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    It's A Walk in the Park

    Start the New Year off right: Take a walk in Houston's most distinctive new park

    Clifford Pugh
    Jan 4, 2017 | 12:42 pm

    Finding places to hike around Houston continues to be a top interest for CultureMap readers, particularly at the beginning of the year, when the weather is cool and our resolution to exercise more kicks into high gear. But rather than travel to outlying areas, there's a wonderful park right in the center of the city, with hike and bike trails, a picnic pavilion, a magnificent underground cistern, a massive dog park and other places to escape.

     

    A multi-million dollar renovation of Buffalo Bayou Park, wedged between Alley Parkway and Memorial Drive from downtown Houston to Shepherd Drive, offers one of the best urban parks in the nation, with more than 160 acres of enhanced hike and bike trails offering spectacular views of the downtown skyline — and so much more.

     

    It's now easier to get to the park since Allen Parkway was recently revamped, with landscaped medians and stoplights at Dunlavy, Taft, Gillette, and Park Vista Drive, so pedestrians can cross the busy thoroughfare without feeling like they're taking their life in their hands. The $14 million project, overseen by the Downtown Redevelopment Authority and the City of Houston, also includes 132 new diagonal parking spaces along Buffalo Bayou between Taft and Sabine, so finding a spot to park is a lot easier. (Parking costs $1 for 3 hours.)

     

    There is also a small free parking lot near the Wortham Insurance Visitor Center on Sabine, where you can obtain a map of the park (the center is open Wednesdays through Sundays from 8 am to 7 pm) and start exploring. That's what we did on a recent weekday afternoon, when the park was filled with joggers, walkers, bikers and families at play.

     

    Heading west from the visitors center, there are wide bike trails along Memorial Drive and Allen Parkway, but walkers or joggers can follow along their own trail, known as the Kinder Footpath, located a little closer to the bayou. The Kinder Foundation contributed $30 million dollars toward the Buffalo Bayou project as Nancy and Rich Kinder have been big proponents of upgrading the parks along Houston waterways in an initiative known as Bayou Greenways 2020. (They contributed another $50 million to to the Bayou Greenways initiative.)

     

     Welcomed improvements

     

    Among the most welcomed improvements are two pedestrian bridges that allow parkgoers to cross over Buffalo Bayou at key points. For years, Houstonians could only admire Jose Morales' magnificent Police Officer Memorial from afar as it was virtually impossible to access it. But now a striking pedestrian bridge of ribboned steel allows up-close views of the sculpture, which resembles a Mayan temple and it has become one of the park's most distinctive and popular attractions.

     

    Other popular attractions are the two-acre Johnny Steel Dog Park, located near Montrose Boulevard, with ponds, washing areas and a large expanse of land for pooches and their owners to frolic: the Waugh Bat Colony, where thousands of the mysterious creatures alight at dusk amid a pungent odor ; and Lost Lake, which houses another visitors center and The Dunlavy, a glittery glass house with dozens of chandeliers that serves breakfast and lunch and is available for private parties at night. (The popular Lee & Joe Jamail Skatepark is closed for renovation.)

     

    Park planners struck a bonanza upon discovering an underground cistern that provided Houston's drinking water in the the early 20th century but has gone unused for years. Rather than bulldoze the area, as often happens in Houston, they turned it into the park's newest attraction, currently featuring a striking and spooky video art installation by Magdalena Fernández. (The Cistern is open Wednesday through Friday from 3 pm to 7 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to 7 pm. Reservations are required at buffalobayou.org or 713-752-0314, ext. 301.)

     

    For the adverturesome, there are also opportunities to rent boats or kayaks, with guided tours or the opportunity to head out on your own. B-cycle stations are also located around the park, so a bike can be rented for a hour or two for those who want to explore the park through downtown and beyond.

     

    While these and other attractions make the park a magnet for visitors, it can be appreciated on its own as a place to wander amid a setting that is so pristine and natural, you forget you're in the middle of the the nation's fourth largest city. On days when it seems imperative to get away from the stresses of urban life, a walk in the park can do wonders.

     

    It's hard to believe you're in the middle of Houston.

    Buffalo Bayou Park
      
    Photo by Clifford Pugh
    It's hard to believe you're in the middle of Houston.
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    Flood News

    More rain brings further flood risk as Texas death toll tops 100

    Associated Press
    Jul 7, 2025 | 9:36 am
    Death Toll Rises After Flash Floods In Texas Hill Country
    Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images
    Death toll rises after flash floods In Texas Hill Country

    With more rain on the way, the risk of life-threatening flooding was still high in Central Texas on July 7 even as crews searched urgently for the missing following a holiday weekend deluge that killed at least 100 people, including children at summer camps. Officials said the death toll was sure to rise.

    Residents of Kerr County began clearing mud and salvaging what they could from their demolished properties as they recounted harrowing escapes from rapidly rising floodwaters late July 4.

    Reagan Brown said his parents, in their 80s, managed to escape uphill as water inundated their home in the town of Hunt. When the couple learned that their 92-year-old neighbor was trapped in her attic, they went back and rescued her.

    “Then they were able to reach their toolshed up higher ground, and neighbors throughout the early morning began to show up at their toolshed, and they all rode it out together,” Brown said.

    A few miles away, rescuers maneuvering through challenging terrain filled with snakes continued their search for the missing, including 10 girls and a counselor from Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp that sustained massive damage.

    Gov. Greg Abbott said 41 people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

    In the Hill Country area, home to several summer camps, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said. Ten other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials.

    The governor warned that additional rounds of heavy rains lasting into Tuesday could produce more dangerous flooding, especially in places already saturated.

    Families were allowed to look around the camp beginning Sunday morning. One girl walked out of a building carrying a large bell. A man whose daughter was rescued from a cabin on the highest point in the camp walked a riverbank, looking in clumps of trees and under big rocks.

    One family left with a blue footlocker. A teenage girl had tears running down her face as they slowly drove away and she gazed through the open window at the wreckage.

    Searching the disaster zone
    Nearby crews operating heavy equipment pulled tree trunks and tangled branches from the river. With each passing hour, the outlook of finding more survivors became even more bleak.

    Volunteers and some families of the missing came to the disaster zone and searched despite being asked not to do so.
    Authorities faced growing questions about whether enough warnings were issued in an area long vulnerable to flooding and whether enough preparations were made.

    President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration Sunday for Kerr County and said he would likely visit Friday: “I would have done it today, but we’d just be in their way.”

    “It’s a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible,” he told reporters.

    Prayers from the Vatican
    Gov. Greg Abbott vowed that authorities will work around the clock and said new areas were being searched as the water receded. He declared July 6 a day of prayer for the state.

    In Rome, Pope Leo XIV offered special prayers for those touched by the disaster. The first American pope spoke in English at the end of his Sunday noon blessing, saying, “I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters who were in summer camp, in the disaster caused by the flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas in the United States. We pray for them.”

    Desperate refuge and trees and attics
    Survivors shared terrifying stories of being swept away and clinging to trees as rampaging floodwaters carried trees and cars past them. Others fled to attics, praying the water wouldn’t reach them.

    At Camp Mystic, a cabin full of girls held onto a rope strung by rescuers as they walked across a bridge with water whipping around their legs. Among those confirmed dead were an 8-year-old girl from Mountain Brook, Alabama, who was at Camp Mystic, and the director of another camp up the road.

    Two school-age sisters from Dallas were missing after their cabin was swept away. Their parents were staying in a different cabin and were safe, but the girls’ grandparents were unaccounted for.

    Warnings came before the disaster
    On Thursday the National Weather Service advised of potential flooding and then sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours of Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare alert notifying of imminent danger.

    Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months’ worth of rain for the area.

    Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said authorities are committed to a full review of the emergency response.

    Trump, asked whether he was still planning to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said that was something “we can talk about later, but right now we are busy working.” He has said he wants to overhaul if not completely eliminate FEMA and sharply criticized its performance.

    Trump also was asked whether he planned to rehire any of the federal meteorologists who were fired this year as part of widespread government spending cuts.

    “I would think not. This was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it. Nobody saw it. Very talented people there, and they didn’t see it,” the president said.

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