I've been speaking to my friends, family, neighbors, etc. and none of them are planning on leaving the Greater Houston Area. Folks that flooded ripped out the carpet, drywall, and anything that was ruined and had it out on the curb before the weekend was over. We've been through this before. Neighbors help each other. Churches and community organizations "flooded" into damaged areas to help. Sure, some people are still in shelters, but most made temporary living arrangements with family and have gone back to work. Houston is a huge, sprawling, monster of a city and many of the SFRs in the suburbs are enormous, with guest rooms and game rooms and home offices. It's no "hardship" to take in another family for a few months when you have 2500+ sqft. Church groups know this and literally went door to door in such neighborhoods, matchmaking displaced families with places to stay. The only people I've heard who are seriously considering moving "away" are retired older folks and they are just talking about moving further from the city center and further from the coast to areas like Tomball and Brenham, which are less than an hour or two from Houston. These older folks don't want to move too far from their families, and their families aren't moving because Houston has jobs. It's also no secret that selling a house in Texas usually won't garner enough money to buy a comparable house anywhere else.
It's also worth noting that we have teams of engineers working on our perpetual flood problem and every time we have a monster flood like this, they have new data to work with. Quite a few areas that have historically seen flood damage were spared this time thanks to their efforts.
For those of you thinking of doing BRRRR with short-sale flood-damaged properties (which in my opinion is a great way to help others and yourselves) consider what you can do on the property to keep water out next time. If it's possible to alter the grade of the land or improve the drainage, and the house only got an inch or so of water in it, that house may escape flood damage next time.
There will always be a next time. Houstonians know this.
P.S. Oil and Gas may have seen a slowdown, but industry insiders aren't worried. People are confidently buying and holding stocks in their own companies. I haven't observed the kind of hand-wringing and awkward conversations typically associated with massive layoffs and job scarcity in the O&G sector. Also, there is more to jobs in Houston than just O&G.
