Preface: My family was insanely lucky. We suffered no flood damage, we only lost power for a couple of hours and everyone is safe. What we went through is nothing like what tens (hundreds) of thousands are going through right now. So this is not a gripe, it's just a simple recounting. I'm very thankful that the water stopped where it did.
"It's one block away".
That's what my wife told me on Thursday after it had been raining pretty much all week. We're among the group of people who live North of the Addicks Reservoir. Some might say stupidly so. But we did research when buying and felt that the elevation (114-115 feet according to maps) would mean that an awful lot of rain would have to fall before we faced a flood.
Harvey dumped an awful lot of rain on the Northwest side of Houston. According to my neighbors unofficial rain gauge readings, we received around 35 inches during the storm. Just north of us, in Copperfield, one rain gauge reading said 61 inches. And the water kept rising.
After my wife told me that I decided to take a walk down the block and see for myself. She was right (of course, I didn't doubt her but I wanted to see) the water was slowly creeping up the street as was firmly in the middle of the road just one block away. That street was at 108, it would flood the road ultimately but not any of the houses. In fact, most of the houses on the "back half" of the subdivision would be high and dry. They did a good job building our neighborhood, elevating most of the houses 3-5 feet above street level.
The front half was not so lucky. We could see that those houses had taken on a lot of water. We also knew that this meant our waste water treatment facility (WWTF) was in deep crap. (literally). On Wednesday night came the warning to curtail use. Only flush periodically, don't take showers etc. On Thursday afternoon the notice came that our sewer system was 100% out of order. No water down the drains at all lest you wanted to have sewage back up in your house.
That was it for me. We had a choice. Now that the roads had opened up we could make a run to my parents house in Willis (they were out of town on an Alaskan cruise) or continue to sit in a house where we needed to defecate outdoors and go without a shower. At first we cleaned off using the water hose in the back yard. Once we couldn't flush at all we made the decision to run to Willis.
By now the water was dropping, but it could be days before the levels would lower sufficiently to allow repairs to the system. So we threw the dogs in our cars and headed North.
To be honest, it was like staying in a vacation rental. We visited the Kroger in Willis and bought a week's worth of food. I used my father's propane grill and we cooked outdoors every night. We saw fireflies and one very scared opossum. We put the dogs on leads and took them outside several times to relieve themselves. We watched college football and counted ourselves lucky.
My parents came home on Monday and we grilled fish and watched the excellent Tennessee/Georgia Tech game. I then got violently ill and had to call in sick to work.
That was a blessing however because, as the day progressed and I started feeling better, a notice from the MUD came that 'conservative' sewer use had been restored. In short, we could take quick showers and flush our toilets, we could not run the dishwasher or do laundry but that didn't matter. My dad helped me load my car and the dogs and we headed home.
Unfortunately my wife DID go into work on Tuesday, and it took her 5 hours to get there. Coming back to our place it still took her 2 and a half. I don't know how I'm going to get to or from work tomorrow but by the time this publishes I will undoubtedly be there.
To those of you looking on all I can say is to donate. Over on my sports blog I've put many links to charitable groups. That post is here.
At work, I've got some on my staff who lost everything, others who just have roof damage and garage flooding and some who, like me, found themselves very fortunate. I'm sure almost everyone else in Houston is the same way.
No matter what emerges from this I do predict that Houston is going to be changed both drastically and subtly in the coming months. What we see emerge from this will be a different city, hopefully we can avoid our lesser instincts and make it be better. I'm not going to get into that too much now except to say that we're already seeing evidence that our politicians and "thought leaders" are choosing to go down the wrong path. I sincerely hope they turn around but I'm afraid the impulses against that happening will be too great.
Harvey as a horrific tragedy with some very bright lights interspread throughout. From the Cajun Navy to people with boats pulling out strangers to a local government who did a pretty good job coordinating it all. There have been wonderful signs of giving, service and spirit. I'm proud of this Houston.
I always have been.
