Death saddens, puzzles family
They met more than 40 years ago, in Jordan, in the hotel where he worked.
Israeli soldiers and a river and 90 miles were between them, but across distance and time, the courtship between Issa Konsul and Nihad Nustas flourished. He was a Jordanian Catholic. She was a Greek Orthodox from Bethlehem.
After Nustas left her home to come to Houston in 1975, she sent him letter after letter, and finally money for a ticket. He followed her here two years later.
They wed and settled in west Houston, raised three children, and worked hard — he at Valero, where he rose to become a manager, and she at Kroger, where she was a price coordinator, and cultivated a razorsharp sense for bargains even as she worked long hours late at night.
After 38 years together here, with Nihad Konsul’s retirement a month away, the rains came Monday.
Issa remembers looking outside.
“It was a river of water,” the 66-year-old man said. “You couldn’t see anything.”
Nihad, who had to work a midnight to 8 a.m. shift, called the grocery, said she wouldn’t come in, he said. He went to bed.
The next morning, while watching TV, he saw his wife’s white pickup truck, and the report
of a woman dead on Ranchester.
“Damn it, that’s my wife’s car!” a grief-stricken Issa recounted Thursday.
On Thursday, as they made funeral arrangements, the family was left to wonder what prompted the 64-year-old grandmother to change her mind and try to drive through the blinding rain to work.
“It’s so heartbreaking,” said her 35-year-old daughter, Nesreen Lange. “She felt an innate sense of duty to do her job. She felt that responsibility.”
They take some consolation in the news that Nihad, who had suffered a previous heart attack, appears to have died from a second one, perhaps caused by the panic of the floodwaters, and not an agonizing drowning.
Nihad Konsul was one of the seven confirmed fatalities attributed to this week’s flooding in the Houston area. Those numbers may rise again: an 87-year-old man remains missing after being swept away when the Houston Fire Department rescue boat he was in lost power and capsized.
Authorities discovered a man’s body late Thursday at the Port of Houston, but it was unclear whether it was the missing 87-year-old.
Others who died in Houston have been identified as Jose YebraIbarra, 31; Shirley Alter, 85; Dennis Callihan, 65; Christopher Kirby, 35; and Anh Phan Nguyen, 50. High water in the Rosenberg area killed 73-year-old Alice Tovar.
The deaths here are among the more than 20 across the state and in Oklahoma attributed to extensive flooding. In Central Texas, a Houston man identified as Jonathan Walker was killed in floodwaters, which continue to be a threat.
‘We know the river is coming’
Authorities around the Houston region are monitoring rising water levels from nearby rivers and reservoirs, fearing their impact on cities and neighborhoods.
In Wharton, 60 miles southwest of Houston, as many as 1,000 families evacuated from their homes Thursday in anticipation of flooding from the rising Colorado River. Residents of neighborhoods on the banks of the Colorado in the town of about 9,000 were trying to leave the area before it flooded, city spokeswoman Paula Favors said.
“We have the advantage that we know the river is coming,” Favors said. About 900 to 1,000 people live in the area expected to inundated by the rising Colorado.
As of noon Thursday, 19 families had registered with the American Red Cross at a shelter established in the gym at Wharton Junior High School, Favors said. Most evacuees were staying with relatives or friends, but the city was not keeping track of the total number who had heeded the city warning to evacuate, she said.
The river level predictions come from information from the National Weather Service, she said, and are in flux because of changing conditions.
The chances are good that a line of storms will deliver another bout of rain Saturday and Sunday, most likely near Interstate 10, said Josh Lichter, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Lichter warned that if a cold front sags toward Houston from North Texas, it would bring slow moving storms and plenty of rain. About 3 inches could hit scattered areas, Lichter said, adding that as much as 5 inches could fall in isolated areas.
“I’m pretty sure we’re not going to get 11 inches again like we did the other night,” Lichter said.
But the soaked ground increases the potential for flash flooding.
“We need lots of days of dry air and lots of sun to get water levels down,” he said, “and there is no sign of that probably until next week.”
Harris County officials warned that the flooding wasn’t over for some residents closer to Houston.
Kim Jackson, of the Harris County Flood Control District, said the west fork of the San Jacinto River remained above flood level and urged residents who remained home to avoid driving out into the water.
“It would be too dangerous for them to get out if they’re still there,” she said.
Reservoirs closed
The lower San Jacinto, below Lake Houston, continued to rise, she said, warning that two neighborhoods — Rio Villa and the Banana Bend subdivision — were likely to flood. Officials have not ordered an evacuation, but were warning residents to leave. If residents stay, they will be unable to use access roads until early next week, she said.
The Addicks and Barker reservoirs have been closed in advance of possible rain this weekend. That could cause flooding on Texas Highway 6, she said. According to the National Weather Service, water levels southwest of Houston, near Victoria, were expected to crest there Friday morning.
In Fort Bend County, officials braced for major flooding on the Brazos River that could approach a record 50 feet set in 1994. It is expected to reach just 4 inches below that mark.
In Montgomery County, fewer than a dozen families have evacuated in scattered areas across the county, said Miranda Hahs, spokeswoman for the Office of Emergency Management.