Update: I knew I should have considered my sources when I took Jim Schutze’s blog post seriously, but fortunately city council meetings are recorded and Steve Thompson has provided some useful facts for those of us, including me, who did not attend this week’s city council committee hearings. (I’ve tweaked the language immediately below to reflect details from the video.)
Jill Jordan never said she had been told a decision was imminent to reduce Dallas’ flood protection goal to a 500-year standard. She said a discussion has been underway at the national level to perhaps change the flood-protection goal to a 500-year standard, but it appears she was talking about the possibility that standards for staying off of high-risk areas on FEMA maps could get tougher, not weaker. That’s not entirely clear but what is clear is that she quite definitely did not say a change of any kind had been decided or was imminent, and doesn’t even appear to be talking about levees. She’s talking about a proposal that may or may not happen. Here’s the video, thanks to Thompson:.
Update: Jill Jordan’s response is included in the post below, at the end.
Update: This post has been updated to reflect the observations of Steve Thompson, who works with Rudy Bush as part of The News’ two-man city hall bureau. He provides a transcript of Jill Jordan’s comments below.
Jill Jordan, the assistant city manager overseeing most things related to the Trinity River Corridor Project, said the other day that she had been told by federal officials that it had all but been decided in Washington that the flood protection goal for the Trinity River levees would soon be lowered from their original design of 800-year protection to 500-year protection.
That was the report from Jim Schutze over at the Dallas Observer, who was at the meeting while I was not.
It’s worth noting that it has been decades since the Corps has been confident that the levees would protect against a flood of either severity, but throughout all the years the plans for levee improvements have been kicked around, one factor has been constant: The goal of the massive effort should be to return the levees to the original level of protection, namely make them strong enough to withstand a flood so severe it is thought to have only a 1 in 800 chance of occurring each year.
That’s big time protection. Not The Netherlands kind of protection, but for America that is a very serious investment. To give you an idea, right now, the city is scrambling to pay for tens of millions of dollars in repairs just to convince someone to agree the aging levees will protect against a 100-year flood.
Jordan’s point, according to Schutze, was that Washington officials had decided to lower the goal to a 500-year standard.
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