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Perhaps even worse than feeling powerless, disconnected and unbearably hot after last week's disastrous windstorm is feeling like you're enduring those things alone.
That's how many of the dwindling number of people without electricity feel as the rest of the city, including in some cases neighbors on their very same street, crank up the A/C, turn on Netflix and get on with their lives. And it's how some people in far-flung parts of our community often feel when there's a big storm. They don't see the TV cameras, and unincorporated areas may not have elected leaders eager to hand out provisions and give reassuring speeches.
Some feel a lot like Janice Flournoy of northeast Houston earlier this week when she wrote us a letter to the editor as she struggled to work from home with two overheated dogs and no electricity.
"I know we are not the Heights or Lake Houston, but we are here, still sweating," Flournoy wrote. "And it is hot in the hood. There are mosquitoes and flies from all the rotting meat that accumulated over the hot weekend from all of us in our apartment complex having to throw out food, without means of replacing it. We're struggling like it is Hurricane Rita."
The editorial board's videographer Sharon Steinmann and I set out northeast, near Channelview, on Tuesday to survey the damage. It seemed a world away from my Galleria-area neighborhood, where the stoplights are back in order and cars have resumed their steady flow down San Felipe. We saw massive oaks strewn on their sides with roots hanging out, like a game of pick-up sticks left behind by a God suddenly preoccupied with other matters. Workers in bucket trucks were diligently getting traffic signs back into service, while others patched up shattered windows and crushed roofs under the sweltering sun.
Residents were out cleaning yards of debris. Though the temperatures were in the 90s, they perhaps fared better in the open-air conditions than in the cavernous ovens of their homes. Whether or not they'd spend another night tossing and turning in the sweltering, stagnant air depended on crews of linemen they might never meet or observe hard at work.
We found several trucks of those workers down one narrow street lined with piles of trees on either side. They were part of the 4,000-strong brigade who'd traveled from other states to help out.
Blake Todd, a bald Kentucky lineman with clear green eyes, a long scruffy beard and an easygoing twang, told me he'd been working 16-hour shifts since he got the call last Friday morning.
Todd has cleaned up his fair share of disaster aftermath. Just three years ago, an E-F4 — the second most intense tornado on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, with wind speeds of up to 190 miles per hour — wiped out the homes of two of his sisters, as well as his mom's and aunt's houses in Dawson Springs, Ky.
Yet, he said, "I've never seen this much tree damage, I don't think ever. We've had bad wind storms in Kentucky, but the amount of trees stacked up alongside these streets is crazy."
It's what has made the work so variable, and so drawn out. "Each house is different," he explained. Sometimes the trees will have knocked down poles, which complicates the process of running new wire and making those electrical connections. "Sometimes just getting one house power can take a whole day, and sometimes you can get 500 people power in half an hour. It's luck of the draw," Todd said.
Just a couple of houses down from where I chatted with Todd, I came across Francisco Martinez, 52, who was clearing branches from his front yard. An oil-and-gas forklift driver, Martinez was working at a site not far from his home last Thursday when his phone started blaring. Three alarms alerted him that a tornado was coming. He called his wife, who was hiding in the closet with their three kids, when she heard an ear-splitting sound. "Algo tronó," she told him. Something cracked.
His neighbor's tree had given up against the wind, falling unceremoniously in Martinez's backyard. His family, by some miracle, wasn't hit. Martinez showed us the yard, where his brother-in-law was busy carting away debris next to a warped fence.
A few years ago, Martinez had trimmed the tops of his tallest trees as a precaution. "It's not fair," he said in Spanish, his voice hard to hear over the hum of the generator he bought right after Hurricane Harvey. "I took all the precautions possible, but now because my neighbor didn't, I have to pay."
He said his insurance company told him that because the incident was "natural," the fault wasn't his neighbor's. Martinez has shelled out $1,200 to fix the damages so far. But he counted himself lucky. The people over there, he said, pointing behind his backyard, lost their roof.
A couple of streets over, I met 13-year-old Daeveyian Gold. He was in the hallway of the home his family is renting when the storm came and sent a tree crashing through their garage. The wind shattered one of their windows and knocked down their power cables. "Watch out, mom," Daeveyian cautioned Abril, 31, who tiptoed barefoot into the yard to show us the damage.
Daeveyian hadn't been able to go back to school yet. He was hot, he said. And oh-so-bored. He spent his afternoons bouncing a basketball through the neighborhood and playing video games with his cousin who lived farther away and had power.
For Johnny Perry ("like the governor," he said with a smile, recalling former Texas Gov. Rick Perry), it's hard not to feel frustrated. A white-haired man with a hearing aid who's lived in the area for 25 years, Perry had already lost two houses after three hurricanes; one had filled his home with over seven feet of water.
He'd been told the power would be back by 5 p.m. at the latest. Just then, he checked his watch and chuckled to us: "Five p.m. was 30 minutes ago."
I felt for Perry, and for all the residents desperate to cool off. I also thought of the workers sweating behind the scenes to help them.
Blake Todd, the lineman, had told me that he left behind his wife and two girls, 3 and 11, in Kentucky. He traveled some 900 miles to climb up our poles and houses, and was working under immense pressure to plug Houstonians back in as fast as possible. Most residents have treated the out-of-town workers well, offering water and thanks, but that hasn't stopped the rare irate customer from taking out frustration on crewmembers.
The message Todd has for Houstonians without power? "Everybody be patient, please, because it's a process," he said. "We have to work as safe as we can because one mess-up could be the end of us."
Although electricity is back for the vast majority of those who lost it, tens of thousands are still in the dark, including a member of our editorial board. Recovery can be a slow, spotty process, and the people last to recover can often feel forgotten. So, perhaps, can the unsung CenterPoint workers and contractors working long hours to help them.
We can do our part to keep those Houstonians in mind. Thoughts and prayers are appreciated. So are donations to nonprofits, and a helping hand to pack food and water. All of us could take a page out of Martha Anne Pierson's book: the Seabrook letter writer recently shared how she opened up her home during Hurricane Alicia to people needing a cool place to sleep.
As she aptly put it, every ray of hope matters during these difficult times.
Saludos,
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