Hurricane Harvey: What Day is It?

I have no idea what day it is.

I'm not the only one. Anyone I've talked to that's just lived through Hurricane Harvey is a little murky about days. Is it Friday? Maybe Saturday? Wait, it's September?

It's a bit hard to see but the water came right
up to our porch. 

I know six days ago on a Sunday, the sky opened and rain fell and fell and fell. Three or four inches an hour, it fell. All. Day. Long. 

Across from us is a construction site where they are building (ironically) a detention pond. At its deepest, it's close to 20 feet deep. The kids often run around in The Pit, climbing dirt hills. Now, it was completely full of water and overrunning its banks.

That night, my husband and I stood on our tiny concrete porch and watched the water cover our cul-de-sac, then the sidewalk, and finally our front yard.

The barricade we built around our porch.

All of us, our neighbors too, scrambled to move what we could onto tables, and upstairs. Have you have had a few moments to decided what's most important to you? I grabbed social security card and birth certificates.  Yes, yes, that's good. And a granola bar. Oh, and the box of pictures I have in the garage. Some chocolate chips. The important stuff, y'all.

The water came to our front porch.

We built a little barricade out of cinder blocks and held our breath. Around eleven o'clock, dripping wet and exhausted, we waited and . . . the rain eased. Neighbors peeked out their front doors, calling out to each other, "You okay? You get any water in your house?"

No, no one, mercifully, had. 

The rain didn't stop but it wasn't the deluge of water it had been. The waters receded and we could see our lawn again. Finally, on Monday, we saw our street once more.

And on Tuesday, we saw the sun.

The next morning, I stood on the corner in front of my
house and took this picture of the street and The Pit.

But still, we're all a little shell-shocked. A few of us have admitted to waking in the middle of the night to check if it's raining. Some of us feel like we've been holding our breaths for a week. We've been stuck in panic mode for days on end.

So, no, most of us can't remember what day it is.

Most of us are just putting one foot in front of the other. We're ripping up carpet and drywall for anyone that needs it. We're baking cookies for the National Guard camped a mile from our house. We're watching bayous and reservoirs swollen with rain and hoping they start to recede. We're waiting to get into our homes that are still covered in feet of water. We're seeing the men and women that have come from states far and wide to help us.

"What day is it?" A woman at the grocery store asked me. She sighed, brow furrowed. "Why can't I remember what day it is?"

Hurricane Harvey, the flooding, the devastation, and the pure heroism we've witnessed have changed us somehow. Even the way we measure time. They'll always be a before and an after now.

It's not Saturday anymore or even September.

"Heck if I know," I said. "All I know is that five days ago, the rain stopped and we saw the sun."

***
Kingsland Baptist Disaster Relief
Katy Christian Ministries Donate to Recovery
Mayde Creek High School Amazon Hurricane Wishlist for Families--Approximately 2000 students have been displaced by the flood. This wish list was started by a teacher. The school is inaccessible so donations are shipped to the teacher for distribution.
Adopt a Houston Classroom
Texas Diaper Bank
L.I.F.E. Houston
Baker Ripley
Houston Furniture Bank
Northwest Alliance Ministries
Hope Impacts
Clothed By Faith
Pregnancy Help Center
Christ Clinic

Animal Help
Jurassic Bark Rescue
Kitten House Rescue
Crossfire Equine Rescue
Special Pals Shelter
Fort Bend County Animal Services
Houston SPCA

If you know of any LOCAL organizations helping, please comment below and I'll update the list. 

And national organizations like:
Donors Choose Hurricane Relief for Classrooms
YouCaring Flood Relief Organized by JJ Watt
Preemptive Love
Samaritan's Purse