Storm lessons
Regarding “How to help people affected by severe Houston storm,” (May 17): I don’t think we’ve seen this level of devastation since Hurricane Alicia in ’83. Many will be without basic services for several weeks. We’re fortunate that we sustained little or no damage in the Clear Lake area.
When Alicia hit I was dealing with the untimely deaths of a younger brother and sister, plus an impending divorce. My 5-year-old daughter had a hideous foot infection, I was broke and I had two young children. My vehicle was on its last legs.
We were told that in West University it would be approximately two weeks before we’d have power. The start of school was delayed, and water was scarce. I was an emotional and physical wreck. And it was mid-August. Hotter than hot!
My soon-to-be ex asked Houston Lighting & Power Co. if he could hot-wire our home. The linemen said yes, if he could do so safely. With the state of emergency we were in, they wouldn’t disconnect us.
We were the only house in a severalblock area that had power. I told everybody we knew that although I couldn’t feed them, I could give them a cool place to sleep. They needed to bring their own bedding. Neighbors showed up every night until power was restored. Several nights we had more than 20 people sleeping on the floors of a 980-square-foot West U cottage.
Years later we attended a wedding in Colorado. A young man came up to me and told me that he and his mom were a couple of my guests. He told me what a godsend it was to sleep cool at night and that he’d never forget our generosity. He shared that his mom passed shortly after Alicia.
Do whatever, no matter how small a gesture, to give even one person a ray of hope. Those rays of hope impact others for a lifetime. And we have so many in dire need of that to get through the next several weeks. Martha Anne Pierson, Seabrook
Regarding “Hurricane winds from nowhere? Storm-tossed Houston prays for a break | Editorial,” (May 17): My wife and I were eating dinner in a Bellaire restaurant before going to a play at the Alley Theatre when the whole restaurant buzzed with the storm alert. I told my wife we must leave now, so we wrapped up and headed to downtown along Richmond and Kirby. The storm caught us on Richmond, and we drove through high winds and strong rain along Kirby and River Oaks. We dodged branches but made it to the Alley and were surprised they still had power. We parked on the high side of the underground parking lot and made it to the Alley just fine. We enjoyed the play and drove back carefully to our home in Meyerland, which still had power. I was surprised, as we often lose power if a dog sneezes. Richard Verm, Houston
The evidence of climate disruption continues to mount. Hurricane Harvey was the third “500-year” flood event in three years. More recently, we had continuous flooding in large areas north of Harris County, and now the powerful freak derecho event, which caused extensive damage throughout the Houston area.
The facts get ever clearer. The longer we continue to burn fossil fuels, adding heat-trapping climate pollution to the atmosphere, the more our way of life and the things we hold dear are in jeopardy. Importantly, we do not need to accept this trajectory. We have solutions to rapidly phase out carbon pollution. But this will require far-reaching and immediate action from U.S. and other global leaders.
I’m a constituent of U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, and I’m calling on him to implement the solutions we have available to protect us from the ravages of global warming. Daniel Burns, Spring