That projection was made Thursday, Aug. 24, 2017, as Harvey barreled toward Houston. The next day's Army Corps forecast was even more worrisome: Both Barker and Addicks reservoirs would spill beyond government-owned land, engulfing nearby homes and businesses.
The Corps did not share these predictions with the public.
It wasn't until Saturday, Aug. 26, that authorities in Fort Bend County -- after being briefed on the latest Army Corps forecast -- issued the first flooding advisory for neighborhoods adjacent to Barker.
It took Harris County officials until late Sunday, Aug. 27, to begin issuing similar warnings for communities upstream of both Barker and Addicks. By then, some neighborhoods were already inundated. Many residents ended up fleeing on foot or being rescued in boats or military vehicles.
The forecasts, closely held internal records, have emerged six months after Harvey through discovery in a lawsuit in which thousands of homeowners are seeking compensation from the Army Corps, which operates Barker and Addicks dams and their reservoirs. The Houston Chronicle obtained copies of the documents.
They are sure to revive debate about whether the Corps and local officials acted quickly enough to alert homeowners to the danger of reservoir flooding and to urge evacuations.
Ultimately, the forecasts proved largely accurate. More than 9,000 homes and businesses were flooded by the reservoirs -- at least 4,000 upstream of Barker and 5,000 to 6,000 upstream of Addicks, according to a Chronicle analysis of damage reports.
County made advisory
Fort Bend and Harris County officials said they were not informed of the Corps' initial Aug. 24 forecast.
"If they were predicting that on Thursday, they were not advising us of that fact," Fort Bend County Judge Robert Hebert said in an interview.
Hebert said the county received the next day's forecast, but he said the Corps characterized it as internal and preliminary. County officials say the forecast issued Saturday, Aug. 26, was so alarming that they decided to issue an advisory the same day, citing the Corps' projections.
Hebert said the county did so despite objections from Corps officials, who wanted the forecast kept confidential. Fort Bend County also activated its reverse 911 system to reach out to thousands of property owners near Barker Reservoir.
Harris County Judge Ed Emmett declined to comment. People familiar with his role in the emergency response say Emmett was not briefed on the Corps' forecasts.
Efforts to obtain comment from the Corps were unsuccessful. The Chronicle emailed questions to a Corps spokesman on Tuesday. He had not provided responses as of Wednesday night.
One of the reservoir-adjacent homes that was flooded during Harvey belongs to Harry Ershad, a computer programmer and musician. He said it was frustrating to learn that as early as Aug. 24, the Corps had developed a detailed picture of how Barker Reservoir would fill his Canyon Gate neighborhood.
Ershad said that with just a few hours' notice, he, his wife and their two sons could have saved their four cars, most of their musical instruments and their home recording studio. Instead, he said, nearly everything was ruined.
By the time Fort Bend County issued its Aug. 26 advisory, Ershad's neighborhood had been swamped. He and his family had to wade out through neck-high water, he said.
"We got out with our laptops and our passports, and that's it," he said.
The flooding forecasts were generated by the Corps Water Management System, which crunches information about rainfall, weather forecasts, river conditions and other data to guide the Army Corps in managing its dams and reservoirs.
The Aug. 24 forecast showed that Harvey would cause the volume of water in Barker Reservoir to exceed what could be stored on government-owned land beginning Tuesday, Aug. 29, and lasting for more than two weeks.
When that forecast was issued, Fort Bend and Harris counties were preparing to open emergency operations centers and Harvey's rains had not yet arrived.
Once the emergency centers opened Aug. 25, the Corps sent staff members and gave daily updates to Harris and Fort Bend county officials and Houston city officials. But the Corps told the local officials not to make any of the Corps Water Management System forecasts public, said Jeff Braun, emergency management coordinator for Fort Bend County.
Flooding of homes begin
The Aug. 25 forecast showed the water level in Barker Reservoir reaching 100 feet. Water begins to spill into neighborhoods when the level exceeds 95 feet, according to Corps records.
The forecast generated on Saturday, Aug. 26, said homes upstream of Barker would begin to flood on Monday, Aug. 28 -- a day earlier than previously predicted. The projection for Addicks indicated that some homes in low-lying neighborhoods could fill with 7 or more feet of water and remain flooded for weeks.
Both Harris and Fort Bend counties issued formal evacuation orders Aug. 30. By then, neighborhoods near the reservoirs had been inundated for days.
Attorneys representing homeowners in flood-related lawsuits in the U.S. Court of Claims want to know why the forecasts weren't shared with the public sooner.
"The tragedy is an earlier warning could have allowed people to get out and get their property out," said Charles Irvine, of Irvine & Conner, one of the lead lawyers for property owners upstream of the reservoirs.
"This confirms that when a storm comes, the Corps can use its own modeling to predict exactly how much government-stored water will impact the upstream community. I can't speak to why the Corps didn't give the residents an earlier warning. But clearly the Corps anticipated the flooding on upstream private land from the Addicks and Barker dams before the rains even really started."
James Blackburn, another Houston attorney who has long been active in flooding matters and who recently founded a related nonprofit called the Bayou City Initiative, said a congressional investigation was warranted.
"This is a bona fide public policy debacle," he said. "Were Harris County and Fort Bend County officials getting information and not alerting the public -- or were they not getting the information? Or did they get the information and did the Corps ask them not to spread it around?"
Home found in ruin
Thousands of people like Ershad hunkered down to wait out Harvey because they were not told to evacuate and didn't know their neighborhoods could be flooded by the reservoirs. When Ershad left Canyon Gate, the streets were impassable but only his garage had flooded. He and his family returned 13 days later to find their home ruined. They had no flood insurance.
"I lost 15 years of compositions of music," he said.
Addicks and Barker dams were built in the 1940s to protect downtown Houston from flooding. The earthen structures are designed to hold storm runoff from the vast Buffalo Bayou watershed and release it into the bayou at a controlled rate.
The government acquired thousands of acres of land behind the dams to serve as reservoirs, but the dams can hold back more water than can fit on that land. Over the decades, tens of thousands of homes were built on the edges of the government-owned property.
When the reservoir pools exceed the government-owned land -- an extremely rare occurrence -- water has nowhere to go but into adjacent neighborhoods. That's what happened during Harvey.
As far back as 1995, the Corps studied ways to reduce this risk. The options included deepening the reservoirs, buying out thousands of properties and building more reservoirs. The Corps never acted on any of them.
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