“We never anticipated having that sense of community on our doorstep.” “It was a hell of a good home, and we could afford it.” “Hopefully, our authorities can win our trust back again.” “Harvey took away from us our normal everyday life that you go through.” “Nobody anticipated it, so very few people really were prepared for it.” “Our community is right next to the reservoir. And they knew that, because they designed it.” “The nation’s fourth largest city, Houston, bracing for catastrophic flooding.” “The Army Corps of Engineers say in order to save homes downstream, it has to flood others upstream. That includes homes in Cinco Ranch and Bear Creek.” “3,000 homes got water behind the Barker Reservoir. Harvey didn’t flood them — the federal government flooded them.” “A lot of people think that they did that to save downtown, and I understand. But now we need help. We need help, too.” “What do we do next? How do we solve this thing without going dead broke?” “Much of our developed area on the east side of the county is protected by levees. The reservoir was backing up like a bathtub filling. We didn’t know exactly how high it would rise.” “This storm, 38 inches of rain in about a three day period, is probably almost total for the year what we normally get. Had those flows gone around the ends of the dam, they would have caused a great deal of flooding. So we had to make a tough decision.” “We have opened the gates, and we are actually flooding homes downstream now.” “This area is designed to hold that water if necessary. It’s unfortunate for you all, but that’s how it’s designed.” “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Already has — already has mold growing. God. Almost no one around here has flood insurance. It’s not supposed to be an area that floods.” “Everything I own was in that house. I lost my wife about a year ago. And so there was a lot of emotion, and a lot of memories that I have to not think about.” “As we were driving into the neighborhood, Lily kept saying, it feels so weird to be here. We were trying to kind of prepare her that it’s going to look a lot different.” “And it’s like it’s a huge stupid beach. It’s usually like there’s so much grass. All the kids running around. It just feels weird seeing it like this, because all this trash is never here. It was like so high and scary. Like, first the water was up to here. Then it started getting into the houses. See this like Post-it note thing? My mom told me it was like, make sure there’s no dead bodies.” “He has been so obsessed with looking through flooding pictures. At least five times a day, he wants to look and see the house when it first flooded and the picture of Lily’s school.” “So the grant is a max of $33,300, and you can only get that once you’ve been inspected. We have almost 800,000 registrations in the state of Texas alone. Right now it’s just a waiting process, because it does take while for them to get to you.” “So what’s going to happen is, don’t freak out, you’re going to get a denial letter from FEMA, because you have a homeowners. But when you get your reward letter from your homeowners, telling how much they’re paying you, you’re going bring a copy of that letter to me. And I’m going to fax it to Washington, and then FEMA picks back up what the homeowners didn’t pay.” “O.K. But then — O.K.” “O.K.?” “Now what do I do for wheels?” “For that? I don’t know.” “I mean, you’re it? I don’t qualify?” “It’s left up to your inspector. It ain’t left up to me.” “How about accommodations? My daughter is selling her house. I’m out of — I have no place to go.” “I’ll put that in your notes.” “Homes were substantially destroyed, and I think you really have to make a serious decisions as to whether you want to rebuild. If I lived behind that reservoir and my house had four or four and a half feet of water in it, I don’t think I could rebuild. I wouldn’t want to rebuild.” “We’re paying the mortgage and the rent. We do get a low interest loan from FEMA, and so that helps a lot. We live with my daughter and her kids. We want my grandkids to grow up here.” “There were lots of sleepless nights — where was the money going to come from in order to rebuild our house? But we did receive a small grant from FEMA, and the church was able to cover three months worth of rent. I think we both just sat there and cried. It was so overwhelming. We were so fortunate. None of my other neighbors are in a similar situation.” “So the hurricane hit, right? Now, it’s react time. What are you going to do with your property? The longer you hesitate, the more damage that’s going to accrue on your house. As horrible as it’s been, everybody has been pretty upbeat and happy. Hello, sir. Not everybody, but most people. Hey, how are you doing, sir? I’m James. I’m James Smith with Keller Williams Energy Corridor Realty. How are you? I was just wondering how everybody is doing?” “About in the same shape. Waiting on FEMA, most of us. And S.B.A. loans.” “Got you.” “Just in a holding pattern until we can repair our homes.” “If you give me a call, I can give you some information on the proper people that come in and get in contact with. All my advice is going to be at no cost to you. And if I ever can help you, just give me a call.” “Appreciate it.” “No problem. I’ll let you get back to work, sir. So there’s a lot of properties that actually went into foreclosure. A lot of those now the bank owns. Let’s go. You be careful. Now, they’re going to be totally renovated with all the new items on it. Because there’s too many people selling — that’s going to create a buyer’s market. They can kind of set the price.” “I’m 87. I’m not going to spend the last years of my life building back a house that I ain’t going to go and live in. I’m going to sell it. We just don’t talk about what has gone and will never be back.” “There’s Dad. Look at my beautiful mother.” “See, all that furniture sitting out on the lawn was 62 years of accumulation, of memories. And, that hurts.” “For a while there, it looked like a ghost town in here. I’d say, like a quarter of the community is back. All right. We still have a lot of little things that have to be done, but we’re home.” “It feels exciting to be back in the house, and a little bit overwhelming.” “Where are all the flooded pictures?” “You want to see all the flooded pictures?” “Yeah. Where are they?” “Remember when our house looked like that?” “Yeah. I want to see the X on it.” “Oh, I don’t think I took a picture of the X. You know what? Maybe I did. Hold on, let me look. There it is.” “I love to move back in.” “We already moved back in, didn’t we? So did we get to take that down?” “Yeah.” “Yeah, it’s not there anymore, is it? I can’t describe how happy I am to be back in my own house. I do you have a sense of guilt that comes along with it. There’s a lot of people that haven’t even had their FEMA visits.” “For my own sanity, I got to stay positive and moving forward.” “Our community never should have been developed. It’s hundreds and hundreds of houses. Now we are proof that we need better regulations.”