How can so much flooding result from so tepid a storm?

Brownwood has flooded before, from hurricanes. In 1961, Hurricane Carla had devastated the area, causing $4 million worth of damage. As residents rebuilt from that storm, area officials proposed a giant levee to wrap the subdivision and its surrounding bays.

The levee would be 25 feet high, five miles long, and isolate Burnett, Crystal, and Scott Bays from rising tides. The Houston Ship Channel was being enlarged, and officials speculated that the dirt unearthed from the dredging could be used to build up the levee.

Shortly after Hurricane Carla, Jean Shepherd had made a small discovery. She and her husband were considering selling a house they had bought across the street from their own home. To qualify for FHA loans, the house had to sit 11 feet above sea level. In 1954, records showed them, the threshold was at 14 feet. But now, eight years later, it had dropped to 9 and a half.

What was wrong? The Shepherds checked the benchmarks. It was true: the land was sinking, and fast.

Years later, after she had become president of the Brownwood Civic Association, Mrs. Shepherd would use this photograph to show what subsidence meant.

It's an old well pump. When it was poured, the concrete base was flush with the ground. It seems to have raised up, but that's just a matter of perspective.

It's the earth that's sunk.

As waters recede from the Valentine's Day Flood, subsidence becomes more than just a dirty litle secret known to geologists and a few unlucky homeowners. Residents and elected officials again petition for the levee, and ask the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study their problem.

Brownwood, geologists figure, has subsided more than 5 feet by 1969. That's a lot, but some areas of Houston have fallen even further. There's just one critical difference about Brownwood:

The lapping water is just a few feet away.

No one can know it for certain yet, but already the subdivision's fate is sealed.

How did Brownwood fall so far?

Well pump, probably near Humble, Texas, 1976. Photo courtesy Brownwood Civic Association archives.

Water crashing at sea wall, J.T. and Suzanne Brown House. Photo courtesy Brownwood Civic Association archives.