These Houston entrepreneurs and startups are searching for flooding solutions

Flood tech

From a water-absorbing tower to sensor-enabled rubber ducks, here are some flooding solution ideas coming out of Houston. Courtesy of Gensler's ByDesign

The feeling is all too familiar for Houstonians. Tropical Storm Imelda hit Houston with devastating flood waters just two years after Hurricane Harvey did its damage.

With any obstacle or challenge, there is room for innovation. Over the past year, InnovationMap has covered various flood tech startups in Houston. Here are six innovations that can make a difference the next time a storm decides to take its toll on Houston.

Self-deploying flood protection for buildings

FloodFrame's technology can protect a home or commercial building from flood water damage. Photo via floodframe.com

A self-deploying flood damage prevention device caught Tasha Nielsen's eye on a trip to Denmark, and then launched the U.S. iteration of FloodFrame to bring the technology here.

FloodFrame works by using buoyancy. A lightweight cloth is wrapped around a tube is installed underground outside the perimeter of your home or business. One end of that cloth is attached to a box that is also installed underground. As flooding begins, an automatic system will release the lids to deploy the inflation of the tube that will protect the structure. When the flood comes in, the system will float on top of the flood — kind of like a pool noodle — and protect the structure from the water.

FloodFrame adds a level of security during flooding events and can be considered more cost-effective when compared to the high cost of renovating or rebuilding after flooding.

"Right now we are focused on residential but I think there's a huge potential for it to go commercial. A lot of commercial buildings are self insured, and commercial developers, industrial developers, this would be a drop in the bucket for the overall cost of the entire project," Nielsen tells InnovationMap. "For homeowners, it's kind of a bigger expense, but I think there is the potential for homebuilders to include it as an option in the entire package of a new house because when you put it in to a mortgage, it's only another like $0.50 a month."

A waterproof container for your car.

After the floods from Hurricane Harvey totaled her car, Rahel Abraham wanted to find a solution. ClimaGuard/Facebook

Floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey seriously damaged about 600,000 vehicles in the Houston area, which included Rahel Abraham's 2008 Infiniti G35. Now, Abraham's brainchild forms the backbone of her Houston-based startup, ClimaGuard LLC. The company's waterproof, temperature-resistant, portable Temporary Protective Enclosure (TPE) can entirely cover a compact car, sedan, or midsize SUV. It comes in three sizes; the cost ranges from $349 to $499.

To protect a vehicle, someone sets a TPE on the ground, a driveway, or another flat surface, then drives the vehicle onto the bottom part of the product, and connects the bottom and top parts with the zipper. Abraham likens it to a clamshell preserving a pearl.

"My goal is not to make it to where it's an exclusive product — available only to those who can afford it — but I want to be able to help those who it would make even more of an economic impact for," Abraham tells InnovationMap.

A network to find shelter.

Reda Hicks create GotSpot — a digital tool that helps connect people with commercial space with people who need it. Courtesy of GotSpot

It only took a natural disaster for Reda Hicks to make her startup idea into a reality.

"I had been thinking on what it would be like to help people find space to do business in and how businesses find a way to stay in business a long time," Hicks tells InnovationMap. "But, I was afraid of the tech."

Hicks, who has practiced law for almost 15 years, wanted to create a website that allows for people with commercial space — a commercial kitchen, conference room, spare desks, etc. — to list it. Then, space seekers — entrepreneurs, nonprofits, freelancers, etc. — can rent it. When Hurricane Harvey hit, Hicks was kicking herself for not acting on her idea sooner.

"It was really Harvey and having so many people desperate to find space for emergency purposes that made me realize there are so many contexts in which people need space right away for something specific," she says. "Certainly the primary user is the entrepreneur trying to grow their business, but there are so many other reasons why a community would need better access to the space it already has."

Now Hicks is growing GotSpot in hopes that short-term rental space and emergency housing can be smooth sailing no matter the circumstances. Recently, the company was named a finalist for MassChallenge Texas in Austin.

A water-absorbing tower.

Fil Trat would be able to absorb water, filter it, and release it into the body of water when the time comes. Courtesy of Gensler's ByDesign

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, many Houstonians began to think of solutions for the next time Mother Nature struck with her full-force of flooding. Gensler designers Chelsea Bryant, Jordan Gomez, Luisa Melendez, Barbara Novoa, Benjamin Nanson, Maria Qi, and Melinda Ubera created a solution as a part of Gensler's By Design program called Fil Trat. The tower can absorb, filter, and store flood waters until the bayou is ready for the water to be released — cleaner than it was before.

During Harvey, thousands of people were displaced, but Fil Trat has a solution for that too. The tower's floors would alternate between filtration floors and shelters, which could house up to 24 families per floor.

While the suggested Houston locale would be by Buffalo Bayou, the group suggests putting the tower in other coastal cities at risk of devastating flooding.

Sensor-enabled rubber ducks that can track weather developments.

Sensor-enabled rubber ducks might be the solution to keeping track of major weather events. Courtesy of Project Owl

Nearly two years after Hurricane Harvey battered the Houston area, a flock of electronic "rubber ducks" flew above homes in Katy in a broader endeavor to keep first responders and victims connected during natural disasters.

Developers and backers of Project Owl, an Internet of Things (IoT) hardware and software combination, conducted a pilot test of this innovation June 1 — the first day of this year's hurricane season. In the Katy test, 36 "ducks" took flight.

"So, our technology can be deployed to help communities that have been destroyed after natural disasters by providing quickly accessible communications network to coordinate and organize a response," Bryan Knouse, co-founder and CEO of Project Owl, tells InnovationMap.

The DuckLink network comprises hubs resembling rubber ducks, which can float in flooded areas if needed. It takes only five of these hubs to cover one square mile. This network sends speech-based communications using conversational systems (like Alexa and Facebook Messenger) to a central application. The app, the Owl software incident management system, relies on predictive analytics and various data sources to build a dashboard for first responders.

Restored native wetland coastal prairies.

Memorial Park Conservancy is gearing up to unveil one if its first projects within its 10-year master plan redevelopment. Photo courtesy of MPC

Before it was the fourth largest city in America, Houston was a prairie. That type of ecosystem — thick with prairie grass — is very absorbing when it comes to rain water. Cassidy Brown Johnson, a Rice University lecturer and president of the Coastal Prairie Partnership, has been taking every opportunity to raise awareness on the importance of prairie restoration.

"It's really surprising to people that the trees and all this lushness is actually all artificial," Johnson says. "We know that this ecosystem evolved with the cyclical flooding events that happened here."

This movement to bring back Houston's ancient ecosystem is a new focus on a few prairie conservationist groups — and even the Harris County Flood Control. This has been going on for a while, but recent flooding events have opened the eyes of people now looking for reliable solutions to flooding problems.

"After Hurricane Harvey, people started realizing that this might be one of the solutions we could actually investigate and see if it can help us," Johnson says. "A green space is going to absorb way more water than a parking lot."

Memorial Park Conservancy's master plan redevelopment project, which is being supported by the Kinder Foundation, includes a lot of prairie restoration plans is expected to deliver by 2028.

The project is a collaborative effort between MPC, Uptown Houston TIRZ, and Houston Parks, Kinder Foundation, and Recreation Department to redevelop the 1,500-acre park. An ongoing part of the transformation will be stormwater management upgrades. MPC has budgeted $3 million to this asset of the renovation. While a part of the plan is tributaries for run-off water, bringing back prairie and wetlands will do a great deal to help abate stormwater.

"We're taking ball fields, parking lots, and roads and converting them back to what was here — native wetland coastal prairie," MPC president and CEO Shellye Arnold tells InnovationMap. "This serves important stormwater purposes."

Sensor-enabled rubber ducks might be the solution to keeping track of major weather events. Courtesy of Project Owl

Natural disaster relief technology records a successful pilot program just outside of Houston

Digital duck crossing

Bryan Knouse, co-founder and CEO of Project Owl (organization, whereabouts, and logistics), says the initiative marries:

A deployable IoT network of DuckLink devices that can quickly provide a basic WiFi setup where communications infrastructure might be down, like a region where a hurricane just hit. A single device can connect through WiFi to smartphones and laptops.
A software data visualization platform that speeds up and simplifies data monitoring on the Clusterduck network.

"Once this network of ducks is deployed and then clustered, civilians are able to basically get on the devices through a really intuitive interface and contact first responders with a list of things that are really essential to them," Project Owl team member Magus Pereira explained in an October 2018 blog post.

Project Owl, which won IBM's Call for Code Global Challenge in 2018, is being developed by Code and Response, an IBM program that puts open source technologies in communities that most need them. Knouse and Houston software engineer Charlie Evans lead Project Owl.

In a June 6 blog post, Evans recalled the widespread damage his hometown suffered during Hurricane Harvey and stressed the importance of efforts like Project Owl.

"The sheer magnitude of storms like this," Evans writes of Hurricane Harvey, "and the fact that extreme weather isn't going anywhere anytime soon, really drive home the point that effective communication and logistics are among the highest [priorities] for organizations that are involved with rescuing people and with cleanup."

Katy was the second pilot site for Project Owl. The first large-scale test was done in March in Puerto Rico.

Members of the Project Owl team were pleased with the Katy test. Knouse says the speed of DuckLink deployment improved versus the Puerto Rico test, and the network error transmission rate fell from more than 30 percent to around 10 percent.

"This test is important for anyone who wants to see how we will support communities during natural disasters," Knouse tells InnovationMap. "The growth and improvement [seen in the Katy test] confirms that we can continue to improve the speed, scale, and performance of the network, elevating confidence that if it's deployed during a real disaster, we can support recovery and critical life saving activities."

Following the Puerto Rico and Katy pilots, Project Owl will test the technology again later this year in Puerto Rico, as well as in Alabama, California, and Washington state, according to Knouse.

"It's one thing to build something in a lab and say, 'It works.' It's another to have complete strangers watch the technology deployment and say, 'It works — we need this as soon as possible.' And we are working at maximum capacity to make that happen," Knouse wrote in May.

Owl deploys duck technology

Courtesy of Project Owl

About five of the "rubber ducks" are needed to track one square mile.

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SpaceX launches Starship test flight with most advanced Starlinks to date

Out in Space

SpaceX’s mammoth Starship rocket blasted off Friday, July 24, on another test flight stretching halfway around the world, this time releasing 20 of the most advanced Starlinks.

Towering 407 feet, Starship soared from the company’s base at the southern tip of Texas. NASA monitored the space-skimming flight, a critical step toward using the Starship as a lunar lander for moon crews.

The hourlong journey ended with a splashdown so soft that the spacecraft remained afloat in the Indian Ocean as the SpaceX webcast drew to a close, drawing cheers from employees back at the launch site.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX had replaced six of the 33 engines on the first-stage booster after they failed to ignite earlier in July, resulting in a last-second launch abort. The previous Starship flight in May also experienced engine trouble, which prevented the booster from making a controlled return.

This time, all of the engines fired at liftoff, but not enough of them lit back up for the booster's return, causing it to descend too fast and slam into the Gulf of Mexico. The spacecraft continued soaring eastward, popping out the Starlinks one by one 124 miles up before reentering.

It was the 13th flight of the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket, and the second this year of the new version dubbed V3. Like the previous demo, neither the booster nor spacecraft was meant to be saved, instead plunging into the sea.

The stainless steel, retro-looking spacecraft hovered upright over the Indian Ocean before lowering into the water, more than 10,000 miles from where the flight began.

It was the best reentry yet, according to SpaceX, with the intact booster floating amid just a few flames. Previous flights ended with the spacecraft engulfed in flames and exploding at splashdown — or rupturing in midair.

“We're really pumped about this,” said SpaceX engineer Kate Tice, calling it “lucky flight 13.”

The Starlinks accomplished all their jobs before reentering over the Indian Ocean.

After being ejected from the Starship’s Pez-like dispenser, the Starlinks managed to communicate via lasers with older Starlink models already in orbit. With more than 10,000 Starlinks currently providing internet, SpaceX boasts the world’s largest satellite constellation.

Six of the newly launched Starlinks carried cameras that photographed Starship’s heat shield at flight's end, beaming back amazingly crisp shots even as the spacecraft bobbed in the ocean. The heat shield was also equipped with sensors to measure the extreme pressure placed on the spacecraft during launch. Most of the heat shield’s thermal tiles were black, but some were deliberately painted white to simulate missing tiles, part of an experiment to test the shield’s robustness.

"We got all the heat shield data we needed and then some!" Musk said on X.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman offered congratulations. “Excited for what will be learned from this mission,” Isaacman noted on X.

SpaceX wants to make sure Starship’s heat shield can withstand the heat of entry before trying to return it to the Starbase launch pad near the Texas-Mexico border. The company already has used a pair of giant mechanical arms at the pad to capture a Starship booster. The company plans to do the same with the actual spacecraft, which is designed to be totally reusable.

NASA needs Starship to wrap up testing and reach orbit soon so the Artemis III astronauts — three Americans and one Italian — can practice docking their capsule with it next year.

Starship is also the vehicle with which Musk intends to build a city on Mars. He's already booking tourist trips to Mars, as well as the moon.

The latest test flight was delayed first by the July 16 launch abort, then again July 23 by thick clouds from Tropical Storm Bertha.

University of Houston debuts UH Health, expanding collaborative health care and research efforts

health care hub

The University of Houston has announced its cross-disciplinary academic venture, UH Health.

It will align UH’s efforts in education, research and clinical partnerships to create new opportunities to advance research and innovation, community impact, and education, according to a news release.

“From opening the state’s first college of optometry to developing groundbreaking vaccines, improving the health of all Texans has been a UH priority for decades,” UH President Renu Khator said in the release. “Now, with the launch of UH Health, we are bringing together the full strength of our health enterprise to expand our reach, advance research and transform the future of health for our communities.”

UH is adopting a fully collaborative model, with health professionals from various concentrations to help better understand overall patient care, which includes factors like clinical, behavioral and social factors that can influence health outcomes.

UH Health will also have partnerships with HCA Healthcare, Memorial Hermann Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, MD Anderson Cancer Center and other Texas Medical Center facilities. In addition, UH Health will work with DHR Health in the Rio Grande Valley to create new opportunities for health care education, workforce development and research in one of Texas' medically underserved regions.

As part of UH Health, UH Health Family Care Center will provide integrated primary care and mental health services to the University and its surrounding communities at affordable prices to serve the Third Ward, East End and South Houston. The Household-Centered Care program will give students opportunities to work directly with community caregivers through patient home visits, while the 3rd Ward Place of Wellness offers health screenings, preventive services, education and other resources designed to support long-term health and well-being, according to UH. The College of Optometry will continue to see children and families via outreach programs and clinics across the community.

UH Health also aims to address shortages in health care professionals, providing a pipeline from the university to the workforce. According to the Texas Hospital Association, 64 percent of hospitals in the state are operating with reduced services and fewer beds due to staff shortages.

“Preparing the next generation of health care leaders is one of the most important investments we can make in the future of our state,” Jonathan McCullers, vice president for health affairs at UH and dean of the Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine at UH, added in the release. “UH Health is ensuring our graduates are equipped to work effectively in today’s complex healthcare environment.”

Additionally, UH shared it is investing $77 million into a 55,000-square-foot medical research facility aimed at boosting interdisciplinary research and scientific discovery.

“Healthcare is no longer delivered in isolation, and complex health challenges require coordinated solutions,” McCullers added. “UH Health allows us to work across disciplines to tackle health challenges, advance research and improve outcomes for patients and our community.”

Report: Houston ranks among 10 most affordable metros to raise a child

Family Matters

Raising a child is not an easy or inexpensive feat, but a new study has determined Houston parents have the 7th lowest childrearing costs in the country.

SmartAsset's new report, "Cost of Raising a Child in Major U.S. Metros – 2026 Study," calculated year-over-year changes in the annual cost of raising a child (factoring in childcare, additional housing costs, food, transportation, medical costs and other necessities) in the 48 largest U.S. metro areas. MIT's Living Wage Calculator was used to compare the living costs of a household with two working adults and one child to that of a childless household with two working adults.

Childrearing costs in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands have grown 3.37 percent since last year, totaling $22,605 for a family of three in 2026. That's $737 more than what it took to raise a child in 2025 and $1,209 higher than in 2024.

This is how SmartAsset broke down the annual cost for raising a child in the Houston area:

Cost of childcare: $10,265
Cost of food: $1,721
Other expenses: $10,619

Houston ranked 42nd in SmartAsset's national list of cities with the highest childrearing costs in 2026, making it the No. 7 most affordable U.S. metro.

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont in California topped the list with the highest childrearing costs in the U.S., at $43,171. The cost for raising a child in this California metro soared nearly 11 percent higher since last year.

Memphis, Tennessee ranked dead last as the most affordable U.S. metro for raising a child in 2026. Families will spend less than $20,000 to raise a child in Memphis, only 3.24 percent more than what was needed in 2025.

Raising a child in other Texas metros
It may come as no surprise that Austin is the most expensive place to raise a child in Texas, and it appeared as the 31st most expensive U.S. metro for families. Parents will spend nearly $25,000 to raise a child in the state's capital city, which is $703 higher than it was a year ago.

Two other Texas metros join Houston among the top 10 most affordable U.S. metros for raising a family: San Antonio-New Braunfels (No. 3) and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington (No. 10). Childrearing costs in San Antonio add up to $21,393 annually, and Dallas-Fort Worth parents will spend $23,340 to raise their children in 2026.

The top 10 most affordable U.S. metros for raising a child in 2026 are:

No. 1 – Memphis, Tennessee ($19,922)
No. 2 – Nashville, Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, Tennessee ($21,216)
No. 3 – San Antonio-New Braunfels ($21,393)
No. 4 – Birmingham, Alabama ($21,684)
No. 5 – Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, Virginia ($22,314)
No. 6 – Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Georgia ($22,470)
No. 7 – Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands ($22,605)
No. 8 – Richmond, Virginia ($22,658)
No. 9 – Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky ($23,270)
No. 10 – Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington ($23,340)

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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