Topic: You are a Texas resident who has personally experienced or has a family member or friend who has experienced a problem in your community that you believe should be addressed and remedied.Only...

Running Head: Floods in Texas        1
Floods in Texas         11
FLOODS IN TEXAS
Table of Contents
The Issue    3
Responsible Boards    4
Analysis    4
Causes of flood    4
Effect on public    5
People affected    6
Cost of damage caused    6
Risk and danger    6
The experience of other public entities    7
Current policy of the affected community    8
Proposed policy    9
Benefits of the proposed policy    9
Summary    10
References    11
The Issue
    Widespread flooding is observed in the Brownsville city of Texas due to prolonged rainfall in the area for several days. The situation arises not only by prolonged rainfall in the area but also by debris jam which causes the rivers and streams to overflow flooding the surrounding areas and the streets of Brownsville. It has been observed that melting snow combines with the rainwater in winter and early spring season causing the rivers to overflow and flood the streets of Texas. Moreover, tropical cyclones also bring intense rainfall, which creates havoc on the streets of Brownsville in Texas.
    Flash floods occur within 6 hours of heavy rainfall or failure of a dam or by blockage of the drains. This creates a lot of disturbance in the daily routines of the residents of the area and causes damage to life, property, roads, transmission and power generation. These floods do catch the unprepared people accounting to a heavy loss of human lives and property. These deadly floods may fill the streets of Texas with water without any warning. This has become an issue of major concern for the government as well as for the water development board. Serious remedial actions need to be taken to ensure safety of people and their properties living in the region.
Fig 1: Floods in Texas
Responsible Boards
    Three agencies have been identified who are responsible to develop and implement policies and to create infrastructure that will help to save the devastation, which the floods cause in major part of Texas. These three agencies responsible to take the remedial as well as the mitigation actions are The Governor’s Division of Emergency Management, The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and The Texas Water Development Board. These three boards have the authority to change the current policies or to implement new policies to control floods in the region.
Analysis
Causes of flood
    The major reason of flooding on the streets of Brownsville city is the urbanization process, which has converted the fields and woodlands into parking lots and roads. This has left a very small area available with soil, which can absorb the rainwater when it rains heavily in the region. One of the major regions of flood is the intensity and duration of rainfall (Broody, Lee & Highfield, 2017). Moreover, soil conditions, topography of the area and covering of the grounds are responsible for creating such devastating conditions.
    Flash floods in the region are caused by thunderstorms, which move slowly. Repeated movement of these thunderstorms over the same area cause heavy rainfall along with hurricanes and tropical cyclones. Another major cause, which has been identified, is the blockage of drains because of the debris, which may flow along with the water into the drains. Therefore, it can be said that both human and nature are responsible for floods in Texas.
Effect on public
    Floods in Texas particularly in the city of Brownsville and Houston have affected the day-to-day routine and lives of people largely. During the periods of flooding in the urban regions, streets become rivers where water flows swiftly. Basements of building often become death traps as they fill with water. A heavy loss of life, buildings, roads, transmission lines and power lines is caused. As mentioned in The Herald, Brownsville received 6 to 12 inches of rainfall in juts few hours causing a lot of devastation in the area.
According to the report of the National Weather Service, the floods of June 2018 kept the city on a hold for almost four days. Damage accounting to millions of dollars has been recorder to property and...