‘Survivor’s guilt’: Two Houstons emerge from Harvey
HOUSTON — In a quest to help Harvey victims, Kelli Shofstall and her son set out on a 265-kilometre 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It took more than a day of driving around, following outdated flood maps, before they found a water-filled road where they could ferry tenants to and from a marooned apartment complex using an inflatable yellow raft.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. But in unscathed areas, the only reminder of high water might 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 Labour 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 five-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 five-yearold 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 water-logged homes to begin the cleanup.
The children planned to give the proceeds to a charity for flood victims. Their hand-drawn sign with a smiley-faced 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.
Elsewhere, life went on as usual across much of the city. Coffee shops, restaurants and stores that had been closed for days began to reopen. Couples sipped wine as they shopped at Whole Foods in Montrose. A steady stream of joggers and cyclists passed through a park along the swollen Buffalo Bayou.
Some high-priced homes near the Buffalo Bayou are submerged in floodwaters that are still up to first-floor windows.
Janet Amirseif stood near her flooded street Sunday and said it would be a long time before her life returned to anything resembling normal.
“People in downtown? Nothing. Here, it’s just mayhem,” she said. “It’s over? No, it’s just started.”