Builders Said Their Homes Were Out of a Flood Zone. Then Harvey Came. A New York Times examination found that in the years leading up to Hurricane Harvey, with a surging local economy fueling demand for new upscale housing, the developers of The Woodlands had used a wrinkle in the federal flood-mapping system — along with many dump trucks’ worth of dirt — to lift dozens of lots out of the area officially deemed prone to flooding. “Our name for it is not The Woodlands, it’s Concrete Land.” The company stated that “the senior development team is ‘essentially the same team’ that has worked on The Woodlands for 25 years.” Tim Welbes, co-president of The Woodlands Development Company, said the company had complied with FEMA standards for its homes, but that the neighborhood had been overwhelmed by the storm’s waters. The former edges of the flood plain run through what are now the lots of Ms. Martinez and Mr. Hickey, the longtime Woodlands resident who once worked for Mr. Mitchell and had built a new home in the neighborhood. “The shrinkage of the flood maps,” she said, “is always treated in a very positive way.” As early as 2006, The Woodlands filed a plan for a new subdivision on thousands of acres containing “wooded areas and a few rural home sites,” according to documents obtained from Harris County. “It’s still got risk.” His observation was borne out in striking fashion in the neighborhoods covered by the two map revisions examined by The Times: Eighty of the 81 homes within those areas near Spring Creek — which flows through The Woodlands — sustained some degree of flooding, according to FEMA statistics.
