Tropical Storm Allison and its aftermath

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

For those who are not aware late on Friday June, 8th Tropical Storm Allison hit ground over Houston and dumped 30 inches of water in less than 12 hours, with a majority of it falling during the night. It was pure chaos. Fire stations couldn’t send trucks out, police stations were flooded, flood shelters were evacuated because of the water, and the local CBS affiliate had to go off the air because of the water in the studio. In the following days, I saw on TV and in my neighborhood acts of courage, breath taking rescues, and the best of humanity.

The aftermath, sadly, has brought out the worst in people. Just tonight on my evening news I saw a story of a Fire Station ran by volunteers with little or no money that was ransacked by flood victims. Human waste, dirty dipers, and trash was left all over the station. Windows were broken, and the fire fighters lockers were broken into and their gear stolen. Tens of thousands of dollars of material was destroyed or stolen by these people.

Of course the worst part of the aftermath is the lawsuits. Houston is home of The Texas Medical Center (TMC) which has 13 major hospitals, all but two lost power during the storm. More than 140 critical patients were moved during and after the storm, but sadly 14 patients died indirectly because of the storm (cardiac arrest was the one example they gave because the power was not on).

And as you can probably expect, the lawsuits threats have started flying. Nothing official has been filed as of yet, but many families who lost loved ones have said that they would file suit against The TMC, the City of Houston, and God (ok, maybe not God). Now, I don’t want to make light of the death’s of these peoples loved ones. I recently have lost a loved one, and know the pain they are going through, but now it seems that they must place blame on people and institutions that had zero control over what happened.

I don’t even want to go into the looting, burglary, or scam artists that have come into play after the storm. I find it amazing that in the course of 5 days I have seen the best and worst in humanity.

I have come to a roadblock in my writing it seems. The pain and suffering of the citizens of Houston cannot be properly put into words. I myself have dealt with not talking or knowing what happened to my parents and brother just a day after our grandmother died (I finally spoke with my mother yesterday June 12). With water flooding into my apartment complex, watching my friends suffer, I experianced this storm first hand. I ask everyone on the boards to send everyone in Houston their prayers, and good thoughts. If you would like to do more, please contact the American Red Cross at 1-800-HELP-NOW or at http://www.redcross.org/.

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I am working an evening shift and get off at 11p.m. I made it home Friday, about 1/2 hr. later it just pours. Of course, it was raining hard about 7:30p.m. and I was trapped at work from flooding. But the rain let up for just enough time to get home. I live in a 2nd floor apartment so I was OK. My car was at a high point so the water only made it to the tire rim. Those parked in the streets were toast. I have never seen such widespread flooding in my side of Houston ever.

I did not hear of looting. But the shops by where I live got flooded. The Whataburger is still closed. The 59 Diner closed for two days. The used bookstore and the sheet music store next door have all their damaged stuff in big piles in front of their store. All over Braeswood and Bellaire I see damaged rugs and furniture in front of houses. In the older neighborhoods of Montrose the houses are built more elevated than newer houses (why?). There was parties on the Hazard and Dunlavy street bridge over the 59 underpass that was fully underwater up to almost the level of the bridges. The floodwaters had receded from most of the back streets by the next morning. Dodging the abandoned cars was tricky.

As far as Medical center negligence, I do not see any. How do you anticipate something of this magnitude.

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Here, Here!

Get a clue people. Bad shit is going to happen when this much rain gets dumped on a metropolitan area. I am amazed at how little loss of life there was considering. I seem to remember not too long ago, thousands of poeple dying in some less developted nations south of us because of flooding brought on by compriable rainfall amounts.

We have become a nation of blamers. “It can’t be an act of God, we have to blame someone for it.”

To those who are sueing the Medical Center (And those who trashed the fire station) Bite my big fat hairy butt!