Houston Does Labor Day
The land of “let’s build a filter” is busy right now.
“Get the widow on the set, we need dirty laundry,” as the old song about news media goes. Drama sells. How the news acquired this reputation for selling drama never becomes more clear than when they cover something you know about.
As a native Houstonian, it has been frustrating seeing the headlines about Hurricane Harvey’s historic flooding. Apparently, this is the “worst disaster” Texas has ever seen. In truth, it is not. Nor are we a bunch of stupid rubes for not getting out of the way or not holding our elected officials accountable for not ordering at least a partial evacuation. I gather there is some kerfuffle about the First Lady’s shoes. Plus, political discussions about environmentalism or limited government have flared on various corners of the internet.
Most of us wouldn’t know — and frankly, we do not care at the moment. It’s day 2 — no, strike that, it’s day 5, no 6 — of the great clean-out, and we are too busy to pay more than passing attention to the coverage. (I started writing this during the rain, but have been too busy to finish.)
True, the flooding is epic. And it continues. After the sun came out, two of our reservoirs on the west side of town needed a controlled release before they broke. The bayou went right back up, cutting off roads and flooding additional houses, which will remain flooded for days as the runoff gets moving. There are still helicopters over my area and re-blocked roads. Some of the water has been sewage this time.
By refusing the worst disaster title, I do not mean that Hurricane Harvey did not bring disaster. The property damage is massive. Entire small towns along the coast have been wiped out, which as gotten lost in the dramatic coverage of the Houston floods. In less that a week, there seems to be little awareness that the cat 4 hurricane hit small towns like Rockport, which basically don’t exist anymore. (This isn’t new either. Fun historical fact, Houston is the 4th largest city and busiest port in the US because of the 1900 hurricane that wiped out Galveston.) Harvey had spent everything but his rain by the time he hit Houston. He then went and recharged over the gulf and flooded Beaumont, which was without water service for much of the week.
But all of that is details, we haven’t had much time to mull, much less think about the political stuff. There’s work to be done. First, there was rescue. Elizabeth isn’t exaggerating. People were either being rescued or doing the rescuing, and once rescued were turning around and rescuing others.
There is a reason that a much larger flooding event has a death toll way under the Katrina flood in NOLA, as well as a toll under most hurricanes and the Rita evacuation attempt. Sources vary, but as of Saturday, the number ranged from the mid-30’s to mid-40’s. Hashtag activism and political debate doesn’t get that done. Many hands get that done.
The rescue phase is all but finished. We are almost done with relief, too. That’s the getting people to shelters, gathering donations, feeding — all that stuff that comes in the few days after the rain stops and the reservoirs peak. Now we are in recovery, and it is a long, hard, dirty job.
The initial remediation of homes has to be done quickly. We have to get the stuff out and the floors and drywall off before the mold takes hold. There are only days to do this. Labor Day will be a huge day for this kind of laboring.
Since Tuesday, my church alone has sent out a hundred people on multiple teams, cleaning out houses and pulling out drywall for parishioners and neighbors all over town. Others are coordinating lunches for the teams, or taking in and sorting donations, or distributing them as needed. St. John the Divine has a one-two punch of active volunteers and Troop 55, which I think is the largest Boy Scout troop in the nation. It’s also active and well organized. The latest out load of clothes, toys, and toiletries we took in will be loaded and taken to Port Arthur by the Scouts.
(Houston is about maxed out on relief donations. We are transitioning to recovery donations, mostly universal gift cards and cleaning and storage supplies.)
I don’t mention this to say how special we are but to point out how typical we are — and we are just one group in Houston rolling up our sleeves and getting our hands dirty. (Or our shoes. Banner image is my back door after day 3 of work.) St. Basil’s is typical. One of my girlfriends ran a rescue dispatch out of her house. Stories like this are typical.
We are shifting to recovery needs, like families with washer and dryers to adopt those without laundry washing ability, or paperwork help, or temporary house hunting, or babysitting as schools are generally not going back for another week.
We are working the problem. So while we catch some of the headlines scoffing or mocking us, or the pontifications about the brilliant ideas that supposedly would have avoided all of this, if only we had listened, we are in the middle of working another “successful failure.” There have been a few answers to some of the more uninformed pontifications, but for the most part, we’ll get back to you later. There’s work to be done right now, and this is the Houston way:
