Houston’s Floodwaters Are Tainted, Testing Shows
In the Clayton Homes public housing development downtown, along the Buffalo Bayou, scientists found what they considered astonishingly high levels of E. coli in standing water in one family’s living room — levels 135 times those considered safe — as well as elevated levels of lead, arsenic
and other heavy metals in sediment from the floodwaters in the kitchen.
HOUSTON — Floodwaters in two Houston neighborhoods have been contaminated with bacteria and toxins
that can make people sick, testing organized by has found.
“There’s pretty clearly sewage contamination, and it’s more concentrated inside the home than outside the home,” said Lauren Stadler, an assistant professor of civil
and environmental engineering at Rice University who participated in The Times’s research.
Beau Briese, an emergency room physician at Houston Methodist Hospital, said he had seen a doubling
in the number of cases of cellulitis — reddened skin infections — since the storm.
Dr. David Persse, the chief medical officer of Houston, said residents caring for children, the elderly
and those with immune disorders should try to keep them out of homes until they have been cleaned.
Water flowing down Briarhills Parkway in the Houston Energy Corridor contained Escherichia coli,
a measure of fecal contamination, at a level more than four times that considered safe.
But some families in inundated neighborhoods in west Houston said they had developed staph infections and other health problems after wading through waters released from reservoirs
that swamped their homes long after other parts of the city had dried out.
