then a couple of unpopulated corners of harris county and ft. ben county. today those areas are no longer unpopulated areas. housing development pushed people that far west from houston and beyond. but those two dams are still there. one of them is 11 niles long, one of them is 13 miles long. and when the storms still come and the rain falls and the rivers rise in southeast texas, those two dams are still at the heart of how houston copes. the two manmade reservoirs that build up behind those dams that they built in the 1940s, to have still what protecting houston from the uncontrollable inundation of flood water. and those reservoirs are now famous nationwide because of what s happening in houston with the largest rainfall event in u.s. history. the two reservoirs behind the two dams.