In denial no more: Floods prove disaster can strike anyone
Stories of human misery remind us of beauty and danger in our midst
Onthe morning of April 18, I was still sleeping when myhusband called out my name in panic. Our family stood in the living room as we watched water seep onto the floor, our backyard a lake. I stood frozen at the edge of where the water reached, the children screaming. We watched from the window as my husband went outside into the storm, clearing debris out of our drains, digging impromptu trenches, doing anything to stop the water.
Most Houstonians have stories of close calls: the car almost swept away; a harrowing drive in an unexpected downpour; floodwater reaching perilously close to the front door. As we watch the news, we see people being rescued from flooded freeways, maybe know a friend-of-a-friend whose family was rescued from an attic.
Yet, often, it’s not us. So when another forecast of an apocalyptic hurricane comes on the radio, we might still be on our way somewhere in our car, driving to do what we had already planned to do. It’s not going to happen to me, we tell ourselves.
At least, that’s how it was before Katrina. Houstonians recognized ourselves in the news as we saw New Orleanians holding signs pleading for help from rooftops. We saw ourselves in the stories of people swimming in floodwater surrounded by dead bodies, and there was something familiar in how many chose to stay despite the warnings. We recognized our years of lack of vigilance and our denial that misfor-
tune could reach us.
To non-natives, it’s hard to explain the curious mix of nonchalance and anxiety that a Houstonian may feel before and after a storm. You never know whether to believe the weather forecasts, as they frequently predict the worst, or so it seems, until suddenly, rain pours out of the sky — and doesn’t stop.
As a 36-year-old native Houstonian, I have lived through many floods and hurricanes. I have been trapped in myhouse because our neighborhood was flooded; done my home work by candlelight when much of the city was without electricity; and I’ve drunk from a tub full of emergency water after a storm. It’s just something ordinary that happens here, like the oppressive heat of summer, the mosquitoes that breed into a swarm of fellow citizens, or the parking-lot traffic on our crosshatch of freeways.
I grew up near Greenspoint with Greens Bayou behind my family’s house and now live in Meyerland, less than a mile from Brays Bayou. In the late 1980s, when our neighborhood streets were flooded, it felt festive, like a party. Children swam in the streets, caught snakes and fished for trash. (I enviously watched from the window, as my mother would never allow meto do this.)
During the Memorial Day storm last year, a friend in my neighborhood awoke in the middle of the night. She stepped into water by her bedside. In the living room, water was coming through the doors, and it was rising. She and her husband took their children and waded through thighhigh water to a neighbor’s house that stood on higher ground, their house behind them filling up with several feet of water. All the close calls I’ve experienced in Houston suddenly felt weighted with missed danger and less with a lighthearted luck.
When I stood watching my husband attempt to stop the water from coming into our house last month, I remembered something from 33 years ago. To mychild’s eyes, this is what I saw and what I remember: my mother, barely able to walk in the wind from an approaching hurricane, struggling to tie down a sapling in our front yard. She was afraid that the tree, barely planted, would get swept away. So, despite the wind already shaking our house, the noise from it like a train passing close, she went outside.
It was 1983, and Hurricane Alicia had just reached north Houston. My sister and I stood watching from the window of our house. I cried and screamed for my mother, which exasperated my sister. The sight of my mother struggling amid flying debris and the wind was terrifying. She looked almost helpless — my strong, able mother, the way she struggled over something so trivial, when even I could see that the weather could cause more damage than what she was trying to prevent. The possibility of her losing the ability to be in control pierced me.
Myfamily was lucky in the Tax Day flood, as my mother was. The water stopped and drained, with barely any damage. But then I learned what happened to residents in Greenspoint, Meyerland — again — and across Houston and its suburbs — water overcoming homes and apartments, neighbors rescuing families in boats, children being ferried in refrigerators, cars swallowed by dark water in the middle of the street.
What didn’t happen to us had happened to hundreds of others. We can blame development, we can blame climate change, drainage and bayou problems, Mother Nature. But panic doesn’t care whois to blame. In the moment, all you see is water rushing through your front door, and you wonder if this time it’s finally your turn.
There is something true in that childish terror I felt decades ago. As it made mesee my mother as vulnerable for the first time, this new fear about our city makes me see the tenuousness of its very existence, our bayous and creeks both beautiful and threatening. Maybe for this reason, the city feels more beloved to me, worth fighting for, even if we can’t stop that one big storm.