Life has been coming at us like bowling balls lately… I’ll try to catch you up. This whirlwind version will leave out many emotions and details, but you will get the gist of it.
Houston and Beaumont got record rainfalls during Harvey, many areas got a full years rainfall in 3 days. Houston’s heavier areas got over 50″ of rain, Beaumont / Port Arthur got as much as 60″. No drainage systems in the world will handle that much water. Suffice it to say the news channels didn’t have to hunt to find that one house that was flooded, or the one gas station sign that blew down in order to feign disaster, this was a catastrophic event where as many as 50% of the houses in several Texas cities went under water.
My immediate family had 8 households in the direct path of Harvey. One of our kids was in the process of moving from one part of Houston to the other so she had two houses at risk. The old house was 2 story and everything they owned was in boxes on the floor of the first story ready to be moved! They did lose a car in the driveway, but water lapped at the front door sill and didn’t come in. It wasn’t within inches of coming in, it was within a fraction of ONE inch! The garage was lower so it got water but all her things boxed up on the floor were OK. The New house…. like the old place had neighbors two doors down that flooded but she was high and dry. None of the 8 homes in my family took on water other than Erin’s garage.
Friends weren’t as lucky as family. My best friend in Baytown got 56″. Linda and I had a weeks vacation planned with the RV in Branson Missouri but I ended up spending that week in Baytown. At the end of that week we moved Erin and Michael into their new place. The flood relief work was much easier than the moving! Even though the kids did the heavy lifting, my old man back took a licking…
Harvey definitely “Messed with Texas” thousands of families are still displaced. Most of the flooded homes are sitting empty totally ripped apart to the frame, letting the studs dry before starting back with sheet rock.
OK, that was Harvey…. see the next post for hurricane disaster Phase II “OI VEY MARIA“. The hits just keep on coming……..