FRIENDSWOOD, TEXAS — The Galveston County Consolidated Drainage District has installed seven artificial intelligence-enabled flood sensors in the Texas cities of Friendswood and League City. Six of the sensors are located in the Clear Creek watershed, and one is in the Dickinson Bayou watershed.

The sensors are provided by Simplicity Integration, a technology company focused on water and flood intelligence. The system combines real-time sensor data with public information including rainfall totals, stream gauge readings, weather station data and soil saturation conditions, and uses artificial intelligence tools to analyze the information and help predict how flood conditions could develop.

The AI system studies historical flooding patterns, current rainfall, upstream water conditions and soil saturation levels to generate predictive insights. The technology can analyze how conditions upstream could affect neighborhoods farther downstream.

"With no flood sensors at all in Galveston County, this was a very obvious step in the right direction," said Jason Jones, secretary of the Galveston County Consolidated Drainage District board. He said residents in the affected watersheds have monitored local creeks following past storms. "People come outside and look at the creek every day. It's almost like PTSD from Harvey and other rain events," Jones said.

The system includes a public web portal where residents can monitor sensor locations in real time and sign up for alerts tied to specific creeks or monitoring points. The portal map uses color-coded indicators, with green indicating safe conditions, yellow indicating flooding possible and red indicating flooding likely. Residents can access the portal through the drainage district's website.

"Now from their phone, they can be in their home or they could be anywhere in the world and access this data in real time," Jones said. He added that the portal gives residents in lower-lying areas information they can use to plan evacuation routes. "But if you live in one of the lower areas, or if you're in a car, you need to look to see your passable routes out of town. So that's very crucial," he said.

Alison Reese, chief operating officer and co-founder of Simplicity Integration, said the platform's accuracy improves as it processes more information. "The tool is trained on data, and the more data it ingests that's appropriate and needed to help understand the water behavior all over Texas," Reese said. "If they can give that level of warning and that amount of lead time, then people can get themselves — and whatever people love that are in their houses — out of the way in plenty of time," she said.

The sensors are currently only online in Friendswood and League City, with the drainage district able to expand monitoring to additional watersheds as more data is collected.