NOT SIGHTSEEING, MR. PRESIDENT. SAVING LIVES
Don’t let his remarks twist the truth about Harvey boat heroes
Floodwaters quickly inundated my home during the early hours of Hurricane Harvey. My husband and I fled with our dogs in the dark to a house at the end of the block. Unlike our old, lowlying midcentury home, this one had been built slightly elevated after the couple’s previous house was hit by a tree during Hurricane Ike. Above the floodwaters, we spent 12 hours that day huddled with 30 other neighbors, 20 dogs, 10 cats and one newborn.
We were safe, but it was a long, awful day. All of us wanted to leave for somewhere more comfortable where we could take showers, charge phones and cry alone. But we were stuck in that home, surrounded by a 5-foot-deep pool of water. Then a boat arrived. First they took the couple with the newborn. Then the elderly man. Slowly, the house emptied. We watched from the porch as the boat took each person to their next chapter of an endless day. When it was our turn, my husband gently handed down our cat carriers and two garbage bags of belongings he had been able to go back and retrieve. He stepped into the canoe cradling our tiny, old chihuahua. The whole thing was unreal to watch.
I’m not great in boats, but when I stepped into that canoe I felt safe for the first
time that day.
One man pushed the boat from behind by walking through the deep water; another fiddled with the breaking motor. One rowed. Meanwhile, among the chaos, they casually sipped Saint Arnold beer.
None of them was there to watch the storm.
They guided us past our neighbors’ ruined houses and oddly-angled cars, blinkers clicking and drowned alarms still trying to wail. They steered us around a corner to dry land, where more strangers gave us water, hugs and dog treats for our dogs. We thanked them over and over again, they waved us off, said it was nothing, then they were off to get more people. This happened throughout the city. If you’re going to talk about boats and Harvey, the overwhelming story was that civilians used their humble canoes and small kayaks to rescue their neighbors from horror and harm. What a great story to be able to tell about a storm and a city.
But that’s not the story President Donald Trump told on Wednesday. He said that the Coast Guard rescued thousands of people in boats who were out to “watch the hurricane” when Harvey roared into the Gulf last August. “That didn’t work out too well,” he added.
I have become almost numb to the endless onslaught of misinformation that comes from the president’s tweets and statements, but that weird tale that no one can corroborate got under my skin. Don’t get numb to it. The truth of what happened during Harvey shouldn’t be muddied by anyone: Citizens improvised a solution to a sudden problem. It worked just fine.
When Gov. Greg Abbott says that Texas is ready for another Harvey, I assume he means that there are still many admirable civilians here with boats who are ready and willing to go to work out of the goodness of their hearts to rescue the vulnerable. I don’t know how else we are ready because we haven’t found homes for everyone who lost one.
We haven’t rebuilt every broken piece.
We don’t have many new flood control solutions in place.
We don’t seem to agree that we’re going to all have to pay more for better infrastructure.
We’re still arguing about building in flood plains.
If the nation’s highest office can get this basic tale of everyday heroism so wrong, I struggle to think how we’re going to get it right on everything else that needs to be done.
Cress (@saracress) is a writer in Houston. Find her “Breaking Poems,” poetry based on news headlines, and other works on saracress.com.