I’ve never seen anything quite like this. The cellphone was the only way for some people to get information about what was happening or ask for people to come help. Neighborhoods lost power as waters short-circuited the electric grid. Others said they had to cut a hole through their attic’s ceiling in order to get onto the roof. Some people said they were climbing into the attic to get away from the steadily increasing water level. They were looking for a way out of their homes as waters starting rising. People were sending us messages on social media. One of the most vivid memories I have of Hurricane Harvey is the desperate calls for help we received at the television station as floodwaters inundated neighborhoods in the middle of the night. Luckily, our station had showers installed for just this type of scenario - people stuck at work for days because of the weather. I’d repeat that three more times before I was able to get back home and into my own bed. Once I was at the station, I think I ended up working something like nearly 14 hours straight before I was able to get some sleep in one of the sales offices on the second floor, where we had an air mattress blown up. I called my boss and told him I was going to go back home and work from there until the roads improved. Don’t drown." This required me to back up the exit ramp to get back on the freeway. I did what all of us meteorologists tell people to do, "Turn around. I was able to get to about two exits away from the station before I saw water covering the road. I jumped on the tollway next to my apartment. The roads weren’t bad in west Houston, where I lived, but I figured the freeways might be the safest way to get there. I threw on some clothes, grabbed the bag that I had packed and jumped in the car. "The roads are getting really bad and you may not be able to make it in later." "You should head to the station now," he said with a clear note of urgency in his voice. Wake-up callĪbout 3 a.m., my boss calls to wake me up. I headed to sleep because I was supposed to be headed into work about 6 a.m. Another followed a couple of hours after that. Here’s one of the Facebook Live videos I posted after the first round of rain.Įventually, the drains would catch up and that first round of rain was able to head to Galveston Bay via the system of bayous that Houston has developed to deal with just such a problem.Ī couple of hours later, we got another wave of torrential rain. Sediment was building up around the edges of the mini-pond that had formed inches from the front of my car. By then, the storm drain in the parking lot of my apartment building was full. It was more than an hour before it let up. It just kept raining, and raining, and raining. What was unusual is that the deluge didn’t stop. Roads quickly flooded, which isn’t unusual in Houston when tropical rains happen. So far, no flooding rains, so I headed home to prepare for the next day.Īs I was headed home, some of the heaviest rain I have ever experienced began.
Some damage was reported before the storms died off after sunset. By late afternoon, we had tornadoes reported across the area, mainly north of the city. By Saturday afternoon, I headed into the station to prepare for coverage. The forecast for Houston was for scattered storms, some of which could become severe. By the next morning, Harvey had moved inland a few dozen miles.
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