Last month, the newsrooms reported that Musk’s tunneling company, The Boring Co., has been lobbying elected officials for months to allow it to build tunnels under Houston for flood mitigation. Boring has proposed digging two 12-foot-wide tunnels beneath Buffalo Bayou — the main waterway running through central Houston — to carry stormwater out of neighborhoods and toward the Gulf of Mexico during major storms. Experts say, however, that larger tunnels, closer to 30 to 40 feet in diameter, could carry far more water and be more effective.

Musk’s proposal carries a lower price tag than the estimated cost of the larger system the flood control district has spent years and millions of dollars studying. But that’s partly because the two are strikingly different proposals.

Flood control experts also maintained that the reduced price is somewhat proportional to the reduced capacity of Boring’s narrower tunnels. Two 12-foot tunnels would provide less than one-fifth of the volume that a single 40-foot tunnel offers.

That means they would divert less water from vulnerable areas than one large tunnel.