Rich or poor, ‘Harvey didn’t spare anyone’ in Houston
HOUSTON — Harvey did not discriminate in its destruction.
It raged through neighborhoods rich and poor, black and white, upscale and working class. Across Houston and surrounding communities, no group sidestepped its paralyzing deluges and apocalyptic floods.
“Harvey didn’t spare anyone: The whole city is traumatized,” said Lynnette Borrel, whose backyard pool filled with murky water and schools of minnows from Brays Bayou on the city’s southwest side not far from downtown.
Far to the northeast edge of the sprawling city, a flotilla of boats rescued affluent residents of the pine forest villages of Kingwood — psychologists, doctors, business owners. And on the far west side, the release of storm water from the Addicks and Barker reservoirs pushed a devastating tide into some of Houston’s more wealthy neighborhoods.
Across town to the southeast, low-slung brick and clapboard homes in the heavily African-American and Hispanic Lockwood area were swamped. Missouri City, home to Houston’s largest Asian population, endured more than 40 inches of rain.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, fearing that a fullfledged evacuation of the nation’s fourth-largest city in the face of the oncoming storm would be dangerous, advised residents to remain in place. So when Harvey submerged roughly 70 percent of the land mass in Harris County, all demographics were inundated.
The poor tend to suffer most in disasters. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the world was left with nightmarish images of residents of New Orleans’ impoverished Lower Ninth Ward, screaming for help from their rooftops. That storm, which claimed 1,800 lives, stands as an example of urban inequality and environmental injustice.
But in this moment, as the waters begin to recede, Houston residents of all colors and socio-economic statuses find themselves united in loss, despair — and resilience.
“Every nationality you could see was in the George R. Brown Convention Center,” said Lois Rose, 55, a school teacher who evacuated her home in a predominantly African-American and Hispanic area of northwest Houston. “Harvey hit everywhere.”