Standing in water, watching your neighbor’s house burn down

Standing in ankle-deep water inside her house Sunday, Liberty County resident Terri Bivins watched helplessly as her neighbor’s house burned.

“Firefighters came in but they couldn’t get to the house because of all the water, so the house burned,” she said. “The brick shell of the home is still standing but the house is destroyed.”

A little while later, she heard that an older neighbor had to be rescued from the second story of her home.

“Thankfully she made it out okay,” Bivins said.

After living in her subdivision near Winter Valley in Kenefick for 41 years, Bivins has seen a lot of floods, but she believes Hurricane Harvey’s rains could top them all.

“In 1994, we had a big flood that everyone refers to. We had 30 inches of rain then,” she said. “I’ve heard that we’ve had 27 inches so far and more rain is falling as we speak.”

The flooding, she says, is

unprecedented.

“We are dealing with something we’ve never seen before. Yes, it was forecast that this would happen but I didn’t think it would be anything like this. This is total destruction,” she said.

Though she doesn’t have flood insurance, Bivins isn’t worried.

“I am a Christian. I don’t get worried too often. I am saddened though for my friends and neighbors. There are people who have lost a lot more than us,” she said.

According to Bivins, Liberty County, like all other counties impacted by the storm, will need state and federal assistance for residents and businesses to recover.

“I feel certain that the Small Business Administration and FEMA will be there,” she said. “But they will probably concentrate on the Houston area first because of population centers. I get that, but I would say to them, ‘Don’t forget about us in the rural areas. Our people are just as important.’”