For Rockport’s most vulnerable, options to flee were painfully few
Poor, ill or elderly in seaside town ride out the storm
As Hurricane Harvey grew and menaced from the Gulf of Mexico, Barry Skipper knew he should probably leave. He had been through close calls before and knew he was vulnerable in this seaside community.
But he didn’t have enough money to leave, so he and his wife hunkered down in their apartment, covering themselves with a mattress in the shower as Harvey mauled their roof.
On Saturday, Skipper picked through the soggy remains inside his roofless and splintered apartment, wondering what to do next.
“We just didn’t have the funds,” said Skipper, 68, who is retired and on disability. “The ball started rolling, and there was nothing really we could do.”
Harvey, the first major hurricane to hit the United States in 12 years, left a swath of people like Skipper in its wake: those on a fixed income, infirmed or elderly without the means to evacuate or the wherewithal to seek shelter.
Harvey has been downgraded to a tropical storm, but it continues to dump torrential rains in the Houston area, flooding that city, and is expected to return to Rockport and the coast by Thursday.
What to do with the most vulnerable residents is one of the biggest challenges of any disaster — before and after a storm hits. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina displaced or killed scores of the poorest residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
In Texas, county and city officials urged residents to evacuate as Harvey intensified in the gulf to a Category 4 storm Friday and took aim at the Texas coast.
Officials couldn’t force residents to leave, even under mandatory evacuation orders, but the vast majority were motivated to get out, said Nueces County Judge Loyd Neal, whose area includes nearby Port Aransas and Corpus Christi but not Rockport.
“We asked people to get out of harm’s way early on,” he said. “Thank goodness thousands did.”
Lois Riley, 61, said she watched with growing angst as Harvey intensified. She would have liked to have heeded the urging of local officials to leave Rockport but also didn’t have the money or a place to go. “I’m on a fixed income, and this is the end of the month,” she said.
When she called 211 to inquire about shelters, she was told repeatedly to call back, Riley said. So she and a friend took shelter in her two-bedroom home, huddling in her bedroom as Harvey’s winds punched holes in her roof, disintegrated the front porch and exploded a front window. Water poured in.
“It was horrible,” Riley said. As Harvey tore apart homes, residents began retreating to the Live Oak Learning Center, an elementary school that had been converted into a shelter. Christina Tucker, 30, a waitress in Rockford, checked into the shelter Friday.
Not feeling anyone was in charge, she deputized a group of other evacuees into volunteer squads and began delegating tasks, such as creating a sign-in sheet, assigning cots and organizing meals.
“We had individuals,” she said, “but no organization.”
Soon, some of Rockport’s sickest and elderly residents were streaming into the school. By Saturday afternoon, 129 people had checked into the shelter. One of them, Sharon Simmons, 53, arrived with her husband, Charles Simmons, 70, an amputee who needs regular dialysis.
When the power went out Friday night, Sharon Simmons began panicking. “He has to have dialysis or he is going to die,” she said.
She said she would have preferred to leave Rockport as Harvey intensified but didn’t have the means. Their house was pummeled by the storm, which forced them to the shelter.
“My truck is smashed and my house is gone,” Sharon Simmons said. “What do I do now?”
By Saturday afternoon, teams from the Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Medical Emergency Medical Task Force and other local and state agencies were arriving to deal with the evacuees. Many were being transferred to Austin on large tour buses.
Helping storm victims rebuild their lives will bring more challenges for lower-income and elderly residents, who often lack the insurance or means to rebuild on their own.
Asked what he will do next, Skipper shrugged. Getting new clothes and a new home will take money he doesn’t have.
“FEMA will get here eventually, I suppose,” he said, referring to the federal disaster agency. “Until then, we’ll just wait.”
“We just didn’t have the funds. The ball started rolling, and there was nothing really we could do.” Barry Skipper, 68, who was not able to evacuate