OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 2017
EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
With Harvey, heartaches
and hardships only beginning
By DAVID PERO
The Daily Astorian
I
n southeast Texas and southwestern
Louisiana, heartaches and hardships
are only beginning.
For many, the worst from Hurricane
Harvey still awaits. It comes after the rain
ends, the flooding recedes and the rem-
nants of the catastroph-
ically destructive storm
dissipate. They will expe-
rience the overwhelming
sense of devastation, des-
peration and depression
when massive cleanup
efforts get underway once
they are able to return to their homes — or
what’s left of them — to repair their lives.
Twice in 17 years living there, I had
those same feelings after the city I lived
in, Beaumont, Texas, was first inundated
by large-scale flooding in 1994, and then
11 years later when it was blasted by
Hurricane Rita, less than a month after
Hurricane Katrina pummeled New Orleans
and much of the Gulf Coast.
My home was severely damaged each
time, but it pales in comparison to the
scale of damage Harvey wrought across
the same region, and in Houston, about
80 miles west from Beaumont. But in
following the reports and watching the
destruction, flooding and rooftop rescues,
the memories and lessons learned came
rushing back. In one of those reports I
learned the neighborhood where I lived
was under a mandatory evacuation, a sign
that damaging flooding was again on the
way. By Wednesday afternoon, aerial
photos showed my former house nearly
completely submerged.
David Pero/The Daily Astorian
A flood in 1994 in Beaumont, Texas, swamped Pero’s house.
David Pero/The Daily Astorian
High water left significant property
damage in 1994.
The flood
In the ’94 flood, the region experienced
about 28 inches of rain over three days,
which overflowed the Trinity, San Jacinto
and Neches rivers and especially Pine
Island Bayou, which stretches about 75
miles from the Texas-Louisiana border
near Beaumont westward toward Houston.
Water spilled from the bayou’s banks and
traveled about 7 miles before reaching my
home, filling it and all but two others in the
neighborhood in varying amounts. At the
time, the area was classified as being in a
100-year flood plain, meaning there was
only a 1 percent chance of such a severe
flood in any given year. As a result, many
residents didn’t have flood insurance.
About 6,000 homes across Beaumont
flooded.
My house, on a small rise above the
street, took 18 to 20 inches of nasty, brown
floodwater inside. Sandbagging didn’t
help, water always finds a way in, seeping
through vents in the brick walls over the
three-day period after soaking through the
sandbags. During the flooding, I was able
to get to the house by boat, docking at my
front porch, and could see the damage was
heavy inside.
When I returned a day later, the water
had receded. It ruined furniture, scarred
cabinets, steepled wood floors, saturated
carpets and padding and soaked through
interior drywall into the insulation. All of
that had to be quickly removed, thrown out
and replaced, along with personal belong-
ings that didn’t make it off the floor or low
shelves. Before any rebuilding could begin
the house had to be dried out to prevent
mold, a distinct challenge in the Texas heat
and humidity. Then the empty shell left
inside had to be rebuilt with new walls,
insulation and flooring. Furniture had to
be ordered and purchased while appli-
ances, including the refrigerator, washer
and dryer, that took water in low-lying
major components had to be replaced.
Fortunately, the flooding didn’t get into the
home’s full electrical or the situation would
have been much worse. It took nearly six
months to complete repairs, all while living
inside as it was ongoing.
Rita’s wrath
It took even longer — 18 months —
for repairs after Rita roared through and
uprooted a mature sweetgum tree in my
yard that crashed into the roof and caused
heavy damage. The hard hit also sent a
shock wave through the walls outside and
the drywall inside that cracked hard-to-
replace blonde brick and split just about
every sheetrock seam at all the joints
throughout the house. Two other large pine
trees also fell, but didn’t hit the house,
only the fence. Fortunately, there wasn’t
any water damage. The house was one of
40,000 across the region that sustained sig-
nificant damage, but many had it far worse.
David Pero/The Daily Astorian
The 1994 storm doused the region with 28 inches of rain.
Submitted Photo
The same Beaumont neighborhood this week after Hurricane Harvey.
of moving inland and dissipating as most
storms do, Harvey lingered, reformed and
dumped a record of 50 inches of rain or
more in some areas causing catastrophic
damage.
In comparison, the last two hurricanes
to hit that area, Rita in 2005 and Ike in
2008, were each deadly like Harvey and
each packed a wallop, but both moved
through quickly.
Rita, the stronger of the two, made
landfall as a Category 3 storm after
approaching the coast as a Category 5
like Katrina. It was a fast-mover and only
dropped 16 inches of rain on the region,
but it caused tremendous wind damage and
spawned as many as 150 tornadoes.
Ike was a giant Category 2 hurricane
with severely damaging winds that gen-
erated powerful storm surges that caused
widespread destruction and flooding in
coastal towns, especially Galveston and
the nearby Bolivar Peninsula where the
combination destroyed nearly all of the
peninsula’s million-dollar beach homes.
Ike is listed as the third costliest storm in
U.S. history behind Katrina and Sandy.
Harvey will likely surpass all three —
making it the costliest on record. The eco-
nomic impact will also be felt nationwide.
Besides all the physical damage, southeast
Texas is home to vast oil refining, and
those plants, including the nation’s largest,
are idled. They represent about a fifth of
U.S. oil-refining capacity, which will affect
supply and prices.
Recovery
David Pero/The Daily Astorian
About 6,000 homes in Beaumont flooded in 1994.
Rita forced mandatory evacuations and
knocked out power for 18 days. I stayed
behind and watched it whip in from the
protection of the newspaper building, a
designated Civil Defense shelter, and lived
there throughout the outage with 17 others
who helped keep the company operational
and the evacuated residents informed via
the internet. The storm caused $1.5 million
damage to the three-story building, mostly
to its roof.
As a result of Katrina, residential and
commercial contractors were scarce and
materials even more so, often on back
order for months at a time. But having
been through it before with the flood, I
knew far more what to expect from the
scale of the present disaster and the prob-
lems it caused.
Despite the hardships that came with
both, I consider myself lucky. My experi-
ences are on a far smaller scale than what
is happening with Harvey.
Houston and Harvey
To put it somewhat in perspective,
Houston is our nation’s fourth-largest city.
It’s population of 6.7 million is roughly
1.5 times greater than the entire state of
Oregon, and about 4.25 times the size of
New Orleans’ pre-Katrina census numbers.
Southeast Texas is mostly flat, with mean-
dering bayous, wide rivers and what is
known in the South as “gumbo soil,” a hard
clay-like sand that often tends to retain
water more than absorb it. Parts of the area
have housing developments built on what
used to be rice paddies and crawfish farms.
What’s made Harvey so destructive is
the double punch it’s packed, with dam-
aging wind and historic rainfall. It made
landfall as a Category 4 storm, and instead
Experts say it will take years for full
recovery, much as it has in Katrina’s wake.
For those willing to help, some of the
earliest needs will be clothing and hygiene
items, there will be few places where peo-
ple can obtain them. Donations to disaster
assistance organizations like the American
Red Cross, Salvation Army and others also
will provide help to those in need,
For those there, the hardships will be
at times overwhelming, and a number of
people will simply walk away after having
had more than enough of Mother Nature.
But like New Orleans, Houston and
southeast Texas will recover. The indomita-
ble spirit of people helping people that has
been so evident will prevail despite those
who try to take advantage of the situation.
They will find they aren’t alone, and
will rely on each other for help and emo-
tional support to get through it. They will
be of purpose and the rest of us can lend a
hand in our own ways.
And, like me, the most important lesson
they won’t forget is there’s no greater
priority than keeping everyone safe, all the
other stuff is just that — stuff, and it can be
replaced.
David Pero is the editor and publisher
of The Daily Astorian.
DAVID F. PERO, Editor & Publisher
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