The Fort Bend County Office of Emergency Management is trying to clarify a mandatory evacuation order issued overnight for several subdivisions in the Barker reservoir area.
The order caused lots of confusion among residents in the area because some of the neighborhoods it included were completely dry and officials had even said the water wasn't expected to go any higher.
The agency's spokesperson said they primarily issued the mandatory evacuation in order to make sure people with already flooded homes wouldn't try to return home quite yet.
LIST: Evacuation shelters
"It's just not safe to go back there yet," Alan Spears said.
While that might've been the agency's goal, it led to plenty of confusion especially because the order came down in the middle of the night.
The pool elevation of Barker is not increasing, it has actually fallen slightly overnight...no additional house flooding is expected #houwx
— Jeff Lindner (@JeffLindner1) August 31, 2017
Spears said they hope to get an updated evacuation map online within the next hour so residents will truly know if they should evacuate.
The areas now under mandatory evacuation includes:
CANYON GATE – all sections
CINCO RANCH – following sections: Bayou Park Estates, Cinco Forest, Equestrian Village, Fountain View, Greenway Village, Institutional Core, Southpark Meadow Place, North Lake Village, Plaza Subdivision, West Section 7, Willow Fork
GRAND LAKES – all sections
KELLIWOOD – following sections: Courts, Fairways, Greens, Links, Park, Pointe Terrace
RICEFIELD VILLAGE
WILLOW FORK – Greens, Section 1
There is an interactive map on the Fort Bend County OEM website where citizens can type their address and see if they are in a mandatory evacuation area.
If you are a resident in the evacuation zones and you do not have transportation or a place to go you should call Fort Bend Office of Emergency Management at 281-342-6185 and request assistance with the evacuation.
The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers is currently forecasting a record pool elevation level in the Barker Reservoir several feet above the levels in the Tax Day flood of 2016.