Hurricane Harvey

Throughout most of this ordeal, we've been kicking ourselves for not remembering more details about last year's evacuation/flood incident. So read this or not but most of this is for the next time we have to evacuate so we can live and learn.

Keep in mind our only experience with hurricanes before this was a tropical storm two years ago. The entire city shut down in preparation and I think we had one wind gust and a few drops of rain. It was pathetic to me. This experience was quite different!

Around August 22 (Tuesday), I received a message from a friend saying they may not make it to the adult session of Stake Conference that Saturday because of a tropical storm brewing in the gulf (the friend's husband is a city employee so would need to stay behind). That was the first time I became aware of a storm (now I check National Hurricane Center daily!). By Wednesday, it was a category 1 storm and we were told to hunker down. Thursday morning, I went to the store and gathered supplies to survive the weekend with no power/limited resources, etc. We planned to stick it out since the hurricane was forecasted to land about 180 miles from us. By that evening, it was now a category 3 (maybe 4) hurricane and landing 100 miles south of us. Joseph and I were on the fence about leaving. My main reason to leave was I didn't want to be without A/C for several days. Thankfully, our city issued a voluntary evacuation due to risk of flooding from possible storm surge around dinner time that night. Even if it is voluntary, I still feel safer to just pack up and leave. We both have low vehicles that can't get out if the roads flood suddenly and then we are trapped.

Thursday night (Aug. 24) was spent running around like chickens with no heads as we quickly found a dog-friendly hotel in Dallas, put some of our hurricane boards up, packed for four days, picked up the house and prepared for our home to flood. We wanted to leave early Friday morning to beat anyone else in Houston evacuating by choice. Note for future evacuation: bring nebulizer/inhaler! We had to visit the walk-in in Dallas as Ashton got a bad cough and needed her nebulizer. Next time, it's getting packed!

We arrived in Dallas Friday night and the hurricane was to make landfall that night. It was a category 4 hurricane at landfall. It ended up hitting south of where it was forecasted, which was good for our town. Our town seemed to fare very well. Little rain, minimal winds, and most people had power throughout it all. At that moment, we regretted evacuating. We could have stayed home and been just fine. By Saturday afternoon, we figured we could change our reservation and head home Sunday afternoon rather than Monday.

Saturday night and Sunday morning, it rained in Houston. And that's an understatement. Parts of Houston received 52 inches of rain over three days! That is only 10 inches shorter than me! Houston was flooded. All the major highways/county roads, etc were flooded. There was no way back to our town. While our town was fine and received minimal rain, we couldn't get there. We knew it would be a few days for the underpasses and highways to open again so we ended up extending our reservation to Friday so we would be in Dallas for one week.

We enjoyed our time in Dallas. Our hotel (which we'll go back to if/when this happens again) was 10 minutes from the Dallas temple. We took advantage of that, especially since the Houston temple flooded and will be closed for the remainder of the year. We ran into a family from our home stake in Dallas and got together on Sunday for lunch. We spent time checking out the aquarium, some parks, and the Dallas zoo. We were growing accustomed to hotel living as much as we could.

Book observatory tower view from the Grassy Knoll

Watching Beauty and the Beast for the first time.

Ice cream cones every night

Rode around on the temple golf cart when we visited.

Thursday (31st) came and we saw that we could finally make it home a day earlier than anticipated. The roads in Houston were clear. However, the roads in our subdivision were not. We stocked up on gas and groceries in Dallas as our grocery stores were very limited due to supply trucks not being able to travel. Because our subdivision was flooding, we went to a friend's home (who the mom and two boys were gone on a trip so we had the house mostly to ourselves). It was odd to be ten minutes from home but not be able to get there.

The night we arrived, Joseph was able to wade through the water to our home. He put a few more things on countertops and grabbed some more supplies for a longer vacation. Our house was okay at that point but definitely not accessible by vehicle. The city issued a mandatory evacuation the next day due to the sewer systems failing. Over the next five days, the water continued to rise. We came an inch away from our home flooding. Many neighbors and most of the people in our subdivision were not as fortunate. Many had anywhere from 1 inch to over a foot of water in their home.

Final picture of the water levels from a friend who kayaked by our house. One inch away from the weepholes in our brick.

Drone shot by Doug Whipple on Saturday, a few days before the water finally crested.

The entrance to our subdivision.

Now, you may be wondering how this happens if it didn't rain. You would need to look at a map of where we live to better understand. What happened this year is what happened last year when the neighborhood flooded. The only difference is that this year was MUCH worse. Essentially, rain water drains into the Brazos River in Houston. This river then flows towards the Gulf, near our town. When the river reaches max flood stage, it overflows its banks. The water has to go somewhere since it can't exit into the Gulf fast enough. When this happens, the extra water flows into the Bastrop Bayou. We live maybe a mile from this bayou. When the river overflows constantly and stays at max flood stage, the bayou also overflows and the water just goes out into neighborhoods, beginning with the neighborhood north of us. The water worked its way into ours. We aren't in a flood plain (yet... there is some talk that we should have been in one all along and it just wasn't approved yet) and prior to last year's flood, residents report no flooding since the neighborhood was built in 2004. We have huge drainage ditches everywhere to collect rain water when we get a heavy rain. But these ditches could not contain all the water.

Our neighborhood was flooded from about Wednesday the 30th to Friday, September 8th. The water finally receded enough for us to drive home Friday night. Our house and subdivision smells terrible and we had several critters find refuge in our home. Thankfully, our ward family sandbagged our home while we were away, which kept water from entering our garage. They are calling this the 500 year flood, I believe. I'm grateful we have always chosen to purchase flood insurance! That would have saved us had we flooded as far as finances go. Our neighborhood is a mess as most homes have carpet, flooring, sheetrock, and all their belongings strewed across the yards waiting for FEMA adjusters to come. It will be about 6 months or more before the homes are livable again. I am especially grateful we didn't flood as that would put me having a baby while still trying to get our home ready. Some people are living in RVs in their driveway while their homes dry out and get the necessary repairs.

What one street looks like in our subdivision.

Just piles of sheetrock, flooring, furniture, etc. sitting in the yards.