When my sister went to check on our
dad, she said she banged and banged
on the door. Finally, he answered
her. She said, “Dad, come open the
door!” He replied, “I can’t. There is
water all around me.” She responded,
“You have to come to the door. Now
get up and open the door!” As he
got up from his bed, he dropped his
cell phone in the water. He waded
through four feet of water. He saw an
amplifier and touched it to move it
out of his way. He said, “I could feel
the current drawing from my hands
to the sockets, so I quickly dropped
the amplifier.” Once he reached the
front door, he told my sister that he
had worked through the night trying
to put things up. He was simply ex-
hausted and fell asleep. The thought
of going through this all over again
was overwhelming.
I am relieved to say that all of my
family members survived Harvey.
They are now seeking assistance
and doing the hard work of getting
their lives back together. My father
is self-employed and the lost to his
business that is adjacent to his home
was catastrophic. My loss of storage
items and income pale to what they
went through. We are a strong resil-
ient family in our own little commu-
nity. Our roots are from Louisiana,
but we are Houston Proud. As they
say, what doesn’t kill you, makes you
grow stronger. My heart goes out to
everyone who experienced loss from
this historic hurricane.
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