HOUSTON – In the Rice Military/Washington Corridor neighborhood of Woodcrest, neighbors worry every time rain is in the forecast.
Their area fills up fast with water.
"When I hear it's raining, I start freaking out and start thinking I have to get everything off my garage floor and depending how severe it is, start cleaning out the first floor as well," Ky Exezidis, a resident of Woodcrest, said.
Along the triangle area of homes that are across from the railroad tracks, it’s not just the major weather events that bring floodwaters. They get a lot of water in the streets that comes up to their doorsteps just on a regular day of rain.
“Over the last three years, I've had water in my house twice and up to my front door three times,” said Steve Moore, another Woodcrest resident.
“One of our neighbors has a kayak, so on a normal raining day, when there's not much rain, he's able to kayak in our little area,” said Exezidis. She then points to her neighbors across the street. “They've got flooded cars and that's just a normal raining day.”
Residents blame rapid development and the drainage.
“Our side of the street, you'll see the ditches fill up, and on the other side there's no water in the ditch,” said Exezidis.
Moore said he’d like to see a city engineering team come out to their neighborhood to look at the problem.
Residents say they’ve made calls to the city asking for help, but there’s been no change to the flooding problems.
Houston's Public Works acknowledged the problem back in 2016 in an email to one of the neighbors saying:
"The area is in need of upgraded drainage infrastructure which will support the development in this area."
Ky Exezidis and her boyfriend have their own solution for now.
"If, at all, we see something on the news about flooding, we're out of here with the cars," said Michael Owen, a Woodcrest resident.