Close call with storm renews debate over Houston barrier

GALVESTON, Texas (AP) — Houston, a Gulf Coast city that barely rises above sea level, has long worried about a worst-case weather scenario — a direct hit from a powerful storm that sends a wall of water barreling into the region's petrochemical facilities, possibly triggering an environmental disaster.

When it was spared a blow from Hurricane Laura last month, the city breathed a sigh of relief. Now the close call has renewed a debate about whether the Houston area should build a massive and expensive barrier to protect against storm surge.

Even if such a barrier had been in place, it would have offered no protection this week from Tropical Storm Beta, which flooded roads and filled waterways.

“No hurricane storm surge barrier will ever protect us from 150 mph winds. No hurricane storm surge barrier will ever protect us from rain,” said Bob Stokes, president of the Galveston Bay Foundation, an environmental group. “So really every storm is different, and there is no silver bullet.”

The nation's fourth-largest city floods frequently because it does not have enough infrastructure to handle heavy rain. The area has developed rapidly in a way that sharply reduced the natural wetlands that could soak up storm water runoff. Its Depression-era drainage systems are woefully inadequate.

Bill Merrell, a marine sciences professor at Texas A&M University at Galveston who first proposed the coastal barrier, believes storm surge is a grave threat that has been ignored for too long.

“We’re overdue for a Laura ... We’re starting to see pretty convincing evidence we will have stronger hurricanes” due to climate change, said Merrell, who nicknamed the proposed barrier the “Ike Dike,” after 2008's Hurricane Ike.

Merrell spoke earlier this month in Galveston,...