Officials watching 'high risk' dams after Houston storms

HOUSTON (AP) — Two aging dams deemed "extremely high risk" by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are at record pooling levels in Houston's west side after this week's torrential rainfall, but are working well and have undergone improvements in recent years, authorities said Wednesday.

The dams — at 50 percent capacity — are classified as high risk only because they're about two decades beyond their life expectancy and in a populated area, said Corps spokeswoman Sandra Arnold.

In the unlikely event that the dams collapse, downtown and the highly populated area in sprawling west Houston would likely see deaths as well as $60 billion in property damage, said Richard Long, a project operations managers with the Corps.

Creeks and streams getting runoff from the rain have continued to rise above their banks, prompting neighborhood flooding and additional evacuations on Wednesday by residents from homes and apartment complexes.

While the dams are not expected to reach 100 percent capacity, part of the reservoirs are on public property, meaning that additional water that comes into the reservoirs from rivers and streams is expected to flow into surrounding public roadways and some subdivisions, possibly flooding a number of homes, Long said.

The Corps of Engineers' recent improvements on the dams include additional filters to control seepage, additional lighting and emergency power "to have around the clock ability to operate the dams and to ensure their inspections and function when we get pools like we're having right now," Long said.

Despite reassurances by the Corps on the integrity of the dams, there still remains a worry the structures might fail, said Jim Blackburn, a Houston environmental attorney who in 2011 filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Sierra Club related to reducing runoff into the two reservoirs.