Mayor Turner announces plan to mitigate effects of flooding in Meyerland

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Mayor Turner will ask city council for a $43 million loan to mitigate flooding along the Brays Bayou in Meyerland.

In a move aimed at tackling Houston's ongoing flood problems, Mayor Sylvester Turner and County Judge Ed Emmett held a press conference in Meyerland Tuesday.

Turner will ask city council to approve a $43 million loan, Wednesday, to mitigate flood risk along Brays Bayou. If approved Turner says "the city will in turn advance the 43 million dollars to the flood control district to help pay for bridge replacements and channel widening from the Brays Watershed from Buffalo Bayou to Fondren Road."

This area is continuously devastated by flooding and a community demanding solutions.

Residents say the water rose over the hoods of their cars. They now have USAA stickers on the windshields. They're a total loss and won't even start.

"The water was in the house, it wasn't as bad this time as it has been in previous floods but it doesn't matter. It's like being pregnant, it doesn't matter if it's one month or eight months, you're still pregnant, a flood is still a flood," says Mark Katzenellenbogen.

Mayor Turner also addressed the 1,000,000 gallons of flood water released into White Oak and Buffalo Bayou's.

"I've said to public works let's find ways that we can minimize these SSO's, sanitary sewage discharges because it's simply, I mean you don't want t to happen, but because of our topography and because we do flood we run the risk of these SSO's, but it's unacceptable, it's raw sewage, I agree, and we are going to take every corrective step that we can in order to minimize these SSO's," said Mayor Turner.