The Greater Houston area has experienced three 500-year floods in 2015 and 2016. But flooding resulting from 2017’s Hurricane Harvey was the worst the city has experienced in its 182-year history when 51 inches of rain fell on the city within a period of three to four days. “There are more natural disasters that are happening now,” Sylvester Turner, Mayor of the City of Houston. “They’ve quadrupled since the 1970s, so we have to deal with them differently, and we are prepared to do that.”
Lessons have been learned from these natural disasters, Mayor Turner said. “One is, we don’t look back — we build forward.” Turner recommends that as Houston builds, it builds higher so as “to not be flooding our neighbors next door.” The city also needs to expand its retention basin capacity, Mayor Turner said.
Brian Coffman, President and Chief Executive Officer for Motiva Enterprises and Eric Silagy, President and Chief Executive Officer for Florida Power and Light Company joined Mayor Turner on a panel titled “Managing Through Natural Disasters: What is the new learning?”; Carlos Pascual, Senior Vice President of IHS Markit and Dr. Daniel Yergin, Vice Chairman of IHS Markit and Chairman of CERAWeek moderated the session.
Please read this article in its entirety in the June/July issue of BIC Magazine.
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Carlos Pascual, Senior Vice President of IHS Markit (left); the Honorable Sylvester Turner, Mayor of the City of Houston; Brian Coffman, President and Chief Executive Officer for Motiva Enterprises; Eric Silagy, President and Chief Executive Officer for Florida Power and Light Company and Dr. Daniel Yergin, Vice Chairman of IHS Markit and Chairman of CERAWeek
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the Honorable Sylvester Turner, Mayor of the City of Houston
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Carlos Pascual, Senior Vice President of IHS Markit and the Honorable Sylvester Turner, Mayor of the City of Houston
