The Commonwealth Residents,
The First Colony Levee Improvement District No. 2 (FCLID2) Board of Directors and our District Operator and Engineer have been monitoring the National Weather Service reports and the USGS river forecast for the Brazos River high-water event for the past week.
The Brazos River is currently forecasted to crest at 45.3 feet in Richmond, Texas just above Minor Flood stage, on Friday evening into Saturday morning and then slowly start to recede. At that level, we still have about 5 more feet of river rise before reaching Major Flood Stage for Fort Bend County. Even at Major Flood Stage, our levee system is still well above the level needed to protect our Commonwealth Community.
The current river level outside of our levee is about 4 feet higher than the inside level of Alcorn Lake at the District’s Pump Station. Gravity outflow of the rainwater from the interior of Commonwealth has ceased because of the river height against our flood gates. We are currently performing maintenance pumping this morning which will lower the Lake Alcorn level to help maximize the storage capacity in our internal lake system with the forecast for rain Sunday through Tuesday.
The District has an Emergency Action Plan (EAP) with multiple levels of operation and manpower requirements. Currently FCLID2 is at the second lowest readiness level of the EAP and our operators have tested the district’s pumps and generators. Should river levels rise more than currently predicted or more rainfall be predicted, we are prepared to step up operations as dictated in our Emergency Action Plan.
The bottom line is FCLID2 is closely monitoring the Brazos River levels and weather forecasts and we are prepared to implement stepped up operations as dictated in the Emergency Action Plan if required.