For those of you living in Houston, my hope is that you were not severely affected by the floods last week. My heart goes out to those who have lost their homes, their cars or even loved ones. No one could have predicted the devastation that occurred.
My guess is that everyone has a story to share, and I thought I’d share mine. None of us know how will respond in an emergency until we are in it.
I left my home in Clear Lake at 5:15 am. My plan was to drive to the Meyerland gym, which is a few exits before my Bellaire office. It wasn’t raining when I left home, however, I heard on the radio that there had been severe storms in the area to the north and west of the city. It didn’t start raining until I was about halfway through my drive. Then came the wall of water. It poured so hard, that I had concerns of getting off at my exit, as it’s a low-lying area. I drove past the exit, and thought I could go to the gym by the Galleria, but that exit was all backed up, which led me to believe it was flooded at that exit. I don’t know the city well enough to know all of the low-lying areas. So I exited the following exit, was able to make a U turn, head back on the freeway and exit towards my office. As I approached the intersection I saw a truck in front of me, and knew the water level was too high to get through. It was so dark; that you could not see how deep the water was, so thankfully I had the truck as my guide. I was able to back up a little bit to pull into a gas station. Even the lot in the station was under some water and I was able to pull further back in where it wasn’t flooded.
I spent 6 hours at the gas station waiting for the rain to slow down and water to recede. In the moment we had no idea how long that would take. The gas station became a parking lot with at least 75 cars crammed all over the place.
It was scary, but an interesting experience. Having all those other people around made it a little more calming as I wasn’t alone in the situation. For those of us who ventured out of our cars with our umbrellas, there were people to talk to and hear their stories, of where they were going, or how they had to dodge other floodwaters. I also thought of how scary it would be if you got stuck in the floodwaters, or if traffic was stopped up behind you, and you weren’t able to back up. I was so thankful that I was not in that situation. For as uncomfortable as I was, I knew I was safe and nothing was going to happen to me. We had heard last year of how people got stuck in cars because the bayous flooded and the water kept rising.
I certainly have a different respect for the wrath of Mother Nature, and will try to be more aware of storms coming in the future so I don’t find myself in a similar situation. I’m glad nothing was destroyed and I was fine. I hope all of you are OK after the flooding.
Take care,
Debbie
