Two Houstons emerge from Harvey aftermath: one wet, one dry
HOUSTON In a quest to help Harvey victims, Kelli Shofstall and her son set out on a 165-mile drive from Austin to Houston that led them through neighbourhood after neighbourhood where the streets were dry and no one seemed to need assistance.
It took more than a day of driving around, following outdated flood maps, before they found a water-filled road where they could ferry tenants to and from a marooned apartment complex using an inflatable yellow raft.
“My son and I joked that we sucked at relief efforts,” Shofstall said. Christian Carr, 17, waded in his jeans into knee-deep water pulling the raft to see if anyone else wanted to float out of the Heights Park Row apartments.
More than a week after Harvey swamped the greater Houston area, the metropolis is divided into two cities: one still covered with water and flood debris, the other largely unblemished by the storm.
Some subdivisions remain submerged, and many streets are piled high with ruined belongings. More than 10 per cent of the county’s dwellings were flooded, and several prominent theatre and concert halls were damaged, though major sports stadiums escaped unharmed.
In unscathed areas, the only reminder of high water may be a layer of silt on the streets, damp curbs or the mildew-like whiff of disaster.
On a leafy street corner in the city’s Montrose section, a group of children set up a Labor Day lemonade stand in a neighbourhood that generally has nothing worse than standing water for a week after heavy rain. Even after Harvey, homes were not damaged and streets drained quickly.
“We’re lucky. We didn’t lose power,” said Sara Beck, whose 5-year-old son, Waylon, shouted “lemonade” at passing cars. Hushing her voice self-consciously, she added, “or even internet.”
“They call it survivor’s guilt,” said Emily Covey. Her 5-year-old daughter, Elena, tucked the $1 she collected for each cup in a shoebox that she declared contained “hundreds of monies,” a figure that added up to $161 at the end of the day, her mother said.
“Why did we not get it and all these people around us did?” asked Covey, who has several friends who still cannot get back into their waterlogged homes to begin the cleanup.
The children planned to give the proceeds to a charity for flood victims. Their handdrawn sign with a smileyfaced lemon included the hashtag “Houstonstrong.”
Wearing hip waders and a construction dust mask, Gaston Kirby pulled a raft through waist-deep waters Monday to retrieve belongings from his home near the Addicks and Barker reservoirs, where officials were still releasing water that could inundate neighbours for well over a week.