Accustomed to disasters, Houston didn’t see this one coming
Houstonians confronted a cityscape of debris left by winds of up to 100 mph, as strong as some of the hurricanes that have hit the city in recent years.
Published: 04:05 PM,May 18,2024 | EDITED : 08:05 PM,May 18,2024
The storm that hurtled through Houston late Thursday surprised a city long accustomed to bouts of serious weather. The Astros kept playing baseball, even as rain and wind whipped into the team’s closed-dome stadium. Many people, following their evening routines, were caught unaware on bikes or at the gym.
By Friday, all across town — but particularly in the dense and verdant inner loop neighborhoods that radiate from the city’s skyscrapers — Houstonians confronted a cityscape of debris left by winds of up to 100 mph, as strong as some of the hurricanes that have hit the city in recent years.
Decades-old oak and pecan trees were ripped in two or knocked over at the roots, flattening fences or blocking roadways. Stop signs leaned at sharp angles. Highway billboards buckled, including the Car Wreck Cowboy, a local lawyer whose sign, usually towering over Interstate 45 near downtown, had been flattened into an empty lot.
At least seven people died as a result of the storm, and about 1 million people on the Gulf Coast lost power. The seriousness of the moment was underscored when Houston Mayor John Whitmire, a moderate Democrat, and the top county official, Lina Hidalgo, a progressive, put aside their differences and held a joint news conference Friday — their first since Whitmire was elected last year.
Residents spoke of horizontal rain and detritus swirling into the air, and wondered whether a tornado had passed through.
“It was like we were in the middle of a blender,” said Martha Rosas, who sat outside her home with her sister Friday, surrounded by citronella candles. They provided light to the powerless home the night before, and now warded off swarms of attacking mosquitoes.
Throughout Friday, the city hummed to life in its post-disaster posture, one earned from calamities past: Hurricane Ike, Hurricane Harvey, the 2021 winter freeze. With city services overwhelmed, neighbors with chain saws emerged to help neighbors. Those with power offered their refrigerators to those without.
Stoplights remained dark into the afternoon at many intersections. The city’s drivers, often aggressive on its fast-flowing highways, were also transformed, now courteously trading turns at the unregulated intersections.
Lines formed at gas stations with working pumps and also at local doughnut shops that had opened their doors.
The storm surprised her and many Houstonians. “We were here for Ike — but we had days to get ready for that,” Cantu said of the 2008 hurricane that hit the city. “We had time to prepare. For this, I don’t think that anybody did.”
As the power failures stretched into the afternoon, some residents began to worry. The weather was cool Friday, but a heat wave was predicted for the weekend, with temperatures reaching 90 and a heat index near 100. And then there was the matter of all those groceries quickly going bad.
Behind him, four men, including one with a chainsaw and another with an ax, cut up a tree that had fallen across the road. A fifth man had been helping earlier — someone not from the neighborhood who had just stopped to lend a hand.
Not far from his home, a large tree had crashed onto an SUV, killing a woman inside in her driveway on Avenue O. On Friday, the tree remained, with the driver’s side door frame bent into a semicircle from the force of the fall. The rear door hung open, a child’s car seat leaning out.
Family members told news station Telemundo that the woman was a mother of several children and had gone outside to move the car, worried that it would be damaged in the storm.
Neighbors brought by a bouquet of flowers, the start of a makeshift memorial in a rusting chain-link fence.
The storm also chopped through million-dollar homes, including many of those nestled between crooked live oaks planted more than a half-century ago. In the Woodland Heights neighborhood, a large tree fell onto an old bungalow, narrowly missing a home that had just been constructed and sold. The bungalow was also being renovated.
J. David Goodman
The writer is the Houston bureau chief for The New York Times, reporting on the people and politics of Texas and Oklahoma
By Friday, all across town — but particularly in the dense and verdant inner loop neighborhoods that radiate from the city’s skyscrapers — Houstonians confronted a cityscape of debris left by winds of up to 100 mph, as strong as some of the hurricanes that have hit the city in recent years.
Decades-old oak and pecan trees were ripped in two or knocked over at the roots, flattening fences or blocking roadways. Stop signs leaned at sharp angles. Highway billboards buckled, including the Car Wreck Cowboy, a local lawyer whose sign, usually towering over Interstate 45 near downtown, had been flattened into an empty lot.
At least seven people died as a result of the storm, and about 1 million people on the Gulf Coast lost power. The seriousness of the moment was underscored when Houston Mayor John Whitmire, a moderate Democrat, and the top county official, Lina Hidalgo, a progressive, put aside their differences and held a joint news conference Friday — their first since Whitmire was elected last year.
Residents spoke of horizontal rain and detritus swirling into the air, and wondered whether a tornado had passed through.
“It was like we were in the middle of a blender,” said Martha Rosas, who sat outside her home with her sister Friday, surrounded by citronella candles. They provided light to the powerless home the night before, and now warded off swarms of attacking mosquitoes.
Throughout Friday, the city hummed to life in its post-disaster posture, one earned from calamities past: Hurricane Ike, Hurricane Harvey, the 2021 winter freeze. With city services overwhelmed, neighbors with chain saws emerged to help neighbors. Those with power offered their refrigerators to those without.
Stoplights remained dark into the afternoon at many intersections. The city’s drivers, often aggressive on its fast-flowing highways, were also transformed, now courteously trading turns at the unregulated intersections.
Lines formed at gas stations with working pumps and also at local doughnut shops that had opened their doors.
The storm surprised her and many Houstonians. “We were here for Ike — but we had days to get ready for that,” Cantu said of the 2008 hurricane that hit the city. “We had time to prepare. For this, I don’t think that anybody did.”
As the power failures stretched into the afternoon, some residents began to worry. The weather was cool Friday, but a heat wave was predicted for the weekend, with temperatures reaching 90 and a heat index near 100. And then there was the matter of all those groceries quickly going bad.
Behind him, four men, including one with a chainsaw and another with an ax, cut up a tree that had fallen across the road. A fifth man had been helping earlier — someone not from the neighborhood who had just stopped to lend a hand.
Not far from his home, a large tree had crashed onto an SUV, killing a woman inside in her driveway on Avenue O. On Friday, the tree remained, with the driver’s side door frame bent into a semicircle from the force of the fall. The rear door hung open, a child’s car seat leaning out.
Family members told news station Telemundo that the woman was a mother of several children and had gone outside to move the car, worried that it would be damaged in the storm.
Neighbors brought by a bouquet of flowers, the start of a makeshift memorial in a rusting chain-link fence.
The storm also chopped through million-dollar homes, including many of those nestled between crooked live oaks planted more than a half-century ago. In the Woodland Heights neighborhood, a large tree fell onto an old bungalow, narrowly missing a home that had just been constructed and sold. The bungalow was also being renovated.
J. David Goodman
The writer is the Houston bureau chief for The New York Times, reporting on the people and politics of Texas and Oklahoma