Community
BY HANNAH BROL
"Most people don’t have a clue about the power of moving water; I have a healthy respect for it." BOB REHAK, REDUCE FLOODING NOW
Pictured is the conuence of Spring Creek (left) and the West Fork of the San Jacinto River (right). Rehak said the color contrast between the two rivers is due to sand mining operations that are upstream the West Fork of the San Jacinto River.
PHOTOS COURTESY BOB REHAK
Get to know Kingwood’s ooding expert Bob Rehak
Areas of advocacy In addition to advocating for funding for the San Jacinto River Watershed, Rehak pushes for: • Upstream detention, dredging and higher outflow capacity on Lake Houston • Updating development regulations in neighboring counties • Requiring abandonment plans for sand mining operations • Prohibiting senior living facilities from being built in floodplains • Implementing flood warning systems
It’s been 3,165 days since Hurricane Harvey, and if there’s one person who won’t let Kingwood residents forget, it’s Bob Rehak. Since launching his website “Reduce Flooding - NOW!” nearly nine years ago, Rehak has become synonymous with ood mitigation eorts in Kingwood. Posting on his website nearly every day, Rehak said he has published the equivalent of more than 25 average-length novels. Community Impact sat down with Rehak to learn more about the writer behind the blog and the inspi- ration that fuels his passion for ood mitigation. The backstory A self-proclaimed “child of the wind,” Rehak said his father’s military career moved his family to places like Pennsylvania and Germany. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from Northwestern University, and later went into advertising working for major Chicago agencies before moving to Dallas with his wife in 1980. “I bought a beautiful house that was on Spring Creek and looked out over the Richardson golf course,” Rehak said. “And even though I was prom- ised that it was 2 feet above the 100-year oodplain, within two years it ooded.” Rehak said the Army Corps of Engineers resur- veyed the creek to nd out why the area was ooding in minor rainfall events and found the culprit to be upstream development. “Floodplains are dynamic, not static, and they’re
constantly changing,” Rehak said. “And in the case of the house I had in Dallas, in the span of three years ... it went from 2 feet above the 100-year oodplain to 10 feet below it.” The catalyst Rehak and his wife sold the Dallas house and relocated to Houston before settling in Kingwood. “I bought the [house] farthest from the river on the highest ground, [and] thank God I did, because during Harvey, ooding stopped at our driveway,” Rehak said. With Harvey serving as a kind of “wakeup call,” Rehak said he launched his blog in early 2018 to educate people about the causes of ooding and lobby for ood mitigation. “When the oodwater went down, I went out with my Nikon, and I photographed everything I could nd to create a record of what it was like because I knew people weren’t going to remember it forever,” Rehak said. The approach In the blog’s infancy, Rehak said he rented helicopters on a monthly basis to take inventory of the San Jacinto River Watershed. While he still takes the occasional helicopter tour today, much of his observation work can be done via drones. “This is my way of giving back to the community,” Rehak said. On the lobbying side, Rehak works with
www.reduceooding.com
government ocials to lobby for ood mitigation, serving as Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey’s representative on the Harris County Community Flood Resilience Task Force. During a September town hall, Houston City Council member Fred Flickinger honored Rehak for his work in the Kingwood area with a proclamation from Mayor John Whitmire declaring Sept. 30, 2025 to be Bob Rehak Day in Houston. What’s next Currently, Rehak is working on a new “Lessons” section of his website that summarizes everything he’s learned since Harvey. He said the new section may inspire him to wrap up a book he’s been working on. With or without a book though, Rehak said he’ll continue writing. “Nothing has really changed in the watershed, and I’m not going to stop until it does,” Rehak said.
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LAKE HOUSTON HUMBLE KINGWOOD EDITION
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