Tears and memories well up as residents return to devastation
Silvia Casas’ eyes filled with tears yesterday as she surveyed the damage from Hurricane Harvey to what once was a working-class, mostly Hispanic neighbourhood near Crosby, Texas.
The floodwaters pulled large trees from the ground. Recreational vehicles were crumpled like tin cans. Entire houses were shunted nearly 10m, leaving piles of wood and splintered debris and PVC pipes sticking from the ground as the only reminder of once-familiar structures.
Near a 10m-high pile of debris – once houses and treasured belongings – someone had hung a painting of the Virgin de Guadalupe from a tree branch. Around the corner, a sinkhole had swallowed two cars and was filled with brown, mucky water.
A neighbourhood stray dog, fed by everyone, weathered the flood by standing on the Casas’ roof. Their cinderblock house was one of the few structures that wasn’t thrown by floodwaters, but inside, a pile of furniture and splintered belongings sat in the middle of the floor, under a ceiling pocked with peeling paint from the floodwaters.
Silvia stopped to survey the outdoor kitchen that used to stand on the side of the house where several generations would gather.
‘‘This is where we gathered as a family . . .’’ Silvia said before choking up. ‘‘We’re going to miss this place.’’
A week after Harvey roared into Texas, the Casas are among thousands of people seeing their devastated homes for the first time. An estimated 156,000 dwellings in Harris County were damaged.
The community where the Casas family lived doesn’t have an official name. It is about 10 kilometres southwest of the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby that flooded earlier this week, causing a fire and explosion that evacuated a 2km radius around the plant.
Silvia and Rafael Casas said their family got no official evacuation warning when the floodwaters came. They were told to leave when they lost power, but the lights stayed on. Their home was in the area that was affected by the release of water from two dams that were in danger of overflowing.
Luckily, the family decided to leave anyway.
Robert Bartee was happy to leave the convention centre yesterday where he spent six days after Harvey along with thousands of other evacuees. Robey Bartee loaded his belongings into a relative’s vehicle for the 18km drive to his old, wood-frame house in East Houston.
What he found was worse than he expected. The house reeked of spoiled meat that went bad while the power was off. The carpet squished with each step. A line of grass and debris showed where water filled his den and a sunken bedroom. His furniture was wet. The wallboards were soft.
Hurricane Rita flooded the same house in 2005, he said, but Harvey was worse.
‘‘This one just wiped me out,’’ said Bartee, 66, a retired city employee. ‘‘I didn’t completely have to start over on the first one. I was able to save a lot of things and pick up the pieces and go along. But this one here, I don’t know what pieces to pick up.’’
As much as he hates the idea, he plans to go back to the shelter and find another home.
Back near Crosby, Mary Ann Avila was thinking the same thing. The only room left standing was her daughter’s bedroom.
She sobbed as she walked around picking up items left behind from the flood.
‘‘It’s completely gone,’’ she said. ‘‘I don’t know what else to do. Rebuild? Probably not. In two years it’ll be the same thing again. I don’t think I can start over, not here.’’