By Sarah Brock, originally posted on Facebook, reposted here with permission.
We checked our phones to get any information we could about the neighborhoods we left. We went back to our homes to start the cleanup. We climbed into a boat with just our clothes and drove away from our first home. We arrived at a shelter 14 hours after calling for a rescue. We weren’t ever rescued. We prayed for the rains to stop.
We watched rescue after rescue on the TV and felt so proud to be a Texan. We watched our mayor get questioned again about evacuation orders and felt so angry at the rest of the nation for not understanding. We cried when HPD Chief Acevedo gave us the devastating news of another death ― this time an officer who reported to work after his wife begged him to stay. We cried when we saw the raw humanity of our city and then cried again when we saw our city come together to save one another. We prayed for the rains to stop.
We turned on flashlights as our homes went dark. We rejoiced as power came back on. We laughed at rescuers taking shots and viral Whataburger photos which were a welcome relief. We took in each other's pets and housed friends and strangers. We texted and called our family and friends and worried about those who were alone. We prayed for the rains to stop.
We stood in line at HEB for two hours waiting to replenish supplies. We cleaned out closets and ripped sheets off beds to get them to those who lost everything. We drove from shelter to shelter dropping off donations. We signed up to work the night shift at GRB. We prayed for the rains to stop.
We watched Moana five times to keep our children calm. We told our children it was going to be ok. We hugged our children knowing we weren't sure it would be. We drank all our wine because being stuck inside with our children nonstop is hard. We prayed for the rains to stop.
We texted family and friends nonstop to reassure them we were safe. We tweeted out rescue locations for those who were not. We built dams and stuffed towels under our doors to keep out the waters. We googled what to do when your home floods because the dams failed. We prayed for the rain to stop.
We told you we'd be #houstonstrong. We proved we were.
