‘My dog is waiting for me’

Posted at 5:15 p.m.

Nestor Alas could see his home. It was only about a football field away. On a normal day, he could pop over Montrose Blvd, crossing Allen Parkway, and reach his place in just a couple minutes. But this isn’t a normal day.

He stood on a dotted-white line on Montrose Boulevard, just north of Allen, watching the water lap up on the street – an overpass normally 15 feet over Buffalo Bayou Park. There was no way he was getting across.

He sighed. He’d been trying routes all day.

He and his girlfriend, Dianna Rodriguez, had gone to her mom’s house around 8 p.m. Saturday to eat and watch the fight, and they’d gotten stuck. At first, the drive home, where their American bulldog was waiting, didn’t seem so bad. But White Oak Bayou was roiling, and they couldn’t pass I-45 at all.

The pair spent the night in an Exxon parking lot at Main and Houston, with dozens of other cars. It wasn’t so bad at first. They have a Chevy Tahoe, which is roomier than most vehicles, and the gas station was open. But as the night wore on, the rain pinged and banged against their car, and the gas station owner locked the doors.

This morning, they ditched the car, hoping to cross the bayou on foot. They walked to Shepherd and back, but all they saw were flooded-out bridges, and swirling brown water blocking their way. Alas figured they walked about 10 miles before one of Rodriguez’s co-workers picked them up in his SUV and began shuttling them down Washington, in search of bridges that might bring them home.

“Maybe Waugh,” Alas posited. “Or Shepherd. Shepherd goes up and over, it’s higher.”

He sighed again. “I just want to get home,” he said. “My dog is waiting for me, and I want to get home.”