Almost one out of every three homes in Harris County are in a category for "high flood risk," and that may be one reason people are moving out of the county, according to a Redfin study.
But it's also possible that people are leaving Harris County because its leaders practice more blue state politics, a trend that began with the 2016 election.
There was a time ten years ago or more when Harris was mostly red like much of surrounding Texas, with a more conservative approach toward crime, law and order.
But now there's a perception that crime is on the increase in Harris County, where there's been a worrysome 34% increase in the number of homicides and domestic violence over the past year or two.
Montgomery County's top official, County Judge Mark Keough, says politics is bound to have something to do with these citizen movements away from the Bayou City.
"Do you realize that in 2019, in Harris County and the City of Houston, they turned over [that is, voted out] more than 16 Republican judges -- and then they wonder why they have a crime spree.," Mr. Keough says.
It becomes a problem when anti-crime judges and prosecutors are defeated in elections "in favor of socialist-minded progressive bail-reform guys that refuse to deal with crime," he adds.
When it comes to the US counties facing the largest outflow of residents to other parts of the country, Harris rates 2nd nationwide, after Miami-Dade County, Frorida.
That area of southeastern Florida has about 36% of home properties at high risk for flooding, compared to Harris County's 31%, and Miami-Dade lost twice as many residents to other US areas as Texas did last year: 67,000 people left, as opposed to the Houston area's 31,000.
Worry about low-lying areas isn't very much of problem in Montgomery County to the north of Houston, which is mostly higher ground and therefore less worrying on flood matters.
"When we deal with this stuff, we deal with it quickly, y'know we've got standards in place for building and everything we can do to keep people from flooding," the County Judge says