‘DEVASTATING AND SHOCKING’

relentless rain and floodwaters turned her first floor into a “swimming pool with yellow water.”

She was stuck along with her husband and five children, including her 9-year-old daughter and four adult children, and two of her older kids’ friends.

“The rain is just horrible,” she told me. “Just keep praying for us.”

The family had enough food for a couple days, she said, and her young daughter was scared. Her first floor was destroyed. They were grateful for the power they still had upstairs but Cavazos didn’t know how much more they could take. One of her neighbors was stuck in his one-story home alone, she told me, but was too afraid to make his way through the shoulder-high water to her house.

“We’re not able to get out at all. Even with the sandbags, the water was just coming in through the walls, because there was just too much,” Cavazos, 43, said. “Right now, we have power, but I don’t know for how long. How long is our bathroom going to be working before the water starts overflowing?”

She and her family hauled as much furniture and belongings as they could upstairs but there was a lot they couldn’t move, like their bedroom set, dining room table, appliances and dishes. They were able to save the living room couches and family photos.

The epic flooding came as a shock, Cavazos said, as past rainfall never even left puddles in her street. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner didn’t order involuntary or voluntary evacuations in the days before Harvey hit, a decision the mayor continues to defend.

“It never rained this much,” Cavazos said. “It’s devastating and shocking.”

Her children made waffles yesterday and were trying to remain calm after a Houston family of six reportedly drowned in a van while trying to escape the flooding.

The rain yesterday was nonstop, Cavazos said, drizzling and then picking up again. Another 2 feet of rain is still expected to fall on the besieged city and region.

“I’m heartbroken,” said Cavazos, a restaurant manager. “You work so hard for your stuff and you try to take care of everything and then it’s just lost in one day — just everything. But my kids are safe, so we are good.”