hurricane harvey 2017

Last Thursday (has it really been almost a week?!), we received emails at work alerting us to the tropical storm known as Harvey.  We knew we were looking at a possible hurricane, and major rain, and we all took our laptops home, thinking we might be able to make it into work on Friday.  But the rains came in early, and everyone hunkered down to wait out the storm.  The hubs went and got canned food and bottled water, our main concern at that time being the loss of power.  

As the storm moved in over the weekend, we kept one eye on the television coverage and one eye on the water levels.  It just never stopped raining.  On Monday night the water got over the sidewalk, but luckily never made it into the house.  Yesterday, the storm moved out and the sun came out, and everyone in the neighborhood came out to celebrate!  

But at the same time, water levels were rising in the south part of the neighborhood, and they weren't celebrating yet.  You see, we live a couple of miles from a reservoir, and because of the massive amounts of rainwater, the reservoir had to be released.  The reservoir is still being released (two reservoirs, actually), and both are causing even more flooding.  

The neighborhood to the south of us had a mandatory evacuation and Britton and I rode our bikes to check out the water levels.  The residents were being rescued by boat!

This air boat was going into the neighborhoods to the south and east of us, bringing out families.  There were also rescue helicopters flying overhead all afternoon and night, plucking people off of their roofs.  While we are not flooded now, the reservoir has reached its limit, and it could either overflow or breach - we are still waiting out the next few days to ensure we aren't affected.  We aren't out of the woods yet.

Yes, our neighbor was kayaking down the street!

The boil advisory was finally lifted (we lost water for a while, but never power), and we ventured out yesterday for some Sonic burgers.  We weren't the only ones who had cabin fever, and the roads got pretty packed.  Of course, some of that traffic was due to the multiple road closures, as so much of our surrounding area is still flooded.  It will no doubt be weeks before the water subsides, months and possibly years before all the houses are fixed and life gets back to normal for Houston (and every town from the coast to here).

We were so lucky. I know that, I can see the thousands of people on television who weren't, and I know that I will remember the never-ending fear and stress, then relief, my entire life.