Greenspoint-area residents again face devastation

Initially told to stay put through Harvey, Greenspoint-area apartment residents had little time to decide whether to evacuate when Houston police came knocking late Saturday, urging first-floor residents to seek shelter from the rain threatening to inundate their neighborhood for the second time in as many years.

By sunrise Sunday, overflow from Greens Bayou was again gushing into many of the roughly 2,000 area apartments that took on water 16 months ago, with no respite in sight.

Residents met the floodwater with mixed emotions Sunday. Many newcomers dreaded its continued rise or wished they had left sooner; longtime residents accepted Tropical Storm Harvey’s wrath with resignation.

“For now, I’m not scared or nervous,” 35-year-old Wilmer Pavón said in Spanish, over pounding rain that by afternoon had brought 3 feet of water into the courtyard below his second-floor apartment, where a half-dozen downstairs neighbors had taken refuge.

Pavón had done this before, and if this was God’s will, he had thought the day before, there would be no escape.

Indeed, Greenspoint was just one of many communities devastated as Harvey blanketed Houston with the worst flooding in the city’s history Sunday.

But, here at least, catastrophe was all too expected.

Flooding has become part of the bargain in this predominantly lowincome Houston neighborhood south of Bush Intercontinental Airport, where cheap rent ties many families to living in a flood zone and beckons those who don’t know any better.

Last year’s flood sparked talks of buying out one of the most vulnerable complexes — a federally subsidized development named Arbor Court — but the city never followed through, and management rebuilt.

So did the owners of the 16 other apartment complexes that flooded last year.

‘I regret coming here’

New Greenspoint tenants Passion Johnson and Hytiesse Baugh made sure to ask about flood risk before moving into a first-floor unit at the Royal Phoenician apartments in April and remembered being told it wouldn’t be a problem.

But there they were, at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, staring out from their patio at floodwater gushing faster and higher down the street just feet away.

“I remember asking, and I don’t feel like it was the truth,” Johnson said. “If you’re trying to move they’ll tell you anything, but I regret coming here.”

Little more than an hour earlier, Baugh, Johnson’s girlfriend, realized they had made a mistake by not evacuating.

“We should have gone when the police knocked on the door,” the 24-yearold cashier at Bush Intercontinental Airport said, eyes fixed on the pounding rain.

Elsewhere in their complex, closer to Greens Bayou, cars and apartments already were inundated, again, and the street out front was impassable.

“I don’t know what to do,” Baugh said. “I want to leave, but it’s raining too hard. Then I don’t want to leave my stuff.”

Four miles away, occupancy at the Red Cross shelter at M.O. Campbell Education Center ballooned from 350 people midmorning to more than 600 in the early afternoon.

“They’re coming in in droves,” shelter manager Jerry Fennell said, but street flooding was making it difficult to get food to the shelter. “The logistics of getting supplies is the big problem.”

Neighbors offer help

Continued, drenching rain also stymied residents attempting to rescue their neighbors Sunday afternoon.

“A lot of us thought it wasn’t going to get this bad,” said Dalid Menjivar, 23, who left her nearby mobile home to lend a hand.

Waist-deep water rushing across Greens Road prevented all but a jet ski towing two kayaks from forging deeper into the floodwater engulfing several apartment complexes.

“It’s heartbreaking to know there are still people in there who can’t come out,” Menjivar said. “We try to help as much as we can, but there’s only so much you can do.”

Security guard Marcus Haywood had been assisting residents for eight hours and was adamant no one would get swept away by the current.

“I will seriously put you in handcuffs,” he said to a woman contemplating crossing.

With no police or official rescue vehicles in sight, Haywood was trying to organize more residents to bring jet skis.

“I know how bad it’s gonna be,” he said, “and this water is not going to go anywhere at all.”

“I don’t know what to do. I want to leave, but it’s raining too hard. Then I don’t want to leave my stuff.” Hytiesse Baugh, area resident