Fort Hancock is a community in Hudspeth County that experiences unique challenges due to frequent flash flooding and non-traditional/unregulated housing and community berm construction. Roads and bridges washing out are a particular danger and concern to the county.

The County Judge, County Commissioner, and Emergency Management Coordinator are all interested in addressing flooding issues in this community, but there are no good traditional flood data sources available to accurately map, model, and communicate the current risks to the community. Fort Hancock does not show up in traditional risk analyses anywhere as being at risk for flooding, but they are flooding almost every year from smaller, flash-flood events.

The DRIP team and county leaders decided on this unique pilot project designed specifically to address the “data desert” found in small, underserved communities like Fort Hancock. This project will develop a process to collect community-held knowledge (such as photos; verbal descriptions of water lines and dates of major storms leading to flooding; and verbal identification of areas/locations prone to flooding, etc.) to inform future mapping and modeling products. The main product will be a systematic collection of data focused on documenting and describing flooding in this flash-flood vulnerable community. Supplementary products to display the information such as a “hot spot” map or other visualizations will also be considered as time and resources allow.