Hurricane Harvey Eclipses Ike

 The before and after of Hurricane Harvey

This was the view of our neighborhood water run off retention ditch after Hurricane Harvey rained over 33 inches locally in Pearland last weekend.  Water did not get into homes in our subdivision, but many homes did get water, and Friendswood a few miles away reported 3000 homes flooded, about one-third of their homes.  Recovery will take many months, if not years,  and our family feels very fortunate that we were not severely affected this time, but we still bare the memories of Hurricane Ike vividly (see below) as I record my recollection even now of that time in our lives.

Stores still have lines to enter one entrance for food, and gas stations have higher prices and some lines that may be caused by a rush to top-off.  Even so, a lot of effort is going into helping those in need as water still remains where rivers are high and reservoirs drain at record levels.  Even the president came to Pearland to help and encourage yesterday.

My wife's parents are living with relatives in Brenham while their subdivision drains.  They got a little water through the brick in a front bedroom that soaked some of the carpet, but primarily they cannot navigate the flooded streets and are without electrical power.  It may be over a week before they can return.  And our major Beltway 8 roadway flooded just south of I-10 making access to that side of Houston difficult as everyone must go by the heavily traffic area of the west loop to I-10 west.

My 70th Birthday was spent at home as it rained and flooded, but Tammy prepared a roast and we had a very good meal.  But it was sad to know that people were enduring some or more than we did in Ike.

Pictures  VIDEO

A Hurricane Memory

Thinking about Hurricane Harvey’s recent strike brought back memories of Hurricane Ike 9 years earlier that struck Houston and our home and family on September 12th and 13th, 2008. I remember it as not being a frightening storm, but more docile as the winds outside howled at 100+ mph and sheets of rains continuously pelted the roof and sides of our house. But, as leaks began to start inside my wife, Tammy, and I began finding the drips and strategically placing containers beneath them one by one to keep the carpet dry. Some drips even could be heard in the kitchen attic where I climbed through an access to place pans before the water would soak through the ceiling.  But I was beginning to feel pressure in my chest as I climbed and I told Tammy of the symptoms and she wondered out loud to me if perhaps she should call 911.
  

Earlier that Friday, September 12th, 2008, my boys, Adam and Jordan, and I worked in the heat relentlessly boarding up windows and preparing for the storm that might happen.  So many storms had threatened and moved more eastward, including Hurricane Rita that had panicked Houston and clogged the roads and freeways, stranding people in stalled vehicles while the storm eventually left us unaffected.  We stayed put and waited out the threat at home, windows boarded and prepared. But Ike was different since it was widespread and strong, and the forecast accurate enough to put us either on the dirty side or directly in its path.  The preparation was hard and strenuous and at one point my muscles were cramping. Barely a week before at my checkup my doctor had changed my prescriptions for diabetes and cholesterol control and unknown to me the mixture was clogging my kidneys with the additional stress to reduce and shut down their function.  I was at the beginning of a medical crisis and did not know it.

As the evening progressed we all went to bed, the boys upstairs and us downstairs, even as the wind and rain continued.  Occasionally a drip could be heard and a vessel placed underneath. Jordan got up and decided to sleep on the couch in our den while Adam remained asleep in his front bedroom.  The process of dealing with leaks continued as the upstairs hall and attic off our game room began leaking heavily.  Unknown to us the shingles on the north side ridge of our home were blown away by the wind of Ike.  The water was coming in.  I went down to see the effect on the ceiling in the garage and a huge bulge of water was being created as the paint contained the water like a balloon.  As I shined my flashlight toward it, watching it, the entire ceiling collapse and a section of drywall swung like hinged just clearing the car before dropping to the floor while the water splashed down covering the cars and floor.

Back to bed with the dull pain in my chest continuing, I took aspirin to help in case it was my heart, but this had no real effect to abate the symptoms.  Then came a crash in our home.  We raced upstairs where we found the ceiling had completely collapsed in Jordan’s room onto his bed and center of the room, breaking fan blades in his ceiling fan in the process.  It was fortunate that Jordan had moved downstairs.  Adam’s room, however, had no sign of leaking so he decided to continue to sleep, being comfortable where he was.

Water from the upstairs collapse was dripping rapidly through into the dining room and we moved the dining room table more to the side into the living room area.  Back to bed until the next crash. We raced back upstairs to find the hall ceiling outside Adam's room had dropped.  I made Adam come downstairs as a precaution.  He was stunned that we had to step over the mess in the hall to get to the stairs.  Meanwhile my chest pain was increasing and while we did not have power for our house phones to work I had set up one older phone that connected directly without needing electricity other than the phone company’s line power.  It stayed connected and Tammy called 911 again.

The thing about a hurricane is that it shuts down all emergency services and hospitals.  Ambulances do not drive in a hurricane.  So when Tammy called 911 all they could do is suggest aspirin and if we had it use nitroglycerine, which we did not have, to make me as comfortable as possible.  The pain became intense and there was nothing I could do but try to shift positions and find some position that had less pain.  We had the boys both sleep on the floor on couch cushions in our bedroom as a precaution against the den ceiling collapse.  Water was streaming down the den ceiling and walls. The kitchen ceiling collapsed onto the floor and counters, knocking down a shelf rack that held pots and pans.  I couldn’t get up to look at it.  Then the ceiling in the game room upstairs collapsed, and the dining room next.  But I was in horrible pain and there was nothing anyone could do.  I had tried to get up and walk, not to look at damage, but to a bathroom since I felt sick as though I had a stomach virus, wanting to both throw up and use the toilet, too. I made it to the end of the bed before I collapsed back.  The back of my neck, left shoulder and arm, and chest all were spiking with pain. Everyone else was inspecting the recent crashes and I was alone without a light.  I could barely breathe.

Daybreak came on Saturday morning, but with our windows boarded it was still dark inside the house.  The hurricane winds and rain were diminishing outside and Adam went to neighbors to see if anyone had a prescription for nitroglycerin.  A neighbor helped and found someone with a spray that I used to administer under my tongue.  911 said that an ambulance could not be sent, but they would try to get a police cruiser and EMT to me if the roads were passable.  There were still no hospitals available, however, since all of them were in lock-down.  

Eventually there came a knock at our door.  It seemed like I had been waiting many hours.  An EMT and the deputy driving the cruiser came in and the EMT asked questions like how much pain was I in and where did it hurt.  She started an IV and gave me oxygen.  I don’t know which or what helped but I began feeling better.  As I progressively got my strength back I was helped to the back seat of the cruiser with the IV and oxygen still in place and the ET in back with me.  The deputy made his way out of the devastated neighborhood, shingles and debris everywhere, and I saw the scope of what had occurred outside.  All the window boarding had not helped keep the roofs on the homes that had been affected.  But there were many homes without any damage!  I kissed and said goodby to my wife as we left, her facing an unknown future of damage and uncertainty while I left to an unknown fate and health.

In route to a hospital we found high water and debris prevented access to Herman Memorial, so we detoured to Saint Luke Hospital instead and arrived to a locked down hospital.  The deputy detailed at the door what the circumstance were and they opened and allowed me in the front door.  I was taken upstairs in a wheelchair as they did have emergency power operating from generators.  I was admitted and taken to a room in the emergency department where a machine was connected with sensors to monitor my heart.  As I lay there watching the TV hurricane reporting an alarm occurred and the attendant reset the machine and notified the doctor on call of the event.  I lay there in comfort and felt fine, but with all the connections it was hard to move around much.  It wasn’t too long later than the alarm on the machine went off again and the attendant rushed in and began disconnecting me from the leads.  I told him I thought I might have moved and caused the alarm, but he discounted that possibility and rolled me out of the room quickly to an elevator and up where I was wheeled into an operating room.

At this point I began to worry about what would happen next and the nurses and scurry of people attending to me were very nice and explained in detail what would be happening as they prepared to open an artery in my leg and scope my heart and arteries.  I was awake during the procedure, but they did something to keep me calm and without care during it.  The conclusion was that at most my arteries were 40% clogged.  I was taken to a room, being virtually the only one in the hospital, and they took blood to analyze more about what might have caused my problem.  The rush soon found my kidneys were causing my organs to fail and they began an IV to flush the medicines in my kidneys causing the blockage.  This took a day or so and all this time I was very sleepy and slept most of the time, watching TV some.  I had no idea what was happening at home since my cell phone was still there somewhere.  

Eventually I got a phone call from Tammy and she said they were dealing with things.  The neighbor that had the nitroglycerin was also a contractor and had told her they could handle everything, so she agreed and they had already tarped the roof to keep out any more rain that continued in bands at times.  That was comforting, and more fortuitous than I realized as they took very good care of us for the next 8 months.  Tammy said she would get a ride from our minister, Danny, as soon as possible and come up to see me.  Meanwhile the flushing had restored my kidneys and new diabetes and cholesterol medicines were prescribed and working properly.

When Tammy arrived the doctor came to inform us that I indeed had a mild heart attack during the kidney failure event, but there was no damage to my heart and I could go home on Monday. Tammy did drive up to pick me up, but I drove home after picking up prescriptions there at the hospital. Arriving home was surreal as there was so much to do and nowhere to stay.  We might as well have been on the moon.

Help arrived and packing began to take the undamaged things away to a storage unit nearby that was arranged for by our minister.  Help even came from Tammy’s coworkers to help with the move. But we had to keep many things since we were unable to find a place to live for the next month and we were forced to stay in our damaged tarp covered roofed home until something came available. An apartment nearby had something available the next month and we put down a nonrefundable deposit for an apartment, site unseen.  A coworker of Tammy also had a rent house in Friendswood being remodeled and it would also come available by the end of the next month.  And we even went to Clear Lake where another coworker’s husband had a rent house being remodeled that would be available also in a month.  We looked at it and met the owner, the husband, Russell, of the woman who had drowned her three children because God had told her to do so, Andrea Yates (http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/crime-courts/article/Andrea-Yates-Rusty-Yates-5567726.php).  The paint fumes in the house were so strong that I actually had a reaction driving away home with pressure in my chest. We decided later to take the house in Friendswood that had a huge garage to contain almost all of the rest of our home contents.  The remainder was stored at property I still owned nearby and where I had a business warehouse.  Later, a rain event flooded that property and some of the items were once again soaked with floor water!

Our TWIA insurance agent arrived and went through the damage in detail, questioning at first if the damage was covered since the roof had no damage openings in the plywood for water to come through.  I pointed out the sun shining through cracks in the plywood into our kitchen where the tarp did not cover our roof fully.  He accepted that it was a covered condition after climbing on the roof and looking under the tarp.  They paid for the home restoration and our rental property and expenses, but it took six more months as we lived in Friendswood, wanting to depart within our six month lease.  We barely made that timeline.  While we were there we celebrated Christmas as our boys were home, Jordan from the University of Houston where he had just started school before the storm.  It snowed while we were there, too, in early December.  Adam got into his share of trouble and we had to deal with time and expenses that entailed, but in total we were well cared for and dealt with life with all its day to day paperwork and problems.  Facebook became a way of life during the early part of 2009 and opened up a means of communication we had never been a part of before.

I did experience some weird dreams and hallucinations coming out of deep sleep, and I continue to have these experiences on rare occasion.  I don’t know what causes these but I suspect it has something to do with medicine and a deep sleep.  But while this was disturbing at first, it has become a beautiful experience and something that I have come to expect if not anticipate and welcome, but usually ignore without comment to anyone that would care to listen.

So here we are, 9 years later, and people I know are dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. It is different only in the fact that instead of roofs being removed and homes destroyed there are also high water flooding areas devastating lives and property.  The curbs are still full of soaked possessions, trash and sheet-rock pulled from homes.  But this is a widespread event of historical record.  It will take many months, if not years for full recovery.  We were lucky this time because our home is high and dry.  We only have to deal with lines at grocery stores and gas stations, heavier than usual traffic conditions, and a few electrical power failures that have been brief.  Our previous ordeal apparently exempted us from it all this time and we consider ourselves fortunate, but the memories still remain.

- based on my recollection and some minor details may be (are) different from my original post.  I'm old!