Nine Years After Harvey, Now Is the Time to Prepare - New Caney

Published: Aug 31, 2026, 2:44pm

Nine years after Harvey, the tropics are quiet and that's exactly why residents should clear their yards now.

Forecasters have downgraded the 2026 season twice. But the Atlantic's peak is still three weeks out, and the quietest year on record still put a Category 3 hurricane into Galveston Bay.

August 25, 2017 marked nine years since Hurricane Harvey came ashore at Rockport and stalled over Southeast Texas, dumping the rain that put our creeks over their banks and left north Harris and Montgomery County homeowners hauling ruined drywall, furniture, and fencing to the curb for months.

This year, the forecast looks nothing like 2017. NOAA's updated outlook, issued Aug. 6, calls for 7 to 13 named storms, 2 to 6 hurricanes, and as few as zero major hurricanes. A step down from its own May numbers, and a 75% chance the season finishes below normal. The reason is a record-strength El Niño in the Pacific, with water temperatures running more than 2°C above average and generating the high-altitude wind shear that tears Atlantic storms apart before they organize.

That is genuinely good news. It is not the same thing as an all-clear.

The quietest season on record still flooded Houston

The 1983 Atlantic season produced four named storms — the fewest of the satellite era, and the quietest since 1930. It was suppressed by the 1982–83 El Niño, the closest historical analog to what's happening in the Pacific right now.

One of those four storms was Hurricane Alicia, which came ashore near Galveston as a Category 3 on Aug. 18, 1983. It killed 21 people, caused $3 billion in damage in 1983 dollars, and blew out enough windows in downtown Houston to shower the streets below with glass.

A quiet season means fewer storms. It does not mean a weaker one, and it says nothing about where the ones that do form will go. The statistical peak of the Atlantic season falls on Sept. 10 — still ahead. Tropical Storm Imelda, which flooded parts of the Houston area in 2019, made landfall on Sept. 17, later still.

Southeast Texas has already had two brushes this year. Tropical Storm Arthur came ashore in Matagorda County on June 17 and tracked directly over the Houston metro, with forecasters warning of 5 to 10 inches of rain and isolated totals near 20; two people died in flash flooding in Central Texas as the system moved through. Tropical Storm Bertha followed in the Gulf. Both formed in what is, on paper, a below-normal year.

What to clear before the peak

"The calls we get after a storm are almost always about things people already knew about," said the owner of Clearout Junk, a junk and debris removal company serving Spring, Klein, Tomball, New Caney, Porter and the surrounding north Harris County area. "The rotted fence section. The pile of lumber behind the shed. The garage nobody's been able to park in for two years. None of it is a surprise. It just becomes an emergency."

Cleanup professionals — echoing general preparedness guidance from the Harris County Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management — suggest residents walk the property this month and deal with:

Loose yard items. Patio furniture, planters, grills, kids' toys, and lawn decor become projectiles in high wind. Secure them, move them indoors, or get rid of the ones already broken.
Aging fences. Sections that are loose or rotted now are the ones that come down, and they frequently take a neighbor's panels with them.
Tree limbs and dead vegetation. Branches overhanging rooflines, dead trees, and brush crowding structures should be trimmed and hauled. Champions, Oakwood Glen, and the older subdivisions along FM 1960 are particularly tree-heavy — and nine years of growth since Harvey has not made them less so.
Garage and shed clutter. Homes near Cypress Creek and Spring Creek sit in some of north Harris County's most flood-prone ground. Mattresses, cardboard, and damaged furniture absorb water and turn into heavy, mold-laden loads that cost more to remove after the fact than before.
Construction debris. Leftover lumber, drywall, shingles, and old roofing from finished projects should not still be stacked in a side yard in September.

Disposal options for north Harris County residents

Because some of our area is unincorporated, those residents don't have a single city bulk pickup program to fall back on. Several options exist:

Private waste haulers already servicing the home, though most cap volume per pickup and refuse certain materials, including construction debris.
Harris County precinct cleanup events, which periodically accept yard waste and bulky items. Residents can confirm their commissioner precinct and its current schedule at harriscountytx.gov.
Harris County Household Hazardous Waste collection events, held through the year for paints, batteries, and chemicals that can't go curbside.
Full-service junk removal, which handles loading, hauling, and disposal in one visit — generally the fastest route for clearing a full yard or garage at once.

The bottom line

The 2026 season will very likely end below normal. Whether it ends quietly for any particular area is a different question, and one no seasonal forecast can answer.

"Harvey wasn't a busy-season problem, it was a one-storm problem," the owner said. "You only need one. And you can still control what's sitting in your yard when it shows up."