A visit to Houston on Friday by the Dutch queen highlighted a long friendship between Texas and the Netherlands that grew from their fight against a mutual enemy: flooding.
While meeting with Houston's mayor, Queen Maxima learned how the Netherlands has worked with local officials on efforts to mitigate the impact of flooding following the deadly destruction that Hurricane Harvey wreaked on the city in 2017. Harvey dumped more than 50 inches of rain on parts of the Houston area. The storm caused $125 billion in damage in Texas.
Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city, floods frequently because it doesn't have sufficient infrastructure to handle heavy rain. Development of the area has sharply reduced the natural wetlands that previously soaked up storm water run-off. Every hurricane season, the Texas Gulf Coast faces potentially devastating storms. Hurricane-fuelled storm surges can pose a flooding danger to the Houston Ship Channel, which is home to 40% of the nation's petrochemical industry.
The barrier system, which borrows from a similar project nicknamed the "Ike Dike" and was first proposed by a Galveston professor, is expected to soon get final approval by Congress before being forwarded to President Joe Biden for his signature. Funding for the nearly $31 billion project, which could take up to 20 years to build, would have to be approved separately.
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