You think to yourself, and you wonder, Houston is America's fourth largest city. Houston is a force in this country's economy. We have millions of people, importing exporting, we are the oil capital.
And it was all destroyed in one day. It's all gone. The town I grew up in? Devastated. The town where I went to middle school? 10 feet underwater. My university? Who even knows, last I heard it was having water get in the front door.
This should never have happened. Our mayor thought it would be good to disregard all advice, and not issue the evacuation notice. We were told to hoard water bottles and canned foods and ride it out. I've lived through Trop. Storm Allison, Hurricane Ike, the two big floods of 2015. None of them really affected Houston too badly.
I nearly died today. I don't really feel okay saying that. But I'm already typing, so what does it matter? My house was flooded with nearly 5ft of water, enough to get chest high, for me to have to swim and sit on a high table and pray things were gonna be okay. I called 911, the coast guard, my friends were looking into any avenue to get me to safety. No one came. I could have died in that house and the police wouldn't have cared. A guy in a boat came by, a neighbor from a few streets down. He'd lost his house, everything destroyed. But he took his boat out, and began rescuing people. I owe my life to this guy, I don't even know who he is.
I piled everything as high as it could go. I dunno what happened to the contents of my house. But all my furniture, my TV, a lot of my things are underwater now. Maybe my laptop is okay? It's all a crapshoot. Things from my childhood, things I love, everything is probably to be the next treasure of Atlantis.
I'm typing this from a rescue shelter. We have one night to sleep here, and then if you have a pet, you're gonna be kicked out. All roads are closed, there's no leaving. Can't get to a hotel, can't get to a friends house. Nothing. The city is totaled.
Why? The government certainly must have the funds to prevent such things. But instead, we had bayous that were 50% full, even before we had any rain. It seems so grossly incompetent.
Tomorrow, I'll be swimming through the remains of my house, to see what survived. The rain is packing in harder. Men and woman are sobbing at the losses they've suffered. I haven't slept in ages. I'm waiting on a cot from the church.
It sucks. Flat out. I'm devastated. Game collections I spent years on are likely gone. Comics and DVDs, figurines and toys, all gone. Before the boat came, I was trying to stack a Super Nintendo on top of a table on top of a chair. I don't even wanna know what happened to my gaming pc. Or my birth certificate.
But I'm alive. And that's what matters, right? I might have to move, or leave Texas entirely. I don't know yet, but for now, my family, my dog, and I am all alive. And I'm grateful to that. Thank you to all the well wishers, it means a lot. I'd feel a little embarrassed if I had the energy to do so, haha.
Source
