Crisis helped foster civic-mindedness
It was Sunday morning when the police called to say they needed a boat.
Mine was 16 feet long and had a shallow draft, perfect for catching redfish in Galveston Bay. As I found out, it was a pretty good rescue boat too. We were one of the first boats in the water during Hurricane Harvey, and learned quickly what we were up against.
It was dangerous and terrifying, but we were determined to do right and risk the consequences.
After all, this wasn’t water moving along well-established contours of a riverbank. It was gushing through shrubs, over cars and around light posts. It hid fire hydrants and storm drains. Hitting just one fire hydrant could tear the boat’s propeller off, sending me and my friend downstream with no control.
Worse, each bayou is lined with overpasses, and each one had fast-moving water right up to the top, sucking everything underneath it. We yelled over the rain and wind that, if something bad happened, we would jump up before being sucked under the bridge, and grab a guard rail. Then hold on and wait.
We made decisions like that everyday for five days. It’s why I couldn’t sleep most nights.
During one rescue, we realized that our small boat would be too heavy to rescue a mom and her teenage daughter, who had cerebral palsy, because the water became intensely shallow, but very fast, at a key exit point. The only way to have a chance would be with a lighter boat. So, David Magdol, my boat partner on day two and three, knew what he needed to do. He climbed out of the boat to lighten our load. While I boated away with the family, he stood chest deep in the middle of the flood, holding onto a tree, and made one of those “sort of” jokes about me coming back to get him.
After we placed the mother and her sweet child into the capable hands of our team at the staging area, I picked up David, and we motored upstream, passing the home with the late-stage, terminally ill patient we tried to rescue the day before. I wondered if they were still OK with their decision to stay.
During Harvey, everyone in Houston and the Gulf Coast relied on others like never before. It was the only way. We relied on boats, trucks, people handing out sandwiches on the corner and a bunch of volunteers at George R. Brown Convention Center and elsewhere.
I can’t get some of the sights out of my mind. I’m still haunted by the vision of the two people whom we helped, but didn’t make it. These are just some of my stories from Hurricane Harvey.
One of the few good things that came out of Hurricane Harvey was that we became civic-minded again. We stopped being consumers, being Republicans or Democrats, rednecks or city slickers. We saw firefighters, constables, police and paramedics working shoulder-toshoulder with cooks, lawyers and undocumented immigrants. It was beautiful and inspiring.
And it was all too shortlived.
Top recovery priorities gave way to politics as Gov. Greg Abbott refused to call a special session.
The White House offered an insultingly small recovery bill that even other Republicans deemed inadequate.
And just last week, President Donald Trump tarnished the heroes of Harvey — the Texan Navy, Cajun Navy and whatever those guys from Oklahoma call themselves — by proclaiming Houstonians “went out in their boats to watch the hurricane.”
If this is the attitude from the people at the top, then it again falls on the rest of us to shepherd the Harvey spirit to help our region rebuild and prevent further catastrophic devastation to our state.
This means putting aside partisan politics when our Legislature convenes in January and instead focusing on recovery efforts, such as building a third reservoir in west Houston and a coastal spine system.
It means demanding an end to the crazy talk from Trump and his Texas lackeys who sit in silence while he insults our state. It means firing the fringe and replacing them with people who truly embody the Harvey spirit.
If we truly want to rebuild after Harvey, it means demanding that Texas be led by the sort of people willing to do right, and risk the consequences.
And we can do that on November 6. Mark your calendar.