Eyewitness: Hurricane Harvey

Liberation News: Can you tell me where you are and what the conditions are like? Also what kind of preparations did you make to take before the storm?

Shaniqua Pippen: I’m in a part of Houston called Cypress. Right now the water levels have lowered significantly since yesterday. We lost power a couple times but luckily didn’t get flooded out yet here, but we almost did. We were expected to be flooded out this morning but I have been told that some of the creeks had been broken up last night at 2 a.m. and I think that helped a lot to lower the water. But yesterday the water had been waist-level in the street. We went out to see if we could get to dry land, and there was literally nowhere that was dry. People were in boats going by, there were kayaks going by the kitchen window.

Matthew Hermes: I live in the Third Ward in Midtown, which is a historically Black part of Houston. My house is fairly large, there are 15 people living in it and when we all heard on Thursday that a hurricane was coming and extreme rains where predicted we went shopping, bought food and water and started bottling and jarring up water … We also had to do some last-minute running around to find sandbags to secure a very vulnerable window in front of our house to keep our basement secure … The road outside my house for the last two nights has flooded over the sidewalk and into the front yards, luckily this house is somewhat elevated so we have not taken on water yet ourselves but rain has damaged the ceiling of our kitchen where the drywall caved in.

LN: How did you hear about the hurricane and what instructions did you receive from the local authorities or what interactions have you had with officials dealing with the situation?

SP: We were able to stock up once we heard that the hurricane was coming so we have a lot of water but it took a while for us to get it and they jacked up the prices. I was getting mad when I was telling my cousin that the water was more than double the price that it usually is. They also jacked up the gas prices. We got as much food as we could but the super markets were bare. I mean it was very hard to find non-perishable things that can last a long time. We were able to get the things we needed, we were lucky, but I know a lot of other people weren’t able to. Like I heard of some cases of people who are being charged like $40 just for water, or they don’t have any water because they weren’t able to get to it, or they don’t have the means to get it.

My family knew that something was brewing but there was not enough information until the week of. So maybe some knew but for most people I don’t think there was enough information in advance to prepare. I don’t think there was enough organization, I don’t know exactly what happened, but I’m not sure if there even was anyone in the parts of town where they had no means to get out … because on the news it just seems like “well if you didn’t leave, then its kinda on you” attitude and they are even communicating the fact for a lot of people there was not even anywhere for them to go.

MH: I didn’t receive any instructions from the authorities. My coworker and my boss who have been around here for a long time suggested that I go home, stockpile supplies and prepare. I did not hear anything from authorities except for some messages that my cell phone receives declaring emergencies. They have not been very helpful. I didn’t hear anything from authorities just basically what I’ve heard from the news.

LN: Yesterday on the radio they said that in the Greensville neighborhood there is a shelter for people and there’s about 2,000 people inside but they only have blankets for 300 and cots for 200, and they only have enough
food for the elderly and children. There’s estimates going around that 30,000 people could be looking for evacuations going forward as the rain continues. What do you know about people evacuating the city?

SP: The most I have seen is a helicopter once flying over head. One fire truck yesterday was out there trying to help a car that had stalled. But I have not seen a lot of officials, it has most just been community members just helping each other. I saw a guy going through with a boat trying to save people and I have been hearing people talking about trying to get some boats onto the highway to go help people. There is a guy with a truck who has been driving back and forth for people in the neighborhood behind us where the water was a little bit higher.

But we were told by authorities to stay in our house until not longer habitable, then to go on the roof and hang sheets or towels until we could be evacuated out but luckily it did not get to that point. I am a little upset that there is a 24 hour wait to get through to 9-1-1 so my cousins and I went out to see what we could do to get to safety if our house got flooded but there were not many people who were there to help. A few houses on this block have been flooded out. Some people have been leaving with animals and babies.

MH: I have some friends who evacuated on Thursday. I had a friend who tried to leave but who realized that they wouldn’t be able to get far enough to actually escape the rain so they decided to stay. What you told me about the Greensville shelter doesn’t surprise me. I hear that from my friends who are involved in these things that Black Lives Matter is running shelters, various other organizations are running shelters, they’re all packed, they’re all taking people to make space and donate food and blankets. Honestly the most I hear about people finding shelter and people evacuating is from the activities of random working class people trying to help each other get to shelter and safety, like random people with boats are helping each other evacuate. The 9-1-1 call centers have taken to angrily telling people not to call unless their emergency is immediately life threatening. They are overwhelmed, not prepared at all for the volume of emergency that is happening. Local working class organizations like Black Lives Matter are organizing shelters in response to this. Random citizens with boats, random people with kayaks are helping people evacuate.

The mayor defended his refusal to order any evacuation by citing the previous Hurricane Rita in which an evacuation occurred and people were trapped on the roads, basically arguing that you can’t put a city of 6 million people on the road, well okay but you can put some of them on the road you can evacuate some people so that the people who are left are  able to get by because they have more resources and people would be able to handle fewer people having an emergency, if you evacuate some people. He basically just told everyone to sit on their hands, didn’t order an evacuation; even a partial evacuation of some parts of the city would have helped.

You hear reports of ICE officers still running their checkpoints during the hurricane, so if you are undocumented and you’re thinking about whether to evacuate that’s another thing you have to worry about, if you evacuate, will you end up in the clutches of the immigration police?

Houston has no zoning laws either and that’s attractive to capitalist developers and things like that, but that also means that the city cannot be built intelligently and safely, it also means that the sort of random development and building of whatever might be profitable, very likely damages and reduces the ability of this coastal plain to offput water … too much development in certain areas is damaging the ability of the bayous to take on enough water.

LN: Thank you so much for talking with us. Shaniqua lastly can you just tell me what people in Houston need most right now?

SP: There is a need for transportation for getting people out of their homes. Like I said the 9-1-1 hotline has a 24 hour wait. So there are people basically waiting in what could quickly escalate to life threatening situations and instead of allowing them to get to that point there could be interventions happening now to get them out now before it gets to that. I was looking out the window and people are walking by with tiny babies in waist high water to get out of their homes and get somewhere dry. Families with three or four dogs just chucking it through the water.

LN: Thank you Matthew, stay safe out there and is there anything else you’d like to mention?

MH: Yeah, I am going to be here, I have been looking into going out to try and bring some of our extra supplies to the overrun shelters but it is dangerous to go out and some people have been hurt doing this. For example, one trucker went out to take supplies and had to be rescued himself when he got caught up in waters that were chest deep. So making the decision to go out and help bring supplies to people who are in need or whether to help people evacuate is a decision to heavily weigh. There is a chance you might actually get caught up in the flood and could actually get hurt or be killed yourself. There have been 5 official deaths so far but I think that’s a conservative estimate and if things continue the way they’re going I can guarantee the numbers will go up and sadly they could go up by a lot.