LOCAL Houston | The City Guide October 2017 | Page 4

LETTER
FROM THE
EDITOR
This was going to be the Men’s Issue, but it took a turn. On August 25 at 10pm,
Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas.
The next day, on the morning of August 26, sitting high and dry on the fourth floor in a
Montrose high-rise, I was texting with one of our writers. “I can’t believe I thought this
was going to be a giant storm,” I sent. She agreed. But Hurricane Harvey was only
beginning.
Saturday night, thinking I was safe and deciding to attend a barbecue in Rice Village, I
was drinking wine and eating turkey burgers until 10:30 and paying no attention to the
news (the rain had started falling hard). I left for home and I was shocked. The roads were
rivers, and the street lights were out. I got almost flooded out (in a Suburban)
driving home on Bissonnet, barely making it home by pulling into a neighbor’s high
driveway. I had to carry my dog through knee-high dirty brown water to get home. I
told myself, “You wanted an exciting storm. You got one.” Our writer? The next day, she
walked 4.5 miles in knee-to-waist-high water to evacuate her decimated Braeswood
neighborhood to get to her sister’s house.
As the dirty side of the storm lingered, so the flooding of Hurricane Harvey began.
Glued to the round-the-clock local news coverage, where reporters were becoming
first responders, we all watched as the neighborhoods of Allen Parkway, Downtown,
Dickinson, Meyerland, Kingwood, Memorial and West Houston were destroyed, one
by one, by water.
AND JUST AS QUICKLY, HOUSTONIANS STEPPED UP. Our leaders – Mayor Sylvester
Turner, Police Chief Art Acevedo and County Judge Ed Emmett – were calm, human,
logical, empathetic and on the ground as the devastation unfolded. Local boat brigades
sprang into action, with the Cajun Navy and Texas Army. Relief sites were assembled.
Donations poured in. Neighbors helped neighbors. You’ll read all about it in this issue.
So this is the Men’s Issue. But it’s also the HEROES ISSUE. I’m inspired by the storm stories.
I hope you are, too.
BEHIND
THE COVER
Bowman Nacol and Audrey Wargo Donadi became constant figures at
the Giving Hub, taking supplies repeatedly to Beaumont and East Texas
and working hand-in-hand with the Cajun Navy offering relief. Hunter
Holder, a photographer based in New Orleans, who lost everything
in Hurricane Katrina, didn’t think twice before packing up his SUV and
driving to Houston to help in any way he could. Luckily, he also found
his way to the Giving Hub and shot this following behind the M923A2
(a five-ton military troop transfer truck) as it was en route to Beaumont.
4
L O C A L
| 10 . 2017
Tim Moloney
editor-in-chief