Small Texas towns’ recovery is ongoing

If we judge the well-being of a community by the resilience of its most vulnerable members, then some some towns hit by Hurricane Harvey are wounded prey for the next disaster.

Just ask residents of Wharton’s West End, a neighborhood of approximately 460 homes that has flooded five times since 1991. Most recently, two times in April and May 2016 and then 18 months later, most devastatingly, with Hurricane Harvey.

You might remember Wharton. It is the small town the Houston Chronicle quoted as “the forgotten city” after it was isolated with little outside assistance, left to fend for itself during the days of devastating flooding caused by Harvey, even though it is less than an hour from Houston on the Interstate 69 corridor.

For some residents, not much has changed in the days since the immediate response.

Wharton’s West End residents know a hard truth: the media cycle is brief but disaster recovery for areas prone to environmental injustice is perpetual.

The West End, though rich in history, finds itself like many minority neighborhoods in rural Texas towns, isolated from the larger community and impacted by generational poverty.

FEMA reports that Wharton County has the largest number of “non-comps,” in the entire state following Harvey, meaning it has the highest number of residences who “refuse” to maintain flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance program after a previous flood, rendering them unable to receive funds to assist with recovery in the event of future disasters. The majority of those Wharton County cases are residences in the West End. Many of these homes have flooded five times. Residents live in the homes unrepaired or partially repaired for years, scraping together money and supplies when they can, hoping and praying they won’t flood again any time soon.

FEMA cannot repeatedly absorb the cost of recovering homes, but the “noncompliant” label itself is reflective of a deeper, systemic issue. It implies ‘choice’ and if you ask any resident who has chosen between food or necessary medication and expensive flood insurance, there is no choice. The homes hold little resale value and if residents can move, they risk leaving a strong social network and the heartbeat of the community, Dawson Resource Center, the West End’s beloved community center.

For the city of Wharton, repeated flooding means a repeated toll on stressed infrastructure in a town that is struggling to attract industry and raise the tax base. With limited health care access, the elevated vulnerabilities of repeated disaster are taking a toll on the entire community. Issues such as domestic violence, alcohol and substance abuse, unemployment, food insecurity, lifestylerelated illnesses and mortality rates increase and continue to stay elevated several years following a disaster. For a community repeatedly struck by disaster, it is the difference between thriving and simply surviving.

With community resilience declining, the question being asked by local leaders is: How long can the community continue to stay afloat?

That is the question more and more Texas towns are beginning to ask themselves. And the bigger question is: Whose job is it to help, and what needs to happen?

Wharton’s West End is no longer waiting for the federal or state government to help. Local stakeholders have established the Wharton West End Initiative, a community led revitalization program created in the hope of revitalizing a once-thriving neighborhood and connecting it to the larger community in a way it has never been.

Through four pillars of success, including resilient housing, improved health of residents and access to affordable health care, economic development and equipping of the Dawson Resource Center, the Wharton West End Initiative hopes to make flood recovery a thing of the past for current and future generations of the West End.

Following Harvey, Wharton had a jump on soliciting funds from charitable foundations poised to release large amounts of money to help rebuild Texas coastal communities. Community advocates in Wharton have dreamed about what the community could create if the funds were available and they are moving swiftly to create and implement plans and programs to begin the long and intense process of healing the West End.

In the book “A Paradise Built in Hell,” Rebecca Solnit talks about the beauty that can arise in communities as a result of disaster: “Horrible in itself, disaster is sometimes a door back into paradise, that paradise at least in which we are who we hope to be, do the work we desire, and are each our sister’s and brother’s keeper.” The Wharton West End Initiative can glimpse this paradise. For West End residents, it can’t come soon enough. The friendly neighbors welcome visitors and the directions are simple: if you are coming from downtown, go West on Milam and when you cross the tracks, you’re there.

Konvicka is director of student ministries at Wharton First United Methodist Church and VP of Wharton County Recovery Team.