I remember reading with childlike wonder Bama’s recent post about the watery paradise of Inle Lake in Myanmar. Never did I imagine that weeks later I would be living in similar surroundings or that my liquid world would have arisen due to a Biblical deluge that has left my city crippled for months and years to come.
Thankfully, my own home is still safe and largely dry, but our fellow citizens here in Houston are swimming out of their family homes and onto boats. Some are hacking through their attics with axes to reach their rooftops to wait for rescue. Our airport runway photos show wavelets reminiscent of the Mediterranean Sea, and our 10- and 12-lane interstates, viewed from above, could be river deltas.
The beautiful park I wrote about in my first weeks here is now submerged up to the treetops, and more water is expected in the bayous today, both rainfall and a controlled release of reservoir water to save upstream dams. When will it end? We had heard that the worst would be over by daybreak today, but there are sheets of rain lashing our windows as I type, and the Army Corps reservoir release has only just begun. My phone continues to blare out flood warnings, and the trees are whipping and waving dramatically hours after the last tornado threats.
We have all seen such horrible images on TV, in the papers, and online, so I leave you with some happier scenes from the last day of my recent 4000-mile road trip, completed as I pulled into the garage mere hours before Hurricane Harvey arrived. These Dale Chihuly sculptures are nestled in the forested trails of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Around every corner was another marvel – brighter, happier scenes for my troubled mind.
One Foot Out the Door 
I’m so glad you’re safe, and thrilled you got to Crystal Bridges. I can’t help feeling a pang of regret that I didn’t get there, and that any fall travel is off the board for me now because of lost work time. Still, I’m grateful to be safe and secure. So many aren’t, and reports I just heard clearly indicate that it’s going to get even worse before it gets better.
I heard from Curt, who no doubt is experiencing some regrets, too. He’s not going make it to Burning Man because of fire threats to their home. I wish we could send him some of our rain.
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Hope you got my email response last night – thanks for checking in! You have lived through some of these before, but as a newbie, I am overwhelmed by the low-level anxiety I’m feeling, even as I stay largely OK. Seeing the plight of others so very close to me is stress-inducing and sad. Every time I think we have turned the corner, it swoops down again …
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I did get your email. That low-level anxiety’s common and natural, although I don’t experience it nearly as badly as I used to. I had to laugh when I watched a video of one of our area’s mets heading to the NWS office in Dickinson yesterday. As they drove down 646, they discovered — an open Waffle House! Of course! As long as the Waffle House is open, there’s hope and humor to be found.
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I try very hard to be healthy, but this stress is making me hungry! I could use a Waffle House right about now! 🙂
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Thanks for the update, I was wondering how you were doing down there with all that rain, wind, water, chaos. Stay safe.
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At this point, I think we will be OK. We had moved important papers and supplies upstairs, especially last night, but we are still dry. The wind and rain this morning are surprising and unexpected … hoping it blows east and into the gulf soon! (I hear it will be back later this week though – ugh). We will recover quickly; others have a ghastly road ahead.
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Lexi I was going to write to see how you are doing. What a terrible mess and tragedy in Texas! I am so glad you are safe but can only imagine the nightmare you are seeing. Please keep us all posted here.
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The photos and TV news are getting to me. Our family has been inconvenienced at most; so many others have lost everything. It will be some time before we can all go back to normal life, but my heart breaks for those who will have a much harder row to hoe than we.
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I can only imagine Lexi. I read a great yet heartbreaking book on New Orleans about the experience. It was terrifying. I hope we don’t make the same mistakes.
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Oh my, I am glad you are safe. The aftermath of the hurricane is heartbreaking. I can’t imagine what it feels like to have your home destroyed by one. Many hugs to you and anyone affected! ❤️❤️
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Thanks! It is just so relentless and devastating. Today it has not stopped raining for the last 7 hours … and this is after the storm had supposedly moved away. How much more can we take? I’m thankful that all these additional inches are not entering my house, but I know the roads and airports are just getting farther and farther from being usable for evacuation for those who do need to leave. Yikes!
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😦
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Hugs to you and that looks like an awesome place to go. With all this water around, a trip to the store in cloudless sunshine will be better than Disneyland at the moment. Hope you keep dry and that there are no more casualties. It’s hard seeing areas I know (or used to know) under so much water and people struggling.
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It is so hard to watch the worst stories unfold – I agree. I also hear you on a simple trip to the store; that will be a joy someday (hopefully soon!)
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It looks like a total nightmare, Lexie. Glad you’re safe. Hang on in there. 😦
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Thank you, Jo. If only the rains would STOP! It’s so demoralizing, on top of being dangerous and damaging. We remain safe, though, and continue to feel that we have been extremely lucky.
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Hope it’s improving, Lexie. I’ve been without power for the best part of a day due to a local fault so haven’t been able to stay in touch.
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The photos we are seeing on the news here in Australia really bring home just how horrendous this storm has been. So relieved to know you are safe and dry, but my heart aches for everyone who has lost so much.
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The news and photos are killing me. We are trying to get to the huge shelter set up downtown for displaced people to help out, but so many roads are impassable. And the rains will. not. STOP. Leaving our fairly dry neighborhood is tricky because we are still getting flash flood warnings, and those can’t be taken lightly. There is every chance we could leave and then not be able to get back. Such a terrible situation all over here.
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All so distressing. 😦
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Beautiful photos.. I’m happy to hear you’re safe!
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I guess I thought a few beautiful pieces of art might salve my soul! It’s so hard watching what my fellow citizens are going through here.
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TV news coverage is showing such terrible flooding; almost unbelievable. I cannot even begin to imagine going through this. I’m glad to hear you are safe. I pray it lets up soon.
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Thanks, Angeline. It really is almost unbelievable. I think we have at least a few more days before the rain fully stops, but at least it’s slowing down. Unfortunately, some areas just can’t recede or dry out, so we are all sort of penned in here for awhile.
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Glad to hear you are safe Lexie. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to go through that. Thank you for the photos of Chihuly’s wondrous pieces. His work is extraordinary.
Stay dry.
Alison
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Thinking back to my day among those glorious pieces of art calms me momentarily! I can’t believe that was just a few days ago. I also can’t believe this rain could possibly keep going the way it has. We just feel so powerless to help those more in need or to take control of our own needs because everything around us is closed or very compromised. Thank god we still have power and the ability to communicate beyond our confines.
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I’m sorry to hear that there’s been such a bad storm in your area, but good to know that your place has escaped damage. A 4000-mile road trip. Woah. Will you be writing about it? Love the photos. Like extraterrestrial flora/fauna. The tree with the bulbs is rather, uh, interesting. 😉
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Our damage is minimal because we are just high enough to escape the water surging inside. The photos of homes, highways, businesses, and airports under multiple feet of water makes me look at my yard of soup and my small leaks as minor inconveniences. We still have power and food and water inside (although we are getting down to the junk food!), so we can easily cope compared with others just minutes away.
The Chihuly art was especially effective out there in the forest, where every turn presented a new mouth-open kind of awe. The ballsy tree (haha) was a special surprise because it was up so high. It took me a moment to even see it, but when I did, I almost laughed out loud.
The road trip was amazing, and I hope to write about at least parts of it when I can concentrate better. I think my favorite part was a twisting, turning logging road way up high in the mountains of eastern Oklahoma.
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Terrible to hear what’s been happening over in your part of the world, and hopefully things get better soon. Hope that you are still staying dry and you have enough to get you by at home, and there won’t be much loss from here on moving forward. Sometimes it just takes a freak storm to upset the balance for a while to come. Best wishes and hope all will be okay.
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Thank you, Mabel. Our house should be fine with a few small fixes, but I wonder about getting back to normal life when we can’t even get around or when trucks can’t bring in food, etc. We are fine for now. Just waiting and waiting for this cursed rain to stop!
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For sure no one wants to have their childhood dreams fulfilled in this kind of way. But the most important thing is you and your family are safe, and your house stays dry. I really hope the worst is over, so water levels can go down real fast and people can soon begin rebuilding their lives.
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I really did think of your Inle Lake post and my reaction to it so recently – how I used to love to imagine a world of water! Now I see with my own eyes the devastating power of water; there is nothing more damaging and paralyzing. Although we are mostly untouched by the horrific amounts water inside homes and businesses, we are still trapped by it since it is all around us. It makes for such a helpless and occasionally frantic feeling, but we have to remind ourselves that we are the lucky ones.
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Glad to hear thar you are safe. Hope you stay that way. 🙂
P.S. I love, love, love Dale Chihuly.
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I love, love him also, especially when his sculptures are outside or nestled among plants and other nature. Glad to see you are back to blogging; I will catch up on your posts soon!
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Hope you continue to stay dry and safe. Wishing you courage and patience as you endure the deluge.
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Thank you! I see you have a new post up – hoping to find time (focus!) to read it soon. My concentration in my little house cage here is practically nil.
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I totally understand. You have much more important things to focus on: taking care of yourself and making sure family, friends, and neighbors are okay. Continuing to think about you and everyone else under the deluge in Texas.
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An unreal storm. I don’t really know what to say. Natural forces can be cruel. I hope that the rains and winds back off soon and that you will be safe.
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Thank you. Right now we just want the damn rain to stop. You always read about the power of water, but you don’t believe it until you watch it whoosh a semi off a road. We keep getting advisories to not even walk in 6 inches of moving water; that’s enough to knock a person down and then who knows what might happen. Scary stuff. Not to even mention the destruction it wreaks on the structures that it swallows and the psyches that it will haunt.
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Lex, I’ve been thinking about you and my own relatives in Houston – I was so relieved to learn from Bama that your house was dry and you were safe. Miraculously, they are on high ground with power and electricity, though my aunt had to rescue her sister’s family who were not quite so lucky, being stranded (without power) while the surrounding streets were under 4 feet of water. It is strange being personally affected by two major tropical storms on opposite sides of the world just days apart. Last week Hong Kong was pummeled by Typhoon Hato – my family and friends were fine but judging from all the videos, the storm surge was the worst I’ve ever seen in my hometown.
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Very happy to hear your family is OK, too, James. Does your aunt’s sister’s family have somewhere to live now? I didn’t even know about the typhoon in Hong Kong, I’m sorry to say – I’d been on the road for 3 weeks before arriving back into this mess, and I missed a lot of world news. Glad your family also survived that one.
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Please feel free to send me an email if I can help your displaced family here.
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Oh, my goodness, Lex, what an ordeal. May you find the patience and courage you need for this difficult time. Even when one is safe, it is hard to watch destruction all around.
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Thanks, Jolandi. The hardest part in some ways has been watching the news of what is happening very close to us and not being able to get to these people and places to help. Today is dry, and our goal is to get out and help somewhere, somehow today.
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Bless your soul! I hope life will return back to normal soon.
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stay safe! I cant imagine what it is like to be dealing with the floods at the moment. unbelievable!
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Thanks, Andy. It’s been a challenge, but for us the difficulties have been minor inconveniences. We may be down to junk food in the house, but at least we are still in our house!
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I’ve been thinking of you whenever I saw something on the news (it’s being reported over here in Finland, too). Glad to hear you’re ok! Though the effects will ripple onto your lives for a while still
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Thanks! Yes, we will be living with the aftermath here for a long time. People are working so hard, though, pitching in wherever and however they can to help. There is often so much goodheartedness that arises from disasters.
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I have been thinking about you, Lexie and I am happy and relieved to know that you are safe. Good timing for an arrival at home, or maybe you had to speed up to beat the hurricane? Not a fun welcome at all, though. I do hope you had a wonderful road trip and I”m looking forward to reading more about that.
My thoughts are with you and your fellow Houstonites. It is so incredible that images we are used to seeing in low-laying countries like Bangladesh are now present in Texas! Keeping my fingers crossed that the clouds stop opening up.
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We did speed in here ahead of the storm, only because my husband was already here anyway and we felt sure early on that our neighborhood was on solid, somewhat higher ground. I’d also been away for three weeks and really needed to get back. It worked out although there were a few moments in the middle of the night when I asked myself why I didn’t stay in Arkansas!
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Oh gosh…I don’t read or watch the news, so I just found out about this from my hubby. I’m so glad to hear that you’re unaffected and safe and (relatively) dry in your new home! There was huge flooding in Calgary (my old hometown) a few years back, and it also destroyed large parts of the city…and it was bad, but not as bad as this. It does take, as you said, a years to recover completely. ❤
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I think there will be miracle recovery stories and disastrous ones. I drove some hot meals to a fire station in a previously badly flooded area yesterday, and I was astounded how much had dried up in one sunny, breezy day. But there are other areas, especially where the reservoirs are still draining into the bayous, that may be underwater for a long, long time. I have a friend who has lost everything – cars completely submerged in the garage and the house not only full of water but rising water. So awful …
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May a feeling of peace and calm like that evoked by your beautiful images of Chihuly’s work return to Houston soon. While I am glad that your house is still largely safe and dry, I can appreciate the helplessness you feel in not being able to reach neighbors in need and the oppressiveness of the never ending rains. I look forward to seeing your road trip blog posts. Love from Myanmar.
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Thanks for your ever-positive messages! My son and I did some work yesterday to help out, and it was great to get out and feel productive. We had a final day of limited food, but today there were fresh fruits and veggies – yippee! No milk or eggs yet, but we are not going to be greedy. We’ve had numerous tradespeople over to look at some of our small problems, and the spirit of resilience here is amazing. We really have turned the corner – let’s hope there are no more nasty surprises (like the chemical plant that exploded early today …)
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Great to hear such positive news (except for that chemical plant explosion 😱). Resilient indeed!
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When I watched the news, I instantly thought of you. I’m so glad you’re fine. The images on the news look terrifying. Floods have also hit parts of south Asia with equal force. It’s really difficult to watch the news these days. Nature’s duality as a life giver and destroyer can be hard to understand. 😦 Hoping for life to chug to normalcy soon, although I hear it’s going to take a while. Hugs!
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I feel bad that I’ve barely read about the floods elsewhere, places where it may be even harder to recover. Water is so powerful; I’ve always been a water lover, but now I’ve seen its sinister side. 😦
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Lexie the devastation is so unbelievable. Watching from here it is heartbreaking. I can only imagine what it would be like to be there. So glad that you are safe. Sending hugs and best wishes. Xoxo
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Thanks, Sue. We drove west last night to get our son to an operable airport in another city (it was clear he was not going to get out of here anytime soon, and he’d already been working from our house for over a week), and we saw terrible scenes of floating vehicles and buildings and signs still buried in 8-12 feet of water, even after two days of sun. Our neighborhood is almost back to normal, which seems impossible and miraculous after what we are seeing elsewhere. The outreach and services here are great – in some cases, even too MANY supplies arriving. We just have to wait for that water to drain before next steps can be taken in many places.
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Oh, Lex, I am so sorry. We have been glued to the news – heartbreaking indeed. It must be frightening to see the devastation and I am glad you are safe.
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We were so isolated in the early days, but now we are venturing out, which brings the scenes of devastation to our own eyes. We have two friends whose houses were terribly flooded. One we are helping clean things out and pack them upstairs for a whole first floor demolition and rebuild job. The other has only been able to even get back to see her house in a boat! Soooooo sad – it will be a total loss. Tough to be here, but I’m so impressed with the Texan resiliency I am seeing.
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So difficult, Lex. Hang in there and it’s clear that Texans are strong and resilient.
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Great news that you are doing OK Lex – of course the world is watching what’s happening in Texas and help is being offered from all sides. It’s a horrible tragedy but thank goodness people are working together and helping others instead of fighting about politics or other issues that pale in comparison. We had a cat 1 hurricane last year and it was horribly stressful. I cannot imagine what your world must be like after a Cat 4. Our thoughts are with all of you. Hang in there.
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My parents evacuated from your Cat 1 storm, and it was stressful for us and them! This one was not as bad in terms of the wind threat and damage, but it was the monster of all floods, that’s for sure! One forgets how destructive water can be.
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Agreed! Those who lived inland during our storm got the worst of it because the rivers flooded. Such a terrible ordeal in both cases.
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Good luck Lexi. My original hometown lies in an area of Italy where floods happen every 8-10 years, and every 30 or so there’s a particularly big ‘n’ mean one (the one in 1995 had water rising up to 8 meters above their normal level) so I can sympathise with you Texans, pureblood or acquired.
Hope Houston bounces back quickly
Fabrizio
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Thanks, Fabrizio. This is the third year in a row that Houston has gotten a 100-year (or worse) flood – isn’t there something wrong with those numbers?! I see that I have a new post of yours tempting me in my inbox, but every time I try to read blogs, I get another job cleaning out a flooded house …. that’s the priority right now for us lucky ones. I see the word “steppe” in your post, so it will get my attention very soon!
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Thanks Lexi… Yeah, three one-in-a-century disaster in a row, huh? Perhaps that’ll teach President Orange that this climate change stuff hasn’t been invented by the Chinese.
Anyhow, good luck again with the cleaning up, the posts will wait for you here 🙂
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Dear Lexi, I had no idea that you lived in Houston! I’m getting back to blog in a slow pace and hadn’t yet visited your blog until today. I’m so sorry to hear about your experience.
It’s wonderful to know that your family was safe and your house wasn’t flooded but that doesn’t take away the hopelessness of being at risk and out of control on what’s coming next. It might be very stressing coupled by watching the devastation and suffering around you. It’s wonderful that you went to help your neighbors who were hit harder.
I wish you strength to recover from this situation and hope that you’re now more relaxed and safe.
Stay well.
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Happy to see you here, Lucile, although we are at least keeping up lightly through Instagram! You are right that even though we did not flood ourselves, it’s been tough to be here with so much devastation around us. Even our main thoroughfare into downtown – just a few blocks from us – is still underwater in parts. And of course, we continue with the clean-up, of both friends’ houses (some still with 5 feet of water inside – can you imagine?!) and of strangers. We got our money’s worth out of Labor Day Weekend a few days ago!
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Yes, now I can read about that park I was asking before… I guess it was not built with such a flood in mind. I wish your city, your friends and you all well. ❤
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Thanks – it’s been very rough on many people. We were soooooo lucky.
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So sorry to have missed this Lex. Glad to read that your were not badly affected. Hope things have returned to some semblance of normalcy in your city. This brought back memories of our horrific 2015 floods that left us unscathed while millions lost all they owned. The north east monsoon is set to start any day now, praying we have an easy one.
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I very much remember your flooding and the post you wrote. It was one of your best, I think. I fear that we are all in for many more unprecedented rains and tornadoes and fires and more on our fragile Earth … I will keep my fingers crossed for you this monsoon season. Here in Houston, most people are slowly returning to normal, but there is still a substantial number who will not get back into their homes for many months (or ever). I’ve been impressed with the resilience of the people here, even those who really did lose everything.
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