not that long ago that Greg Abbott was demonizing Syrian refugees, so at least we’re not going through that again. God bless all the helpers, and I wish our new neighbors the very best.

New regulations for outdoor music events proposed

Good idea, but it feels to me like there ought to be more.

Houston is considering tightening up permitting requirements for some large outdoor music events to avoid wasting city resources accommodating last-minute notices.

On Thursday, officials from the Houston police and fire departments went before City Council’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee to discuss proposed revisions to how the city regulates special events. The suggested changes would apply only to outdoor music events with more than 500 attendees that take place on private property.

Meanwhile, regulations concerning events on public property, which have garnered considerable attention following the Astroworld tragedy last year, have not undergone significant changes, according to city officials.

Outdoor music events on private property currently are not subject to the same level of review and monitoring as those on public land, according to Susan Christian, director of the Mayor’s Office of Special Events. The latest proposal is aimed at closing that gap, she said.

Under the proposal, organizers would have to outline a detailed safety plan and submit permit applications at least 60 days prior to the event or pay a late fee. Organizers who violate any requirements could be on the hook for extra public expenses incurred by the city in connection with the event.

The proposal was prompted by a rising number of incidents in recent years in which organizers did not inform the city of their plans in a timely manner — often not until days before the events took place — sometimes resulting in thousands of dollars in additional costs for city staff and first responders, Christian said.

“A lot have happened since COVID, and we’ve seen on several occasions where this particular issue arises that has cost us a lot of money and pulled resources away,” Christian said. “We just need some help so that we’re not having to stop everything we do with some of these bad players.”

Seems reasonable. I’m a little puzzled by the statements about events on public property not getting any significant changes, but maybe there’s a semantics issue in there. There is a city-county task force reviewing “procedures, permitting and guidelines for special events”, which may still have something to say. There was also a state task force that issued some recommendations about permitting, which may or may not have any effect. I don’t know if any of this is enough, but I do want to know that everything is being reviewed and nothing is off the table.

The wastewater is looking good now

In terms of COVID levels, anyway.

The COVID-19 viral load in Houston’s wastewater has sunk to its lowest point in seven months as the city puts the latest wave, driven by the highly contagious omicron subvariant BA.5, in the rear view.

The wastewater levels are 71 percent of what the Houston Health Department detected during the July 2020 wave, which the city uses as a benchmark, according to Texas Medical Center data published Tuesday. The COVID hospitalization rate and positivity rate also continue to decline steadily.

Harris County last week dropped its COVID community level from “medium” to “low,” which recommends staying up to date on vaccinations and testing if you have symptoms. Scientists are looking to other countries for signs of what comes next.

“Our history has typically been a winter surge,” said Dr. Luis Ostrosky, chief of infectious diseases with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. “So let’s enjoy it while we can.”

Several new omicron off-shoots have been detected in the United Kingdom, India, Singapore, Denmark and Australia, according to the journal Nature. BA.5 continues to dominate cases in the United States, though one subvariant, BA.4.6, has gained some traction and now makes up roughly 12 percent of cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ostrosky urged people to get their updated booster shots, which better target omicron variants.

The dashboard is here, and you can see it as a graph here. COVID from the omicron wave peaked in the wastewater in July, but it was at almost ten times the level as it had been in July of 2020. It is now at 71% of the July 2020 levels, which is much better in so many respects. Get up to date on your boosters – I got my bivalent booster the other day – and get a flu shot (got one of those as well, at the same time), because there’s concern this could be a bad flu season. And even with these levels going down, hopefully for the foreseeable future, it’s still a good idea to wear a mask in crowded indoor spaces. Might help you avoid catching a winter cold, too.

Monkeypox case rate slows

Some good news.

Monkeypox infection rates are slowing in Houston, data shows, with health officials pointing to changing behavior as the key reason for the decline.

The 14-day average of daily new cases dropped by 43 percent, from .23 cases per 100,000 people, to .13, between Aug. 23 and Sept. 2, the last day for which data is available. As of Wednesday, Houston and Harris County had recorded a combined total of 693 cases.

Dr. David Persse, Houston chief medical officer, said he thinks it’s too early to attribute the drop to vaccinations, which became available in Houston in late July. Most people have yet to receive full protection from their second dose, administered about a month after the first dose.

“I believe the change … is largely because of individuals changing behavior and thinking twice about some of the high-risk behaviors,” Persse said during a Thursday Q&A session with reporters.

[…]

More than 5,200 people have received their first dose of the vaccine from the Houston Health Department. Harris County Public Health has administered the first dose to an additional 3,600 people.

Persse and Dr. Erick Brown, Harris County’s local health authority, said there are “plenty” of doses left and encouraged eligible people to schedule appointments by calling Houston’s hotline at 832-393-4220 or Harris County’s hotline at 832-927-0707.

“I’d like to strongly emphasize we are not out of the woods,” Brown said.

Monkeypox was never the public health crisis that COVID was – it’s a lot less contagious, and a lot less deadly – but we also had a vaccine already in place and needed to get it to a much smaller population in order to get the outbreak under control, and we didn’t do as well as we should have. We’re in better shape now, and I have hope we can continue to drive the numbers down. In the meantime, if you’re eligible for this vaccine, please do get it.

Opera in the Heights will stay at Lambert Hall

Good news.

Photo by Djmaschek, Creative Commons license

The uncertainty is over, Opera in the Heights is staying home.

After months of not knowing what the future for the neighborhood staple might hold, a consortium including a longtime Houston singing club and two donors have purchased the property including Lambert Hall and will let Opera in the Heights remain as a tenant at the historic performing arts venue, according to Eiki Isomura, the opera’s artistic and general director.

“This is a big moment of joy and relief right now,” he said. “We’re very excited.”

Just a few months ago, members of Opera in the Heights had wondered if their days performing in the historic Lambert Hall might be numbered.

Leaders with Heights Christian Church, the church that leased space to Opera in the Heights for the last quarter century, earlier this year decided to sell their 42,600-square foot property on the west side of Heights Boulevard between West 17th and West 18th streets because of dwindling membership and financial resources.

Realtors for the church opened competitive bidding for the property and a consortium comprising Houston Saengerbund and two of Opera in the Heights’ most generous patrons emerged with the winning bid, Isomura said.

The deal for purchasing the property closed last Friday, Isomura said.

See here and here for the background. I’d never heard of the Houston Saengerbund before, but they’ve been around since 1883 and are Houston’s oldest musical society. They sponsor an annual award to support young singers, which is cool. I’m just delighted that this story has a happy ending, both for OITH and Lambert Hall itself. It’s very much not all the time that Houston cultural and architectural landmarks get preserved, but this is one of them and it’s worth celebrating. Kudos all around.

The active shooter hoax at our neighborhood school

This made for a super eventful Tuesday afternoon.

Police and panicked parents scrambled to Heights High School Tuesday afternoon, in frantic response to a false report that a gunman had shot 10 people in a room on the 2,400-student Houston ISD campus.

The school went into lock down around 1 p.m., and police officers found the room locked and immediately breached the door, according to Chief Troy Finner. Two sweeps of the school found nothing, according to the Houston Police Department.

“We have no injuries here,” Finner said at a news briefing as a crowd of parents stood at an intersection near the high school. “Thank god for that.”

Officials intend to determine who made the hoax call and hold that person accountable. Finner said police believe the call may have come from outside the school.

“There was no active shooter here — there was a fight,” said Constable Alan Rosen.

An email notified parents later that Heights High, as well as nearby Hogg Middle and Harvard and Travis Elementary schools, were placed in lockdown.

“As a precautionary measure, we went into lockdown mode,” Heights Principal Wendy Hampton said in an email to parents. “Houston Police Department and HISD Police are onsite and continue to investigate, though no evidence has been found to substantiate the threat. We take all threats seriously as the safety of our students and staff is always our top priority.”

As it happens, I had to go into the office Tuesday afternoon. I was headed out a little after 1 PM, and was on Studewood going towards the I-10 entrance when I saw three HPD cars with lights and sirens going headed the other way at full speed. I didn’t give it much thought until after I had arrived at the office, took a minute to check Twitter, and found out what was happening. I don’t currently have any kids at Heights or the other schools that got locked down, but my kids have friends there and I have friends and neighbors who have kids at all of them. It was pretty stressful, to say the least, and I had the luxury of not having to be frantic about my own kids. My thoughts today remain with those parents and those kids.

Shannon Velasquez burst into tears on Tuesday afternoon as she waited on the sidewalk near Heights High School, where her daughter and hundreds more students were locked down in their classrooms after someone made a false report about a mass shooting.

The mother knew her daughter was fine — she had spoken with the sophomore student on FaceTime as she sped to school from work.

Still, she could not shake a horrible feeling, and her frustration bubbled over as she heard conflicting information from parents and officers about where she should go to reunite with her child.

“As if this isn’t bad enough?” she said. “I just can’t wait to put my arms around my kid.”

Anxiety, panic and confusion erupted on Tuesday afternoon in the residential streets surrounding Heights High School. Personnel from at least eight law enforcement agencies sped to the scene with lights and sirens. Panicked parents rushed from jobs and lunch appointments. Some drivers ditched their cars on the grassy median along Heights Boulevard, and walked or ran several blocks to the school.

Parents gathered information from their children, other parents, news reports and officials — eventually learning that their kids were safe and the massive frenzy actually stemmed from a false alarm.

Still, some parents said they were frustrated by sparse communication from the school, district or law enforcement agencies, although HISD and law enforcement agencies have defended their response.

[…]

Luis Morales, HISD spokesman, said notifications went out to parents 23 minutes after the district became aware of the situation.

“We were able to get that out a quicker than we have before,” Morales said, adding that the district must verify information before sending out notifications.

Chief Troy Finner said during a news briefing on Tuesday afternoon that he sympathized with parents who were frustrated. But safety comes before notifications, he said.

“We have to search the school. That is the most important thing — to stop the threat if there’s a threat,” he said. “We don’t have time to call. Once we make it safe, we start making those calls.”

Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena said more than two dozen units from HFD responded to the scene. The first unit arrived two minutes after HFD received the call, he said, and quickly began coordinating a rescue team with police.

“The community expects the first responders to get on scene quickly, to get on scene and coordinate and start taking action as soon as they get on scene,” he said. “That’s exactly what we did.”

I have nothing but sympathy for the parents here. I was scrambling around looking for accurate information too, and the stakes were much lower for me. I have no doubt I’d have been out of my mind and super upset at how long it took to get updates. I also have a lot of sympathy for HISD and HPD, who were understandably reluctant to get out ahead of what they knew. I don’t have a good answer for this.

As relieved as we all are that this turned out to be nothing, we have to talk about the law enforcement response, since that is an obvious item of interest after Uvalde. In addition to HPD, there were deputies from the Precinct 1 Constable and the Sheriff’s office at the scene, and I assume there were some HISD cops as well. We do know that HPD entered Heights HS in search of the alleged shooter, which is good to know, but we don’t know more than that about who was in charge and who was making what decisions. Given what we know about the thoroughly botched response in Uvalde, this should be used as an opportunity for HPD and HISD to review their processes, make sure they have agreements in place, and so on. In the end, thankfully this was just a drill. We damn well better learn from it.

Maybe we shouldn’t pave over our best rain-absorbing wetlands

Just a thought. Even just paving over less of them might be wise.

At the far west end of Houston along the Katy Freeway, where the concrete city gives way to bigger sky and taller grass, signs advertising new master-planned communities greet you before anything else, pointing left and right to new neighborhoods going up where prairie used to be.

While Harris County officials say the new development is not happening in the floodplain — since it is built atop mounds of fill — and will not increase flood risk downstream because of drainage requirements, such as detention ponds, the fact remains that development covers the prairie sponge with concrete.

Prairies serve as natural flood mitigation, absorbing more water than other types of land, retaining water in their natural depressions and slowing down the flow with their tall grasses.

The Houston region used to be covered in that type of vegetation, back when the state’s coastal prairie was 9 million acres of grass and wetlands. Less than 1 percent of coastal prairie remains in Texas, much of it in the Katy prairie — an area difficult to define these days since it continues to shrink, but in the 1990s was roughly bounded by the Brazos River, U.S. 290, Highway 6 and Interstate 10.

After Hurricane Harvey, then-Harris County Judge Ed Emmett took a strong position on the prairie in an opinion piece published in the Houston Chronicle.

“Officials at all levels should commit to preserving the Katy Prairie as a national or state park or nature preserve,” Emmett wrote. “That single act might do more to protect our community than any other. It will not only reduce future flooding, it will send a clear signal that we have a new attitude — that we recognize the value of maximizing natural green space and we understand the importance of allowing waterways to function without interference.”

That has not happened.

In the five years since Harvey, thousands of new homes have been built on the prairie and former rice farms above the Addicks and Barker reservoirs.

The reservoirs operated as intended in Harvey, but homes upstream and downstream of Addicks flooded anyway, prompting lawsuits that still are being litigated. The flooded homes were not a surprise to those who predicted development within the reservoir and upstream of it — combined with extreme rainfall — would lead to disaster.

Today’s new development continues a trend that has been underway for decades.

Between 2010 and 2020, nearly 100,000 people moved into the Harris County portion of the Addicks Reservoir watershed — a 138-square-mile area that drains into the reservoir — increasing the population there from 295,694 to 390,402, according to the Harris County Flood Control District.

In the Katy prairie area, from 2001 to 2019, 60,404 acres changed from having no pavement to some amount of development.

You can read the rest, there are lots of pictures from Harvey and earlier times to help you visualize it all. Harris County took some small steps towards discouraging development in flood plains, but as long as the county is growing and builders are looking for new tracts of land on which to build, this is what we’re gonna get.

Houston will monitor for monkeypox in the wastewater

Seems like a good idea.

Houston will begin monitoring its wastewater for monkeypox in late August as cases of the blister-causing contagion continue to climb, health officials said.

Scientists will begin testing for the monkeypox virus in city sewage samples “starting in about three weeks,” Houston Health Department spokesperson Porfirio Villarreal said Thursday morning.

There are 152 cases in Harris County, 131 of those in Houston, the county’s Public Health Department reports. More than 6,300 Americans had tested positive for monkeypox as of Wednesday, nearly 500 of them in Texas. Many cases have been among gay and bisexual men, but the disease can be spread among anyone via close contact.

To collect the data, Houston scientists will take weekly samples from flushed wastewater at sewage treatment plants across the city. Once tested, the samples will give scientists a snapshot of which neighborhoods have the most monkeypox virus.

Health officials have used wastewater tracking to monitor COVID-19 levels in the city’s sewage since the beginning of the pandemic to understand how quickly the virus is spreading among the city’s two million inhabitants. The tracking project, a joint effort by Rice University and the Houston Health Department, offers clues to the severity of the pandemic that may be invisible in testing data.

We are familiar with the track-COVID-in-the-wastewater project, which has been a resounding success (and which is currently showing a decrease in the levels, praise be). Not clear yet if this data will show up on the same dashboard or if there will be a new one, but we’ll know soon enough. I’ll be on the lookout.

The latest COVID wave may be peaking in Houston

Hopefully

Texas Medical Center data released Tuesday suggests the latest wave of COVID-19 might have reached its peak in the Houston area, though several key metrics used to track the virus remain high.

The medical center’s weekly data report shows that COVID-19 hospitalizations, the positivity rate of coronaviruus tests and the amount of virus detected at the city of Houston’s wastewater treatment plants all trended downward for the second straight week. Those trends indicate the Houston area has likely crested the peak of a recent surge caused by the extremely contagious BA.5 subvariant, said Dr. James McDeavitt, executive vice president and dean of clinical affairs at Baylor College of Medicine.

“All the numbers are pointing to the fact that we’ve peaked maybe a week, a week and a half ago,” McDeavitt said. “I fully expect we will continue to trend down over the next several weeks.”

The line graphs from the TMC show a mountain range of peaks from prior waves of COVID-19, such as those caused by the delta and omicron variants. The latest BA.5 wave shows that after several weeks of steady climbing, the line is finally on the descent.

During previous waves, the virus did not pick up steam again after the numbers started to trend downward, McDeavitt said. He expects the same trajectory from BA.5.

It appears the current wave has at least reached a plateau, said Dr. Ashley Drews, an infectious disease specialist at Houston Methodist. The fact that the key metrics have stabilized is an encouraging sign, she said.

“We’re cautiously optimistic that things are turning in the right direction, and we’re going down,” Drews said.

[…]

During the week of July 25, TMC hospitals admitted an average of 219 patients with COVID-19 per day. That’s down from an average of 226 during the week of July 18, and 240 during the week of July 11.

However, the numbers remain much higher than they were before the emergence of BA.5. Three months ago, TMC hospitals admitted an average of 80 patients per day.

The good news is that the percentage of patients who need to be treated in an ICU remains lower than prior surges of COVID-19.

Last week, less than 14 percent of the 912 patients admitted with COVID-19 were treated in an ICU, according to TMC data. That’s lower than the percentage of patients treated in an ICU at the peaks of the omicron wave (17 percent) and the delta wave (22 percent).

[…]

The amount of virus detected at the city of Houston’s wastewater treatment plants, which has been a reliable indicator of community spread, also fell for the second straight week.

Wastewater loads reached an all-time high during the week of July 11, at 927 percent higher than a baseline established in June 2020. That fell to 774 percent during the week of July 18, and to 725 percent over the past week.

The amount of virus in the wastewater is still much higher than before the recent surge. Three months ago, it was less than 100 percent higher than the June 2020 baseline.

So, the data is starting to go in the right direction, which is good. But there’s still a lot of COVID out there, and all of the levels are still a lot higher than they were before the wave began, even if they never approached the heights of the previous peaks, and that’s bad. You should still be exercising caution, which is to say wearing your mask and avoiding indoor crowds if you can. And of course, get vaxxed and boosted as needed. We may be back on the downswing, but there’s no reason to believe we won’t trend up again at some point, and we’ve still got a ways to go to get to the lower levels we want.