RIDING OUT THE STORM
Former area resident living near Houston considers herself lucky
So far, Barbara Kosciewicz and her husband Paul have been lucky — and they know it.
About a year ago, due to Paul’s job, the couple moved from North Coventry to Katy, Texas — about 25 miles west of Houston.
“We had a weekend to buy a house,” Kosciewicz told Digital First Media Tuesday.
And the last thing on the couple’s mind was looking at flood plain maps or topography. Nevertheless, they chose well.
“We’ve got water in our street, but it hasn’t made its way into the house. We’ve still got power and running water, so we know how lucky we are,” she said. Her neighbors are less lucky. “There are a number in our neighborhood who have been forced out of their houses and there’s a shelter that has opened right down the street,” Kosciewicz said.
It’s not the first temporary shelter and if weather forecasts are as accurate as they have been so far, it may not be the last. Tens of thousands of Houston-area residents have been forced from their homes and are staying in shelters.
Hurricane Harvey has turned out to be a monster, more for the rain it has dumped on Houston, the nation’s fourth largest city.
According to the National
Weather Service, between midnight Friday and 9 a.m. Tuesday, more than 49 inches of rain fell in Texas — a record for the continental U.S. from a landfalling tropical cyclone.
“We’ve had 32 inches of rain here,” said Kosciewicz.
CNN has reported some remarkable numbers connected to Harvey:
• “Harvey has dumped 11 trillion gallons of rain over the state, says Ryan Maue with WeatherBell, a weather analytics company. And by the time Harvey dissipates, the state will have seen 25 trillion gallons of rain, he predicts.”
• As of Tuesday morning, more than 3,400 water rescues had occurred and Houston 911 had received 56,000 calls for help in just 15 hours. A typical day averages 8,000 calls.
• There are 13 million people under flood warnings and 58 counties have made official disaster declarations.
• Officials estimate 30,000 people will need temporary shelter; 450,000 people will need assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency; and 215,000 students are out of school since Houston, the nation’s seventh largest school district, canceled classes.
“The word catastrophic does not appropriately describe what we’re facing,” U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who represents much of Houston, told CNN.
Thankfully, what Barbara and Paul Kosciewicz are facing seems less so — at least for now.
“Our road has flooded, but we’ve been able to get out of the house. We’ve taken some walks to get out of the house when the rain lets up. When it rains the water level rises, but when it stops, it goes back down some,” she said.
“We’ve really been very lucky where we are,” Kosciewicz said.