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07/07/01: When Super
Powers don't work
Tuesday, June 5th, 2001
Time: 7 am A tropical depression is located just southeast of Galveston Bay and projections put it heading towards the northeast towards Louisiana. The local Red Cross and Salvation Army begin to mobilize relief efforts for the expected rainfall. Time: 12 noon The tropical depression turns into a tropical storm and gets a name…Allison. Allison’s plotting direction is changed and looks to hit Galveston Bay/the Houston area head-on. Shelters are named in some low-lying areas on the southeast side of town and the northeast corner of town. Time: 2 pm Allison makes landfall, drenching many areas with up to 18" of rain. Drainage systems unable to handle the influx of water overflow and fill the streets. By 10 pm that night, much of the city has been shut down and it’s not uncommon to see two to three feet of water along some roadways. More shelters open immediately and it becomes impossible to get a tow truck in a timely manner and there are no rental cars to be found anywhere by midnight. This night is just the beginning. ***** Life as a mere human…I think about that, wishing I could be like Storm and banish the tropical storm that didn’t just pummel the Houston area for a day. Instead, it was pushed back over us and left us with four long days of downpour. Streets became rivers that were almost twenty feet deep in some areas. Business’ and roads were closed due to the rain and the casualties started to mount, beginning with a woman trapped in an elevator in the flooded basement of a downtown building. I jingle the keys to my rental car…one of the lucky few to have gotten one. I had been on my way home Tuesday evening from college when I found myself in three feet of water. I managed to get out of it…although there was a foot of water inside my car as well. I was one of the first to file a claim with my insurance company, warning my agent that the influx of people was only about to start. He called the next day, thanking me for the warning. I remember Friday night…the worst night of all the flooding. There was two feet of water around my neighborhood so there was absolutely no way I was going anywhere. So I sat on the porch, watching the water rise. It eventually got to within a foot of my front door…meaning the water in the street was three feet deep. All I could do was close my eyes and silently pray for the rain to stop and the streets to drain. Over the four days of rain there was the warning of snakes and displaced fire ants; of the possibility of Hepatitis A and Tetanus in the floodwater; and of raw sewage also in the water as well. Many of the surrounding communities were under water. Houses, cars, people, pets…all displaced in a surrounding area of at least 10 counties by the time the sun peeked through the clouds. It took practically no time at all for President George W. Bush to declare the area a Federal Disaster area and it certainly lived up to his name. Unable to attend class 3 miles away or get to work 4 miles away, there’s not much I can do except sit in my dry room in my dry house and think about getting a dry car back in a few days, and I think about the community of people both on-line and In Real Life, knowing that I’m amongst friends. Now I sit and watch he weather…watching as the remnants of Allison get pushed back out to sea. And it looks like she’s going to gather strength again. Her name will still be Allison…and she may turn around and hit us again. I’m not a superhero…I’m just a Mere Human that has managed to luck out so far, compared to most. So what could I do, aside from sit here? Just wondering? I cleaned out my closet (a summer task anyway) and gathered up a bag of clothes and shoes I may have worn twice. Stopping by the grocery store and traipsing through the mud that had covered the parking lot days before, I grabbed a cart and filled it with about fifty bucks worth of baby food, deodorant, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste, and other needed things. My next stop was two streets up, making sure I traveled on roads already cleaned by street sweepers up to a local school made into a shelter. There were only about twenty people there, as the shelter had just opened. I knew it would fill quickly due to the fact that there was still 2-3 feet of water in some places. With a garbage bag of clothes slung over one shoulder and a trunk full of groceries, I headed inside to one of the Red Cross volunteers and found myself surrounded by three young children, happy to have clean clothing. They helped me carry the groceries inside and distribute what I had bought to the families that were there. One of them had a baby just three months old. I walked down the street to a convenience store and returned with three Hershey Bars for the children for their help and it was wonderful seeing their smiles as they wore clothes I no longer needed and to see the stomach of a baby filled with food that I could provide. I hugged the kids good-bye and headed back home to prepare lunch and watch more of the weather report. As I scraped the mud off my shoes and looked at the car that isn’t mine, I can’t help but think of the people I helped today. Today I wasn’t a Mere Human. I was a Superhero to five families. If you’re interested in donating goods
or volunteering your time to your local Red Cross in case of a disaster,
please call 1-800 HELP NOW.
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