The Floodwater Came Up Faster Than the Forecast Said It Would
The water came up faster than the forecast said it would. Maybe your street became a river in twenty minutes. Maybe your car stalled on the feeder road and the water was already at the door handle. Maybe you are reading this from a hospital bed, or from a shelter cot, or from a kitchen where the high-water mark is still visible on the cabinet doors. If a member of your family did not come home from this storm, we are sorry. We have sat at kitchen tables with families in this exact situation after Hurricane Harvey, after Tropical Storm Allison, after the Tax Day Flood. There is no right thing to say. There are only the next steps.
The first step is to understand what Texas law actually allows, and what deadlines are already running while you read this. The second step is to preserve what can still be preserved, because surveillance video overwrites in days and government records are subject to retention schedules that may purge your case within weeks. The third step is to talk to a trial lawyer who has built these cases before, in this region, against these defendants.
This page is the first step. We will walk you through what just happened, why this part of the Texas coast floods the way it does, who can be held legally responsible when the water kills or injures someone, what deadlines you cannot afford to miss, what evidence is disappearing right now, and what to do in the next seventy-two hours to protect a family that may have a claim worth pursuing.
The first thing to understand: a tropical storm or a flash flood is not automatically an “act of God” that nobody is responsible for. The cases we have studied in this region were not just weather events. They were infrastructure failures with names attached. Drainage systems that had not been maintained. Reservoirs that released water when they should not have. Evacuation orders issued too late, or not at all. Decisions made years before the storm that turned a flood into a catastrophe.
If you lost a family member, if you were injured, or if you are looking at a home that was ruined while the family down the street got a buyout and you got nothing, you are not asking the wrong question. You are asking the question at exactly the right time.
What Just Happened Along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast
On the morning of June 17, 2026, the National Hurricane Center designated a tropical disturbance in the northwest Gulf of Mexico as Potential Tropical Cyclone One. The system was positioned roughly 35 miles southwest of Port O’Connor, Texas and 255 miles southwest of Lake Charles, Louisiana, drifting northeast at about 6 miles per hour with sustained winds of 30 miles per hour — just below the 39 mile-per-hour threshold required for a tropical storm name. The Hurricane Center projected the system would track northeastward along the Texas coast before making landfall in southwestern Louisiana by Wednesday night, with possible strengthening to a named tropical storm and weakening once inland.
The forecast rainfall totals told the real story: 5 to 10 inches across the mid- and upper-Texas coast east-northeast through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, western Georgia, and the Florida Panhandle through Thursday, with isolated maximums approaching 20 inches. A tropical storm warning covered the Louisiana coast from Sabine Pass to Morgan City. A tropical storm watch extended from Sabine Pass west to Sargent, Texas. Roughly 56 million people across the South were inside what meteorologists called an excessive rainfall corridor — including Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and New Orleans, cities where flash flooding is not a hypothetical.
The forecast also flagged potential disruption to FIFA World Cup events scheduled for Wednesday in Houston. Ticketed spectators gathering at NRG Stadium, Minute Maid Park, and other venues were inside a flash flood warning zone, and the responsibility for protecting those spectators falls on the venue operators and the event organizers, not on the weather.
A few things make this event different from a typical summer thunderstorm, and worth understanding now. First, the rainfall rates. Five to 10 inches in a 24-to-48-hour window is not a rainstorm; it is a wall of water moving across pavement, parking lots, and saturated soil that cannot absorb another drop. Second, the geography. The same stretch of Texas coast that has absorbed Tropical Storm Allison, Hurricane Ike, the Memorial Day Flood, the Tax Day Flood, and Hurricane Harvey is in the forecast cone again. Third, the timing. June is the start of the Atlantic hurricane season, but it is also the start of a season in which Houston’s bayous, retention ponds, and storm sewers are already saturated from spring rains. A system that would be a manageable event in October becomes a catastrophe in June.
What the forecasts did not capture — and what the next seventy-two hours will reveal — is how the actual water moved: which bayou crested first, which intersections flooded, which neighborhoods were cut off, which evacuation routes became impassable, and which homes and businesses took the water that did not drain.
That is what a lawsuit has to reconstruct. And the records that will let us reconstruct it are being written and overwritten right now.Why Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast Flood the Way They Do
Houston does not flood the way other American cities flood. The reason matters to your case.
The first reason is the ground. Houston sits on flat, clay-rich coastal prairie that drains poorly. There are no natural slopes to move water toward the bayous. Water that falls in west Houston has to travel miles through a constructed system of channels, storm sewers, and detention ponds before it reaches the ship channel and the Gulf. When the system is overwhelmed, the water has nowhere to go except up, into homes, businesses, and vehicles.
The second reason is the bayou network. The Houston region is bisected by more than 1,700 miles of bayous and channels. The major ones are familiar names to anyone who has lived here through a flood event: Brays Bayou, White Oak Bayou, Buffalo Bayou, Sims Bayou, Hunting Bayou, Greens Bayou, Clear Creek, and the tributaries. Each is a flood corridor, and each has a designed capacity that the Harris County Flood Control District maintains — when funding and will permit.
The third reason is subsidence. Decades of groundwater extraction across the Houston region have caused the land itself to sink in many areas, by as much as 8 to 10 feet in some places since the 1920s. Areas that were above the 100-year floodplain in 1980 are inside it now. FEMA flood maps have not kept pace. Neighborhoods that thought they were safe have been surprised by Harvey and by every storm since.
The fourth reason is the reservoir system. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operates two federal reservoirs in west Houston — Addicks and Barker — built in the 1940s to protect the city from a major flood on Buffalo Bayou. Harvey tested the system in a way the designers never anticipated, and the controlled releases that followed the storm became the largest federal flood case in U.S. history, with thousands of downstream property owners suing the Corps for damages caused when the reservoirs had to be released. That litigation, consolidated in federal court, is still teaching the country what the government owes the people who live behind its levees.
The fifth reason is the storm history. Texas has absorbed more billion-dollar flood disasters than any other state. The data is public and on the record: Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, with inflation-adjusted losses near $9 billion. Hurricane Ike in 2008, near $30 billion. The Memorial Day Flood of 2015, $2.7 billion. The Tax Day Flood of 2016, $1.6 billion. Hurricane Harvey in 2017, $125 billion — the costliest natural disaster in American history, which dropped more than 60 inches of rain in some areas and flooded more than 150,000 homes in the Houston region alone.
If you are standing in one of those homes right now, you are not the first. But that is not a reason to abandon your rights. It is a reason to understand the pattern, and to recognize that the same drainage study, the same retention pond, the same storm sewer that was supposed to protect you, may be the same one that did not.
Who Can Be Held Legally Responsible for a Flood Injury or Death
A natural disaster is not, by itself, a legal defense. Texas law has recognized for more than a century that an “act of God” — a fortuitous, unexpected event — does not excuse a defendant whose own negligence contributed to the damage. The question is never “did it rain.” The question is “did the rain cause what it caused because somebody else had a duty they failed to perform.”
Here is the map of who can be on the other side of the courtroom in a Texas Gulf Coast flood case.
Cities and counties. The City of Houston and Harris County are the most common governmental defendants. Their drainage systems, storm sewers, and detention ponds are their responsibility to design, maintain, and operate. When a known-flood-prone intersection floods again, despite decades of studies recommending fixes, that is evidence of negligence. When a retention pond fills and overflows because its outfall has been blocked, that is evidence of negligence. When a city knows a road floods in a 2-year storm and does not post a barricade, that is evidence of negligence. Fort Bend County, Brazoria County, Galveston County, the City of Port Lavaca, Calhoun County, and the municipalities inside them are subject to the same rules.
The State of Texas and TxDOT. State-controlled highways, state-operated storm drains, and state-managed reservoir release protocols are the responsibility of the Texas Department of Transportation and other state agencies. Claims against the state proceed under the Texas Tort Claims Act, with its strict procedural requirements, which we will explain in the next section.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Addicks and Barker reservoir operations are a federal responsibility, and claims against the Corps for negligent operation proceed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which requires an administrative claim be filed with the agency first, on Standard Form 95, before any lawsuit can be filed. The Corps has sovereign immunity except where Congress has waived it, and the waiver here is narrow — but real. Property damage and personal injury caused by negligent operation of the reservoirs are within the waiver, and the post-Harvey litigation has shown that these cases can be brought and won.
Private developers and landowners. Texas Water Code §11.086 and the common law of nuisance create liability for upstream development that alters historical drainage patterns, increases impervious cover without adequate detention, or discharges stormwater onto neighboring properties during a storm. If a subdivision built upstream of your neighborhood increased the runoff by paving over fields, and your home flooded for the first time after the development was completed, the developer may owe you for the damage.
Property owners — hotels, apartments, commercial landlords. Premises liability is the doctrine that holds a property owner responsible for failing to exercise reasonable care to keep the premises safe, including the responsibility to evacuate known-vulnerable occupants before a foreseeable storm. Hotels flooded during Harvey produced significant wrongful-death and injury litigation when guests were not evacuated in time. If you were staying at a hotel, an apartment, or a short-term rental when the water came up, and the property owner did not act, that is a potential claim.
Event organizers and venues. The FIFA World Cup events scheduled in Houston for Wednesday introduce a specific set of potential defendants. NRG Stadium, Minute Maid Park, and any other venue operating during a flash flood warning owes ticketed spectators a duty of reasonable care — including the duty to cancel, delay, or shelter in place if conditions become dangerous. If you were injured at a venue during the storm and the venue did not follow its own weather contingency plan, that is a potential negligent-undertaking claim.
Your own insurance company — and the National Flood Insurance Program. Standard homeowner’s insurance does not cover flood damage. Most homeowners in the risk area carry a separate flood policy through the National Flood Insurance Program, administered by FEMA but serviced by private insurance companies that participate in the “Write Your Own” program, often called WYO carriers. The NFIP has its own claim procedures, deadlines, and maximums. The standard residential policy caps building coverage at $250,000 and contents coverage at $100,000. Private flood insurance and commercial property policies carry different limits. The claims process has its own playbook, and we will walk through it below.
The Texas Tort Claims Act Has a Six-Month Deadline Most People Never Hear About
If a government entity caused or contributed to your flood injury or death, you do not get to file a regular lawsuit right away. You have to give written notice first, under the Texas Tort Claims Act, and you have to do it fast.
Here is the statute, verbatim:
“A governmental unit is entitled to receive notice of a claim against it under this chapter not later than six months after the day that the cause of action accrues.” — Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §101.101(a)
The cause of action accrues on the day of the injury, not the day you finish grieving, not the day the water finally drains, not the day you hire a lawyer. If your mother drowned in a flooded intersection on June 17, 2026, the six-month clock started running on June 17, 2026, and it runs out on December 17, 2026. Miss the notice, lose the claim — full stop. There is no equitable tolling, no “I didn’t know,” no saving it later.
The notice has to be in writing, has to describe the time, place, and circumstances of the injury, and has to be delivered to the right person. For a claim against Harris County, the notice goes to the Harris County Attorney. For a claim against the City of Houston, it goes to the City Secretary. For a claim against the State of Texas, it goes to the Office of the Attorney General. For a claim against TxDOT, it goes to the district engineer. For a claim against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, you file an SF-95 administrative claim with the Corps first, under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
The Texas Tort Claims Act also caps damages against governmental units. The caps are low. The cap on non-economic damages — pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of consortium — is $250,000 per person and $500,000 per single occurrence. Economic damages — medical bills, lost wages, funeral expenses — are not capped. For a wrongful death case against Harris County involving a working-age adult, the economic damages alone can run into the millions over a work-life expectancy, but the non-economic recovery against the governmental defendant is hard-capped.
This is why your case will not end with the TTCA defendant. If a private property owner, a developer, a hotel, or another private party contributed to the damage, that defendant is not subject to the cap. The full damages are recoverable from a private defendant, including punitive damages where the conduct is gross, malicious, or fraudulent.
The TTCA cap, the six-month notice, and the strict procedural requirements are why we start the clock on day one. They are also why the next section — evidence preservation — is the single most important thing you can do in the first seventy-two hours.
Evidence Is Disappearing Right Now — The Seventy-Two-Hour Clock
Storm evidence has a shorter half-life than almost any other kind of personal-injury evidence. The records that will let us prove your case are being created and overwritten at this moment. Every hour of delay is evidence lost that we cannot get back.
Here is the inventory, with the clock for each.
National Hurricane Center advisories, forecast discussions, and NWSChat transcripts. These are the government’s own record of what was forecast, when, and where. They are the foundation of a foreseeability claim — did the government know the storm was coming, and did it act? The NHC advisories are archived, but NWSChat and the social-media record of the National Weather Service can be edited or deleted within hours. We pull and screenshot all public advisories one through six right now.
Harris County Flood Control District rain gauge and bayou level data. The HCFCD operates the Flood Warning System, with rain gauges and bayou-level sensors across the county logging at 5-to-15-minute intervals. The data is retained, but the raw telemetry downloads are time-sensitive. We demand the original format data within 48 hours.
TxDOT traffic camera footage and TranStar Houston feeds. This is the visual record of what the road looked like, minute by minute, on the afternoon the water came up. TxDOT camera feeds typically overwrite within 24 to 72 hours. If you were injured on a state-controlled road, on an I-10 service road, on US-59, or on a TxDOT-maintained intersection, the camera from that location is the most important piece of evidence that exists. The preservation letter goes out within the first 24 hours.
HPD, Harris County Sheriff, and Texas DPS incident reports and CAD logs. First responder records establish the official time of injury, the location, the victim’s condition when found, and the names of witnesses. Texas Public Information Act requests take one to two weeks to process, but preservation letters preserve against the routine purges that happen on government schedules.
Houston Fire Department swift-water rescue logs, U.S. Coast Guard rescue records, and 911 audio. These establish the scope and timing of life-threatening conditions and the government’s response. Audio recordings are subject to retention schedules that may purge within 30 days.
Commercial surveillance video from hotels, gas stations, convenience stores, parking lots, and residences. This is the most perishable evidence of all. Most commercial surveillance systems overwrite on a 7-to-30-day rolling buffer. After a major storm, the hotels and gas stations along I-10, I-45, and US-59 hold footage of water depth, flow rate, abandoned vehicles, and trapped motorists. The Marriott on the Katy Freeway. The Shell on the North Freeway. The Buc-ee’s. The Whataburger. The Walmart Supercenter. We send preservation letters to the named properties today, with the case caption, the date, and the demand to preserve all footage from the relevant time window. If we do not send the letter, the footage is gone in two weeks and we cannot get it back.
Cell phone location data and vehicle event data recorder (EDR) downloads. The cell towers held by AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile can establish the exact location of a phone at the moment of injury or rescue. Carriers preserve only on legal demand. EDR data from the victim’s vehicle — if it has not been submerged beyond recovery — captures the seconds before impact with standing water. Preservation letters go out immediately.
Meteorological expert reanalysis. The NOAA NEXRAD Level II radar data, the HRRR and NAM model runs, and the local storm reports from the National Weather Service are downloadable but should be archived in their original format now. A top-tier meteorology expert can reconstruct rainfall intensity and timing at a resolution the public forecasts never reached.
Social media posts, Facebook Live videos, and bystander footage. Real-time visual evidence from the storm is being posted and deleted right now. We use the platform-specific preservation tools and the Internet Archive to lock down what is there.
Reservoir release records from Addicks, Barker, and the Brazos River Authority dams. These records are the foundation of any claim against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or the Brazos River Authority. We file FOIA requests to the USACE Galveston District and open-records requests to the BRA within the first 30 days.
If you have any of this evidence in your own possession — photos, video, dashcam footage, social-media posts from bystanders — do not edit it. Do not crop it. Do not post it and then delete it. The metadata is part of the proof. Send it to us as-is.
What To Do In the First Seventy-Two Hours
The first seventy-two hours after a flood injury or death are not a time for careful deliberation. They are a time for triage. Here is the order.
One: medical first. If you or a family member is injured, get to a hospital. Drowning, near-drowning with brain injury, electrical injury from downed power lines, crush injury from structural collapse, and sepsis from contaminated floodwater are all time-sensitive conditions. The medical record is also the foundation of the legal case — the first treating physician’s notes are the most important evidence of injury severity in the file. Do not delay care to talk to a lawyer.
Two: preserve the scene. If a family member drowned in a vehicle, do not let the vehicle be moved, repaired, or scrapped until a preservation team has documented it. If someone was injured in a building, do not let the property owner repair the flooded area. If a roadway is the site, do not let the governmental entity resurface it. Take photos and video of everything, from multiple angles, with timestamps. Get the names and phone numbers of every witness.
Three: apply for FEMA assistance. If the President has declared a federal disaster — and a storm of this scale in the Gulf Coast will produce one within days — you can apply for FEMA Individual Assistance at DisasterAssistance.gov or by calling 1-800-621-3362. The application is not a substitute for a legal claim, and the assistance amounts are small, but FEMA eligibility is sometimes a prerequisite to other federal benefits, and the FEMA application date is the government’s record that you were displaced.
Four: do not give a recorded statement to the other side’s insurance carrier. The adjuster will call. The adjuster will sound friendly. The adjuster will want to “just get your version of what happened” on a recording that will be played back to a jury years from now to impeach you. The adjuster is not your advocate. Refer every call to us. If you have already given a statement, we can work around it, but it is much harder.
Five: do not sign anything. No releases, no settlement agreements, no “authorization to release records” from the insurance company, no waivers from the property owner. We review every document before it is signed.
Six: do not post about the storm on social media. No photos of the flood damage, no videos of the rescue, no commentary about who was at fault, no statements about your injuries. The other side’s lawyers are watching. The surveillance starts now.
Seven: call us. 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. There is no fee unless we win. We will start the preservation letters the same day.
What Your Case Is Worth — and Why the Damage Caps Are Not the End of the Story
A flood injury case is not a car-wreck case. The damages stack up differently, and the categories that matter most are the ones most plaintiffs never think about.
Wrongful death damages. Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §71.002, the surviving spouse, children, and parents of a person killed by the wrongful act of another may recover:
- Mental anguish suffered by the survivors
- Loss of companionship, society, and guidance
- Loss of the decedent’s earning capacity
- Funeral and burial expenses
- Medical expenses incurred between injury and death
- In some cases, exemplary (punitive) damages where the conduct was grossly negligent, malicious, or fraudulent
A wrongful-death case against a governmental defendant in Texas is capped at $250,000 per person for non-economic damages under the Texas Tort Claims Act. Economic damages — the lost wages over a work-life expectancy, the funeral expenses, the medical bills — are not capped. For a working-age adult with dependents, the economic damages alone can run into the millions. Against a private co-defendant, there is no cap.
Survival damages. Under §71.021, if your loved one survived for any period between the injury and death — even minutes, even hours — the estate may bring a separate survival action for the pre-death pain and suffering, the medical bills, and the lost earnings between injury and death. This is in addition to the wrongful-death claim. Most families do not know it exists.
Personal injury damages. For the survivor — the one who came home from the hospital — the recoverable damages include past and future medical expenses, lost wages and earning capacity, pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of consortium, and disfigurement. A near-drowning with hypoxic brain injury can produce lifetime care costs that dwarf the value of any individual home. Comparable Hurricane Harvey cases with severe traumatic brain injury have produced eight-figure recoveries in sympathetic venues. Burn cases from electrocution and chemical exposure, amputation cases from crush injuries, and post-traumatic stress cases from the rescue itself are all categories the law recognizes.
Property damage. The firm focuses on personal injury and wrongful death. Property damage alone is generally not our practice, but if your injury or your family member’s death is connected to a property loss, the property loss is part of the damages. We can refer you to firms that handle property-only claims.
Punitive damages. Texas allows punitive damages where the defendant acted with gross negligence, malice, or fraud. The cap, under §41.008, is the greater of $200,000 or two times the economic damages plus non-economic damages up to $750,000. Punitive damages are not recoverable against a governmental unit under the Texas Tort Claims Act, but they are recoverable against private defendants. The kind of conduct that supports punitive damages in a flood case includes a developer who knowingly built in a floodway without adequate detention, a property owner who kept guests in a known-flood-prone structure, or a hotel that refused to evacuate despite an active warning.
Case value in context. Individual flood-related verdicts and settlements in Texas have ranged from low six figures for modest claims to eight-figure wrongful-death and TBI cases. The Harris County MDL after Harvey coordinated thousands of individual cases. Comparable mass-tort events have produced settlement pools in the hundreds of millions. The exact value of your case depends on the strength of liability, the severity of the injury, the available insurance, and the defendant mix. We will give you an honest, case-specific answer in the first conversation, not a range designed to make you feel good.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Insurance Company Playbook After a Major Flood
The first call you will receive after the water recedes is from an insurance adjuster. Sometimes two or three. The adjuster may work for the National Flood Insurance Program’s Write Your Own carrier, or for your homeowner’s insurance company, or for the property owner’s commercial liability carrier. The adjuster will be warm, professional, sympathetic, and working from a script designed to settle your case for as little as possible, as fast as possible, before you understand what you have lost.
Here is the playbook, named play by named play, and the counter to each.
Play 1: the “act of God” denial. The adjuster will tell you that flood damage is an “act of God” and that nobody is responsible. This is legally false. An “act of God” is a defense, not a bar. It fails when the defendant’s own choices contributed to the damage — when the city knew the intersection flooded and did not post a barricade, when the developer knew the runoff pattern and built anyway, when the hotel knew the rooms were below the 100-year flood elevation and kept guests there. The counter: we do not accept the label. We investigate the human decisions that turned a flood into your injury.
Play 2: the quick lowball offer. Within 30 to 60 days, the NFIP or the private carrier will send an estimate. The estimate is almost always low. The adjuster will offer a small number, framed as a “full and final” settlement, and ask you to sign a release that ends the case forever. The counter: do not sign. We retain a public adjuster or an independent estimator, document the full scope of the loss including code upgrades, temporary housing, and contents, and file a supplemental claim. Many initial flood offers are underpaid by tens of thousands of dollars. If your claim is denied or undervalued, our insurance claim practice handles the dispute end to end.
Play 3: the recorded statement. The liability adjuster for the other side will call to “understand what happened.” The adjuster is building a record. The questions are calibrated to pin percentage points of fault on you — for not evacuating, for driving into standing water, for not having flood insurance, for choosing to stay in a flood-prone home. The counter: you do not give a recorded statement. You refer the call to us. If you have already given one, we work around it.
Play 4: the surveillance. If your case is a significant one, a private investigator may follow you, photograph you, and try to catch you lifting something, walking without a limp, or doing anything that contradicts your injury claim. The counter: live your life, but be aware you may be watched. Do not do anything on video that you would not want a jury to see. The surveillance cuts both ways — we can use it to show that you are not as recovered as the defense claims.
Play 5: the delay. The carrier knows that displaced families run out of money. The carrier’s best friend is your mortgage payment, your temporary housing costs, and your children’s school supplies. The longer the carrier delays, the more likely you are to accept a low offer out of desperation. The counter: we keep the pressure on with written demands, bad-faith documentation under the Texas Insurance Code, and the threat of extracontractual liability.
Play 6: the damage-cap wall. If the defendant is a governmental unit, the adjuster will tell you the case is worth at most $250,000 per person. This is true as to non-economic damages against the governmental unit, and false as to the rest. The counter: we identify the private co-defendants, pursue the full damages against them, and structure the settlement so the cap does not define the case.
Knowing the playbook is half the battle. Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance defense firm, in the rooms where these plays were designed and where the reserves were set. We have run the playbook in reverse for years, and we know which plays work, which fail, and how to turn the adjuster’s own script into evidence of bad faith.
How a Flood Case Is Actually Built, From the Day You Call to the Day the Number Arrives
A flood case is not a car-wreck case with different facts. It is a different kind of case, built on different evidence, by different experts, against different defendants, in front of different juries. Here is how we build one.
Week one: preservation. Within 24 hours of being retained, we send preservation letters to every potentially responsible party. The City of Houston. Harris County. The State of Texas and TxDOT. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Brazos River Authority. The hotel or property owner. The developer. The commercial video holders along the corridors. The cell carriers. The hospitals. The letter demands preservation of every record, document, email, text message, log, and video that could relate to the storm and the injury. The letter cites the specific Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code provision (or the federal analog) and warns that destruction of evidence will result in spoliation sanctions and a separate tort claim.
Weeks two through four: records. We file Texas Public Information Act requests to every governmental entity. The requests are written to demand specific categories of records: drainage studies, floodplain maps, maintenance logs, evacuation orders, detention pond inspections, storm sewer specifications, prior incident reports, traffic camera footage, 911 audio, CAD logs, and swift-water rescue reports. We FOIA the Corps. We obtain the FEMA disaster declaration and the Individual Assistance program records. We collect the NHC advisories and the NWS local storm reports. We retain a certified meteorologist to archive the radar data.
Months one through three: experts. We retain the experts. A forensic meteorologist to reconstruct the storm at high resolution. A civil engineer specializing in hydrology and hydraulics to analyze the drainage system and the bayou levels. A reservoir operations expert to analyze the Addicks/Barker release decisions. An emergency management professional to evaluate the evacuation orders. A life-care planner and an economist to project the future damages. Each expert produces an initial report within 60 to 90 days, addressing their piece of the case.
Months three through six: the complaint. We file the lawsuit before the statute of limitations runs. The TTCA notice has already been filed; we are now within the 60-day waiting period under §101.102 before serving the governmental defendants. The petition alleges negligence, gross negligence, premises liability, and where the facts support it, a takings claim against the federal government for the reservoir operations. We name the private co-defendants in the same petition if the facts support their inclusion.
Months six through twelve: discovery. We serve written discovery on every defendant, demanding the internal communications, the engineering studies, the maintenance budgets, the prior incident reports, the evacuation planning documents, and the personnel files of the decision-makers. We take depositions under oath of the city engineers, the county flood control staff, the TxDOT district engineer, the Corps operations officer, the property owner, the developer’s engineer, and the eyewitnesses. Each deposition is a sworn statement we can use at trial.
Months nine through fourteen: expert reports and mediation. Once the expert reports are exchanged, mediation is scheduled. The mediator, often a retired judge, evaluates the case against the comparable Hurricane Harvey and Tropical Storm Allison verdicts and the available insurance. The Stowers demand letter — a Texas doctrine requiring an insurance carrier to settle within policy limits when a reasonable settlement offer is made — is the pressure point against the primary carriers when the damages clearly exceed the cap. Mediation resolves a meaningful percentage of these cases. The ones that do not resolve proceed to trial.
Trial. Harris County, Galveston County, Brazoria County, and Fort Bend County juries have personal experience with flooding. They have lived through Harvey, Allison, the Tax Day Flood. They know what standing water on a feeder road looks like. They know what a barricaded street looks like. They know what a flooded home looks like. Voir dire explores their personal flood experience, their insurance-claim history, and their attitudes about government spending on flood control. The trial is won or lost on the timeline exhibit — the radar reconstruction overlaid on the flood-control map overlaid on the road network overlaid on the plaintiff’s location. The jury sees, minute by minute, where the water was, where the warnings were, where the barricades should have been, and where the plaintiff was. That exhibit, in a sympathetic venue with a credible plaintiff, is what produces verdicts the carriers cannot ignore.
We have walked this path before. We know where the evidence is, how to get it, and how to present it.
Meet the Trial Lawyers Who Handle These Cases
The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — known to most of our clients as Attorney911 — was founded in 2001 on a single idea: people in a legal emergency deserve someone who picks up the phone right now, not next Tuesday. That is the only kind of law we practice. We are trial lawyers, not volume settlers. When you call, you talk to a person who can do something about it.
Ralph P. Manginello is the firm’s managing partner. He has spent more than 27 years in courtrooms, including federal court, fighting for families on their worst day. Before he was a lawyer, Ralph was a journalism student at the University of Texas at Austin, and before that he was a starting point guard on a New England prep school championship basketball team — a competitor who learned early that you do not show up to lose. Ralph is admitted to the State Bar of Texas and to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, the federal-trial admission that matters in cases against federal defendants like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Our track record includes participation in the BP Texas City refinery explosion litigation, and the firm has recovered more than $50 million for Texas families over the last quarter-century. Ralph hosts the Attorney 911 Podcast and fronts a YouTube channel of more than 290 educational videos so that families can hear a lawyer explain their rights in plain English before they ever pick up the phone. You can read more about Ralph on his attorney page.
Lupe Peña is the firm’s associate attorney and the reason we know the insurance playbook from the inside. Lupe spent years inside a national insurance defense firm, in the rooms where adjusters, defense counsel, and valuation software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims just like yours. He knows how Colossus-style settlement software undervalues injuries. He knows how the recorded statement is engineered. He knows how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours. He now runs that playbook in reverse, for the family. Lupe is bilingual — he serves clients fully in Spanish — and he is admitted to practice in federal court, the reach that matters when the defendant is a federal agency. He grew up in Sugar Land, a third-generation Texan with roots tying to the King Ranch, and he is raising his family in the same community he defends. You can read more about Lupe on his attorney page.
We handle flood injury and wrongful death cases alongside our other practice areas, including 18-wheeler and commercial vehicle crashes (where commercial trucks get stranded in floodwater), wrongful death claims for families who lost a loved one, brain injury cases arising from near-drownings, and insurance claim disputes against the NFIP and private carriers. Our full practice is described on our practice areas page.
The consultation is free. The case is handled on contingency — no fee unless we win. We are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Hablamos Español. Call 1-888-ATTY-911.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to file a flood injury or wrongful death claim in Texas?
Two years from the date of injury under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §16.003, with one critical exception. If a government entity is a defendant — a city, a county, the state, a state agency, or in some circumstances the federal government — you must give written notice of your claim within six months of the date of injury under the Texas Tort Claims Act §101.101, or your claim against that governmental entity is permanently barred. For claims against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, an administrative SF-95 claim must be filed with the Corps within two years under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The six-month TTCA notice is the most-missed deadline in Texas personal injury law, and the one we start working on the day you call.
Can I sue the city, county, or state for flood damage or a flood-related death?
Yes, with limits. The Texas Tort Claims Act waives sovereign immunity for property damage, personal injury, and death caused by the negligent acts or omissions of governmental employees acting within the scope of their employment involving motor vehicles, premises defects, or discretionary acts that rise to gross negligence. The act imposes a $250,000 per person / $500,000 per occurrence cap on non-economic damages against governmental units, and it requires the six-month pre-suit notice described above. Economic damages — medical bills, lost wages, funeral expenses — are not capped.
What if I was driving when floodwater hit my car?
You may have a claim against the governmental entity responsible for maintaining the roadway and posting barricades, and against any private property owner whose actions contributed to the flooding. Texas applies a 51% modified comparative negligence rule under §33.001. If you are 50% or less at fault, you can still recover. If you are more than 50% at fault, your recovery is barred entirely. The question of whether you should have known not to drive into floodwater is contested in every case and depends on the signage, the warnings, the time of day, the visibility, and what the official barricades showed. We retain accident-reconstruction and human-factors experts to make the record.
How much is my flood injury or wrongful death case worth?
It depends on the strength of liability, the severity of the injury, the available insurance, and the defendant mix. A wrongful death case against a governmental defendant is capped at $250,000 per person for non-economic damages, but the economic damages — lost wages over a work-life expectancy, medical expenses, funeral costs — are not capped and can run into the millions for a working-age adult. Against a private co-defendant, there is no cap. Comparable Hurricane Harvey-related verdicts and settlements in Harris County have ranged from low six figures for modest claims to eight-figure recoveries for severe TBI and wrongful death. We will give you a case-specific answer in the first conversation, with an honest assessment of the strengths and weaknesses.
Do I have to accept the National Flood Insurance Program’s first offer?
No. The NFIP has its own claim procedures, including the right to submit additional documentation, the right to hire a public adjuster, and the right to file suit against the NFIP in federal court if your claim is denied or undervalued. Many initial flood offers are underpaid by tens of thousands of dollars. The standard residential flood policy caps building coverage at $250,000 and contents coverage at $100,000; private flood insurance and commercial property policies carry different limits. Do not sign a release until we have reviewed the policy and the offer.
What if my homeowner’s insurance company denies my claim?
Standard homeowner’s policies typically exclude flood damage, but they may cover wind damage, structural damage from a covered peril, and additional living expenses. If your homeowner’s claim is denied, we review the policy language, the denial letter, and the adjuster’s report for bad-faith indicators. Under the Texas Insurance Code and the common law, an insurer that denies a claim without a reasonable basis may be liable for the policy benefits, plus statutory penalties, plus attorneys’ fees. We handle insurance bad-faith claims as part of our practice, alongside the underlying injury case.
Can I sue a private developer or upstream landowner for the flooding?
Potentially. Texas Water Code §11.086 and the common law of nuisance create liability where upstream development altered historical drainage patterns, increased impervious cover without adequate detention, or discharged stormwater onto neighboring properties. If a new subdivision, a commercial development, or a road project upstream of your property increased the runoff that flooded your home, the developer, the engineer, and the general contractor may be liable. We investigate the historical drainage, the development approvals, the engineering studies, and the detention pond design.
What should I do in the first seventy-two hours after a flood injury or death?
Get medical care first. Preserve the scene. Take photos and video of everything. Get the names of witnesses. Apply for FEMA assistance. Do not give a recorded statement to the other side’s insurance adjuster. Do not sign any release or waiver. Do not post about the storm on social media. Call a lawyer. The consultation is free, and the case is handled on contingency — there is no fee unless we win. We start the preservation letters the same day you call.
What if a family member drowned in floodwater?
You may have a wrongful death claim under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §71.002 against any negligent party whose conduct caused or contributed to the death, and a separate survival action under §71.021 for the period between injury and death. The defendants may include the governmental entity responsible for the roadway, the property owner where the drowning occurred, the developer whose work contributed to the drainage failure, and any other party whose negligence played a part. The case is not limited to the place where your loved one was found; it extends to every decision that made the place dangerous.
Can I sue a hotel that kept guests in a flood-prone building?
Yes, under a premises-liability theory. A hotel owes its guests a duty of reasonable care, including the duty to evacuate when dangerous conditions are foreseeable. If the hotel knew or should have known that the rooms were inside the 100-year floodplain, that a flash flood watch had been issued, or that a mandatory evacuation order had been issued for the area, and it did not act, that is a basis for liability. Hurricane Harvey produced significant litigation against hotels and short-term rental operators in the Houston area, and the cases resolved for the families who pursued them.
What if I was injured at the FIFA World Cup event in Houston?
If you were injured at NRG Stadium, Minute Maid Park, or another venue during the storm, you may have a claim against the venue operator, the event organizer, and any third-party contractor responsible for crowd management or evacuation. The duty owed to ticketed spectators includes the duty to follow the venue’s own weather contingency plan, the duty to communicate warnings, and the duty to provide safe shelter or evacuation. We are gathering evidence from the World Cup events and will be in a position to evaluate individual cases shortly.
Is this just an “act of God”?
In many cases, no. Texas law recognizes the act-of-God defense, but the defense fails when the defendant’s own negligence contributed to the damage. A flood is an act of God. A drainage system that was not maintained, a road that was not barricaded, a reservoir that was released without warning, a hotel that kept guests in a known-flood-prone building — those are not acts of God. Those are human decisions, and the people who made them may owe you for what happened. We do not accept the label. We investigate the decisions.
Get Help Now
If a member of your family was injured or killed in the Texas Gulf Coast flooding from Potential Tropical Cyclone One or any earlier storm this season, do not wait. The six-month Texas Tort Claims Act notice deadline is running. The surveillance video is overwriting. The witnesses are forgetting. The FEMA application window is open. The insurance adjuster is calling.
We are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The consultation is free. The case is handled on contingency — no fee unless we win. Hablamos Español. Call 1-888-ATTY-911, or reach us through our contact page.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The information on this page is legal information, not legal advice for your specific situation. Talking to us does not create an attorney-client relationship. The relationship is created only when we agree in writing to represent you. Until then, do not send us confidential information.
This page is the first step. It is not a substitute for the conversation. The conversation is free. Make the call.