Houston: We Have Rain

Hurricane Carla:  1961

Having grown up in Houston, I’ve lived through numerous hurricanes, starting with Carla in 1961.  Before Carla hit, my parents filled up our bathtub with water, which is what we always did back then, and then we “hunkered down” in the dark for a week.   Today, people no longer fill up bathtubs with water - not when you can stock up on gallons of bottled water from the grocery store. 

The bottled water aisle is stripped bare in preparation for Hurricane Harvey

Since Houston is just 50 miles away from the coast we usually miss the brunt of the eye of the storm where the winds will effortlessly pick up a car or a boat and toss it
  down the road like a piece of paper.   Our enemy is more the rain than the wind.  Flooding from any storm, not just hurricanes, is always our issue in Houston.

Houston Astrodome welcomes Katrina Evacuees.  Many of these evacuees never returned to New Orleans, choosing instead to stay here in Houston.

Growing  up, hurricanes meant missed school and there was always a bit of festivity associated with being under a hurricane watch.  It wasn’t until missing school was no longer a goal, that hurricanes became scary adult stuff.   After Katrina destroyed one of America’s most beautiful cities, we all woke up to how destructive a hurricane truly can be.  Houstonians watched an entire city disappear under a wall of water – could that happen here?

Millions of Houstonians at a standstill, trying to evacuate during Hurricane Rita

Hurricane Rita hit Houston just a few weeks after Katrina.  Houstonians were so afraid after having just seen what could happened to a city that didn’t evacuate, that a majority did just that.  It proved to be a huge mistake to evacuate, miles of cars stood at a standstill for hours and hours.    In the end, over a hundred people died on the road trying to escape a hurricane that turned out to be relatively harmless.  We wouldn’t make that mistake of evacuating again.

 

A few years later, Hurricane Ike hit Galveston hard, but Houston was lucky, yet again.  Ike’s winds were strong enough to wipe out electricity and Ben and I spent five hot days in the  dark,  without television or computers.   While it’s not fun to be without electrical power, at least we were safe and dry.

 

The Addicks Reservoir in Houston – notice how close they built houses to this dam!!!!!

In Houston, a tropical rainstorm can wreck as much havoc as a hurricane –  it all depends on how fast and long the rain falls.  Our flat city sits at just 50’ above sea level and a series of natural bayous collects the rain water and then sends it back out to the Gulf of Mexico.  At least that is how it’s supposed to work.  In the 1940s, the Army Corp of Engineers built two huge reservoirs to help the bayous in case they ever overflowed. The problem is these two dams gave builders and homeowners a false sense of security and thousands of houses were built where the water would flow in case of a flood.  The dams were built to hold back a 100 year flood.  Our issue, though, is that Hurricane Harvey caused a 1000 year flood.

 

Buffalo Bayou – Before Harvey.  Houston has developed this beautiful bayou to be used as parkland.

The same exact area – after Buffalo Bayou flooded during Harvey.  The bayous will keep rising until finally it overflows its banks, flooding the streets and everything else in its wake.  This is an amazing photo of the flood.

As usual with Harvey, it wasn’t the hurricane winds that hurt Houston, it was the rain.  After the eye came on land a few hundred miles away from Houston, the clouds moved over Houston and just stayed there, dumping over 50 inches of water in just a few days.  All that water has to go somewhere.  The engineers were scared the reservoir dams would burst so they started emptying them which caused even more flooding days after the Hurricane.  Over a week later, the engineers are still releasing the dam water – flooding will continue in these areas for at least 10 more days while the reservoirs are emptied.

Harvey came out of nowhere, developing so fast we were cavalier about it, convinced the meteorologists were wrong.  They weren’t.  They warned us that we would have unprecedented rain and that the hurricane would come here and wouldn’t leave.  It did. 

Here is what the storm looked like.

Here is how the storm would have looked if it was over Florida.  Huge.

Ben and I watched the news in horror.  Over 30,000 people were displaced.  At least forty people died.  The saddest story was a 3 year old who was found shivering, clinging to her dead mother.  Watching the elderly and the young try to escape the raging waters was gut wrenching.

This photo of elderly women trapped in the flood was one that caused the entire nation to take notice to how serious Harvey was. 

Here, the same group was shown after they were evacuated. 

We are used to certain areas of the city that always seem to flood:  Meyerland being the closest to us, always floods during bad storms.  But this storm was different.  During the rain, Ben and I kept checking our street looking at the water level.  There were a few days of extreme worry, but in the end, we were lucky, very very lucky.

Why?

For some reason our house is far enough away from any bayou or dam that it doesn’t flood.  But we hadn’t planned that.  Neither had my parents, or sister, or nephews.  Yet, we were all safe and dry.  Just lucky. 

In the end, you start to feel guilty about that.  Why us?   We had never made any great decision to move here, right here, where we would stay dry in a flood of biblical proportions.

Luck.

This is a four lane street with a large esplanade in the center.  Boats had to rescue people from their homes.

The people in this neighborhood all had to be rescued.

The freeway became a waterfall.

What you can’t see is how strong the current is in these waters.

Over a half a million cars were flooded during Harvey – new and used cars,  both.

An incredible photo of a flooded out neighborhood.  The boats look like tiny pieces of paper – and notice the truck flooded out.

Heroes

There have been so many heroes that have helped our city.  People who owned boats came from all over America to help rescue people stranded in their flooded houses.  Other people made sandwiches to hand out to hungry citizens.  The shelters were filled with clothes and toiletries donated by citizens from all over the world.  Without all these angels, the death rate would have been much higher.

Sorting clothes, towels and toiletries in a shelter.

The orchestra came and played for the evacuees.  Singers also entertained the families – even Harry Connick Jr. came!

Gallery Furniture

The owner of Gallery Furniture, “Mattress Mac” Jim McIngvale opened his stores and warehouses up to evacuees and first responders. 

Mac posted on his Facebook – “come on over!” – and people did.  He is an amazing man and I don’t think I’ve ever had more respect for anyone.  He sent out his huge furniture trucks to pick up evacuees.  He served food and even allowed pets to come along. 

Mac is a true hero.  No one asked him to do a thing – he just did it.

Other people became instant heroes.    Our mayor – Sylvester Turner was amazing.  He refused to call for a evacuation and faced criticism from national media and even our governor for that – but the Mayor was right.   You can’t evacuate millions of people in two days.  He continued to make tough decisions and stood by them.  He was strong and calming and proved to be the right man for the job.

 

Jeff Lindner, the Harris County Flood Control District meteorologist became a folk hero during the storm.

And then there was Jeff Lindner –  the meteorologist for the Harris County Flood Control District.  I told Ben he was going to be a “star” and I wasn’t alone who thought he was special.  Someone started a Go-Fund account to “Give Jeff Lindner a Vacation.”  It was worth almost $20,000 in just a few days.

Another hero was Michael Dell, from Houston, of Dell Computers, who donated over $34 million of his personal wealth to the victims. 

And our football star JJ Watts started a fund that reached over $20 million!!  Incredible!!

These are just a few heroes – there are so many heroes whose names we will never know.

These people, the heroes with boats were so awe inspiring.  They saved so many lives – they were true angels.

And what about the animals?

During Katrina, when the buses finally came to rescue the city, they would not allow anyone to bring their pets with them!  It was a heart wrenching to watch – all the animals had to be left alone and their owners were even more distraught having lost their homes and now their pets, especially after having saved them from the flood. 

Houston decided to let evacuees bring their pets with them and here, you can see two dogs chill-laxing at the shelter.  Adorable.

This was another time that our mayor Sylvester Turner was so right.  He could have said – “no pets allowed at the shelters” – but he did the right thing, AGAIN.

The sun comes out!!

Finally after days and days the sun came out and life started to pick up a bit.  We got our first mail delivery – on a Sunday!  

But, for most people – cleaning up after the flood was just starting.

 

The massive clean up starts. 

What now?

My old neighborhood, Meyerland, where my parents had built a house when I was in elementary school, was in the national news during Harvey.  Meyerland, the center of Houstonian Jewish life,  is located right off Braes Bayou and as the years went on, it would always flood during very bad storms.  But the flooding had escalated - Harvey marked the third time in three years where houses flooded in Meyerland.  The homes, many custom, were mostly built in the 60s and 70s – and their foundations are too low to survive a flood.  These houses need to be raised.

Those who can afford it are choosing to tear down their houses and new, elevated houses are built in their stead.  Others are choosing to elevate their existing house – raising it on piers to escape future floods.   But these people are the lucky ones.  Most can’t afford these options, nor can they afford to just walk away and take on the burden of two mortgages.

In Meyerland, this is one of the first homes that was elevated to escape future floods.  This house used have its foundation at ground level.  Now, it looks charming and safe. 

 

This Meyerland house is in the process of being raised on piers.  The owners didn’t want to be flooded again.  To see even more houses – before & after they were raised, go HERE.

This house in Meyerland was torn down and replaced with a new house on an elevated foundation.  It is now high enough that it won’t flood.  To the right,  the neighbor’s foundation is at ground level and it floods each time there is a bad rainstorm.

Even our temple, Beth Israel,  also located in Meyerland,  flooded and all the prayer books had to be moved up out of harm’s way.

Meyerland owners have been facing the floods for years, but other neighborhoods in Houston are new to flooding.  Thousands of houses that have never flooded before and now under water.  What will happen?   They will have to decide to either renovate their house or to elevate it to avoid future floods.

Right now – those people who flooded out are ripping out carpet and sheetrock in order to be able to move back home.

This owner was ingenious – to save all their furniture from the water, they used Legos to raise everything in their house!!    I hope the water didn’t get too high in the house.

And then there was this man.  Last year, in a bad flood, he used an Aqua Dam around his home and you can see it kept the flood water away.   Houston used Aqua Dams on our freeways, so they must really work as long as the water doesn’t get higher than the dam.  This is a great idea  - they aren’t cheap, but if you can stop the flood water from ruining your house, it’s worth it.  Aqua Dam HERE.

The future is worrisome.  Houston will have to get experts to make tough decisions about zoning and flood plains and how we can be safe during storms.

People are still in need of financial aid here.

If you would like to donate to help those less fortunate in Houston, I think the best place to donate is the Hurricane Harvey Red Cross Fund HERE where the funds go directly to Harvey victims.

And finally, I want to thank you all so much for your good wishes and prayers.  It meant so much to me to feel your love! 

And now, our prayers go out to Florida who is facing Hurricane Irma.