On the brink of overflow during Hurricane Harvey, the Army Corp. of Engineers decided to open the floodgates of the Barker and Addicks Reservoirs. While opening the floodgates did prevent the reservoirs from overflowing, it also led to rapid downstream flooding. Bryant was engaged to investigate to what extent the devastating flooding that occurred to the structures downstream during Harvey was caused by the release of the reservoir floodgates as opposed to runoff from the storm.

As part of its investigation, our team of hydrologists and engineers used HEC-RAS and TR-55 to delineate the watersheds and model the flooding produced by the release of the floodgates. To confirm the accuracy of our model, we calibrated it to the United States Geological Survey gaging stations. Using our model, we were able to determine the precise amount of additional flooding property owners experienced due to the floodgate release.