An interstate 45 road sign, pointing north, peered over her right shoulder as if to say, all was not lost. A wet and frightened young woman wailed in relief at being alive to tell the tale of her three-day ordeal. With the prescient reminder of a way out, the woman, identified as Michelle Pleasant, repeatedly praised God and hugged a relative.
NBC Nightly News reporter, Joe Fryer who conducted the makeshift interview, literally surrounded by the waters of history, gulped. His overwrought swallow was not only for the surviving family but for a breathless audience perched on the edges of beds, sofas and lounge chairs at home watching.
I have friends in Houston and I am still trying to reach them.
I am reminded of my friend Navarro who survived Hurricane Katrina that so devastated New Orleans in 2005. His harrowing tale of cheating death on at least two occasions still gives me chills. One story is reminiscent of the many told by the current victims of the Texas Gulf Coast floods. He awoke to two feet of water in his one-floor apartment, at first, he believed, like most, it was confined to just the bathroom maybe his toilet had overflowed. Quickly he realized it was in every room and rising fast. He opened his front door and the water had risen above the floors below him and had flooded every adjoining apartment.
He ran to his balcony and saw his car bobbing like a cork; he was able to locate it because it had a New Orleans Saints flag affixed to the antennae. I asked Navarro what went through his head and he said with recalled resignation, “panic man, panic. He grabbed a bag, literally stuffed as many jeans and shirts and underwear in the bag as he could and swam into the waiting waters. Fortunately, rescuers were nearby because in his panic and fear he was reaching the point of exhaustion and drowning was only moments away.
He scrambled into the raft, drenched in flood water, sweat and fear.
Navarro told me he had nightmares for months but never had time to indulge the trauma; relocation, a new job a new city and rebuilding was the priority.
For the many residents of Harris County, Texas who weathered the eye of the fury, time for self-pity, self-doubt, anger, and outrage will have to be delayed. The helpless feeling of watching the devastating effects play out on TV screens across the country should give us all chills. Families are in crisis, hospital patients are bound to the decisions of others, homes lost and death. Navarro said to me once, “nothing is more sobering than knowing you are going to die young.”
With the turmoil of recent racial unrest in the country, the saving grace of tragedy is the reminder that we really are a woven fabric of rainbow colors that comprise a unified America. I have watched Latino men rescue young Black women, Black men bodily carry young White women and children and white, black and brown men pilot helicopters and rescue vehicles of mercy and life. We are one, despite the efforts of the weeds of hatred who seek to spoil the ever-growing landscape of America.
America is Texas.