An Examination of the Impacts of Hurricane Harvey on Water Utility Operations and Planning

Abstract

Hurricane Harvey stalled over Southeast Texas for the better part of a week in August 2017. During that time, the Category 4 storm produced unprecedented amounts of rainfall throughout the region, causing extensive flooding in and around the major metropolitan centers of Houston and Beaumont/Port Arthur. This study seeks to understand how water utilities learn from such flooding events by engaging several utility managers from the area, as well as the control locations of Tampa/St. Petersburg and Pensacola, Florida, in semi-structured interviews focused on the innovations they have implemented since Harvey. Through a comparison of the innovations adopted in Texas to those implemented in Florida, the impact of the storm on water utility operations and planning is examined. Ultimately, it is found that utilities in both states have adopted an array of educational, financial, infrastructural, programmatic, and technological innovations since 2017. However, the reality that those water utilities affected by Hurricane Harvey have implemented more environmental innovations than their unaffected counterparts in Florida suggests that water utilities do in fact learn from flooding events. This finding has important ramifications for sustainability transitions theory and practice, as well as climate resilience efforts.

Keywords: Hurricane Harvey, water utilities, sustainability transitions, innovation, resilience