Hurricane Harvey will be a defining moment for Houstonians like “Where were you when JFK was shot?” “Where were you when you heard that Elvis had died?” “Where were you when the towers fell?” Every one of us has a story. Here are parts of mine.

When Harvey made landfall, we knew the waiting had only begun. We started to see rain, but knew Victoria and Rockport and Port Lavaca were fairing much worse. We waited. Saturday was actually a pretty nice day. We had clouds and intermittent rain showers, then those outer bands on the dirty side of the storm started to hit. We had constant tornado warnings from roughly 2:00 p.m. that afternoon throughout the overnight into Sunday. THAT was stressful. Around 4:00 p.m. I noticed the trees had stopped moving. I sent MyChild into the bedroom with MyHusband (steps away from our windowless master closet) and ran to the front yard to watch, listen, and wait. I could feel the storm in the air, but I couldn’t hear the telltale sound. But, at that exact time, a tornado was skipping its way across the neighborhood just south of us and touched down less than 2 miles from our house.

Sunday it rained. And rained. And rained.

Monday morning 7:00 a.m.

Monday afternoon 1:00 p.m.

We did all we could, sealed doors, prepped floors, etc. It was a very nerve wracking day. We watched many of our neighbors evacuate. We chose not to evacuate for a variety of reasons: 1. we have a 5 year old, 2. we have two dogs, 3. we have a second floor we could flee to, and 4. there were many, many people who truly needed help, the space on the evacuation boats and trucks and in the shelters.

At 8:00 p.m. our rain gauge gave us the first ray of hope:

That toe was the happiest thing we had seen all day. That entire foot had been submerged most of the day, which was while the water was within an inch of our doorways. Once the toe was exposed, we could hardly pull ourselves away from the window watching to see if the water was going down or going back up. By the time we went to bed at 11:00 p.m. we could see BOTH feet. We just about did a happy dance.

Tuesday morning the water was back out to the middle of our yard, by lunch it was withing the sidewalks, by 2:00 p.m. the streets were clear and the storm drains were flowing clearly.

This little guy will be going to any house we live in.

Go Jackets!

Also, if you want to help: The Other Side of Hurricane Harvey