Editor's note. A longtime Ada resident, visiting her two adult daughters in Texas, got caught in the devastating winds and flooding of Hurricane Harvey. Here is her account of the nightmare experience. Also, check yesterday's Ada Icon for a report by a former Adaite who lived through the eye of Hurricane Irma last weekend.
By Julie Ludanyi
Both my daughters were born and raised here in Ada. Both went to school K-12 at Ada Schools. Csilla and her husband moved to Texas in 2001. Aniko and her family moved there 6 weeks ago. I traveled out to see them and to celebrate my birthday with them.
On Wednesday morning, Aug. 23, Csilla called me and reassured me that if I was hearing about on upcoming storm, I ought not worry, Harvey is just a tropical storm. It is expected to arrive on Friday.
Then Thursday morning she called at 10 a.m. to tell me with a sense of urgency, that she just got out of an emergency meeting of her city government, and in the last 24 hours there had been an almost unbelievable change in the direction, intensity and speed of Harvey.
It has been upgraded to hurricane status, and still intensifying. It could become a level 4-5 hurricane, and once it hit, it could hover over the Houston area for days.
She asked us to make necessary preparations, including getting water and food.
Aniko stood in line for 45 minutes to get some water at a Sam’s Club. Csilla also encouraged us to go out for the birthday dinner that night, since on the day of the hurricane everything would be closed. She told me to change my flight back to Ada, because the airport would be closed for days. And we had a lovely dinner that night with my family.
Friday morning the winds began to blow and all school were closed indefinitely. Warnings could be heard on the radio and TV. We stayed indoors and prayed. Only 2 cities were strongly hit when Harvey came on land.
But then the rains began.
For the next 4 days, the greater Houston area was pummeled with rain. Csilla’s husband filled sandbags to put at their double back door, to keep the water out. Thankfully, their house remained dry as a result.
In the past I have seen an intense downpour, where cars pulled over to the side of the road for 10-15 minutes, until it subsided. But during those 4 days it rained with that intensity for hours on end. There would be respite of an hour or two with little or no rain, and then it would pick up again into an intense downpour of hours.
And we went nowhere for those 5 days.
It stopped raining on Wednesday. We walked about the neighborhood, and thankfully houses in the immediate neighborhood were spared, had no water in them. But houses and streets that were below the water table level were flooded, with anywhere from 1 to 4 feet of water in the houses.
We walked to the nearby lake in which the water was 10-12 feet higher than usual, and the footbridge going across it was under water.
A day or two later, my son-in-law, Brett, and I went out by car to try to make a donation from the neighborhood at a local high school that had asked for towels and sheets, since they had been set up as a temporary shelter.
We tried to approach the school from 6 different directions, but after traveling for 2-3 streets in each direction, sometimes in ½ to 1 feet of water, we would come to a place on the road with 1-3 feet water standing and all the cars traveling there had to turn around in the middle of the road and go back to try another route.
We were unsuccessful in getting to the school.
As we travelled, we saw that virtually every store, restaurant and other business was closed, some of them visibly flooded. We finally did find a Kroger Store open. But they had no water, no milk, no meat (none), no bananas, and no vegetables. We were able to buy a few things we had run out of.
In Friendswood where Aniko’s family lives, 10,000 of the population of 35,000 had water in their homes. It had rained 46 inches there in 4 days That meant they had to rip out all their carpets and drywall that had gotten wet. And they had to throw out anything else that had gotten wet and was not salvageable.
Even living in Friendswood without watching TV, it would have been difficult comprehending the suffering and loss tens of thousands of people were facing around us, since my daughter’s house had been spared. I had to go out on the roads to see the loss and devastation firsthand.
My rebooked flight back to Ada was canceled once again, and my 5 day trip turned into a 15 day trip.
Please continue praying for Houston.
