The six lakes of the Willow Waterhole Bayou basin complex were finished and fully working as of December 2018, one year after Hurricane Harvey. Before the lakes were completed, flooding in the surrounding Westbury neighborhood, a community of approximately 5,000 single-family homes, happened consistently and was very destructive. Since the lakes were completed, only minimal flooding has occurred in the area. The completed basin, along with the other work on Project Brays, is expected to protect structures and residents downstream of the bayou in all but the most catastrophic rainfalls. There will still be structure flooding, depending on rainfall rates and duration, but the risk of flooding has been greatly reduced.

Navigating Willow Waterhole represents what has become the Flood Control District's ideal detention basin, with wetland shelves, "no-mow" areas along the banks, sinuous trails, a native plant palette, reforestation that climbs the banks and into new upland plateaus and the creation of islands as bird habitat—but it revolutionized the concept of detention basin as park by infusing it with stewardship from a diverse network of local residents and neighborhood and environmental organizations. — Read more in the Houston Chronicle, 2017