Hurricane Harvey in Houston: A Cruel Case of Alliteration

 

Picture by CNN of Houston on August 27, 2017.

One day we were at the beach. Three days later, my house was flooded with two feet of water while my family and I were 5 hours away unable to help anyone or save anything. But how did this happen?

 

The dining room in my house on August 27, 2017.

I had just gotten back from celebrating my friend’s birthday at the beach an hour away. And now my family was debating whether or not to evacuate. My mom and brother believed that it would be a light rainfall and the streets would flood. That’s what happened the past few years, with the Tax Day flood of 2016 and the Memorial Day floods of 2015. These didn’t affect my area of town, as we are farther west and on higher ground. In my circles, no one thought that Harvey would be that bad. We had been fine. None of our houses had flooded in the past few years, and the last time they had was in Hurricane Allison in 2001. However, we decided to leave anyways, as we usually evacuated during hurricanes since I had family so close in Dallas. 

We stayed with my cousins, and two days later nothing had happened. My mom was intent that we go home the next day since Harvey hadn’t caused any damage. School was supposed to start in 2 days. The next morning, I woke up to my family congregated in the kitchen all on their laptops. My house had flooded with two feet of water in the early hours of that morning. Our neighbor from down the street who lived in a one story house had waded down thestreet to take refuge in our upstairs. The majority of the city was covered with water.

 

My neighbors and national guard going to my house to help evacuate my other neighbor taking refuge in our upstairs on a high water rescue vehicle. August 27, 2017

School was postponed for 3 weeks, and that time was a blur. The water left the homes around a day later, but the damage was done. My mom and grandpa went home a few days later when the streets were clear to start cleaning. Most of my neighbors had flooded, so it was a collaborative effort to help clean each other's houses. For insurance, we had to take detailed pictures of everything that was damaged by water and then it was tossed into the mound of garbage in our front lawn. When I got home 2 weeks later, my house was totally emptied, the wood stripped leaving a concrete slab, the drywall cut out 4 ft, as you have to cut out twice the amount of water that got in to prevent mold. In those few weeks, I remember eating outside with my neighbors every night using the one family’s kitchen who hadn’t flooded because their house was built with newer zoning laws in mind. My school flooded as well, so it was delayed almost a month in total. For the next year, my family lived upstairs in my house while we rebuilt the downstairs. But most people affected were not this lucky. My neighborhood is full of 1 story houses from the 50s that people bought when real estate was cheap, and the flood forced many to move to the suburbs or much smaller apartments. Furthermore, Houston is a driving city lacking with good public transportation, and almost everyone lost their cars.

My family in front of our garbage pile that sat in our lawn for a month. September 2, 2017.

Hurricane Harvey was a category 4 hurricane when it made landfall on the gulf coast of Texas. It killed an estimated 68-103 people, and stalled for days over the greater Houston area, causing catastrophic flooding and a devastating loss of housing, displacing thousands of people, and flooding ~135,000 homes. An estimated 50 inches of rainfall were measured in some parts of Houston. Harvey caused more rain and flooding in contrast to previous hurricanes which caused more wind damage and widespread power outages, like Hurricane Ike in 2007. My community is affluent and able to recover, but Harvey exposed the socioeconomic inequalities in Houston. A lot of lower income housing options are around the bayou, which always floods the worst. This time, since there was more rainfall, the overflow from the bayou went much farther. Examining not only the flood patterns of Harvey, but also the recovery patterns of different areas show the racial and socioeconomic problems with housing, disaster relief, healthcare, and more. 

Sources:

https://www.worldvision.org/disaster-relief-news-stories/2017-hurricane-harvey-facts

https://www.cnn.com/specials/us/hurricane-harvey