Upgrading U.S. Highway 59 Amidst Flooding Concerns and Climate Change Challenges

The U.S. Highway 59, a crucial evacuation route from Houston, Texas, has faced persistent flooding issues for decades, most recently during severe floods in April that mirrored the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. Despite longstanding plans to elevate the highway to interstate standards, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has indicated that the ongoing multibillion-dollar upgrade may not fully address the flooding problem. The highway, which runs over 600 miles from Laredo to Texarkana, has been the focus of improvement efforts—known as the I-69 project—to alleviate traffic, bolster economic development, enhance safety, and improve evacuation routes. However, only the segment through Houston has been upgraded to interstate standards so far.
Significant flooding in April led to multiple closures of U.S. 59, particularly between Cleveland and Shepherd, and Shepherd and Livingston. These areas are slated for upgrades within the next four years, part of nearly $6 billion allocated for the highway’s enhancement over the next decade. Yet, TxDOT’s commitment to engineering the highway to withstand a 100-year flood event raises concerns as such floods become increasingly common, partly due to climate change. Texas A&M University’s state climatologist, John Nielsen-Gammon, has warned of a noticeable rise in extreme rainfall in East Texas, exacerbated by climate change.
While TxDOT is developing the Statewide Resiliency Plan to target critical routes for enhanced design and maintenance, it has not explicitly stated whether this plan accounts for climatologists’ warnings about more severe flooding due to climate change. The I-69 project, which extends beyond Texas to connect the Texas-Mexico border with the Michigan-Canada border, does not have dedicated federal funding for its completion in Texas, leaving the state to cover the costs.