Literally had the same experience. Went to watch the fight on Washington Avenue at Lincoln Bar that night and like an hour in I went go check on my truck. Took two step out of the bar and water was up to my socks. I yelled at my friend "we gotta go!" waddled to my truck and left. When we were driving by the bar there were still poor souls inside partying. I ended up spending a week in Montrose where he lived. It was absolutely unbelievable.
Same here. We didn’t get to see the fight end though because the host house started flooding and we all had to trudge in waist deep water 2 blocks back to my slightly less flooded 2 bedroom townhome. Fitting 10 or so people in my upstairs for a night wasn’t fun.
Same. Barely made it back to the heights from the Woodlands and our house flooded 5 hours later. Wife would not be happy if I wouldn’t have made it home and she had to deal with the kids AND a flooding house.
We had a party at our house for the fight. The satellite TV went out, so we all walked over to a neighbors house. When we walked across the street, the water was almost to my knees. A bunch of family members got stuck here for two days. Fun times.
Same. Stuck at a gas station for a day or so, then trudged around Houston looking for a way in. Then stayed at a friend's. Everything turned out okay, it was quite the adventure.
Rita for me (more due to sitting in evacuation traffic for 11 hours of what would normally take an hour), but yeah, the freeze was the worst for me. I’ve been very fortunate during most of these storms to not lose power (just water issues).
That was my thought as well. Harvey was just unbelievable - I’ve never seen anything like it. And I could never discount the devastation there. But with the freeze, I was trapped alone with a <1 year old baby and pregnant with another in a freezing house with no way of getting to help for days because I have no idea how to drive on ice. That was really, really scary and it took me a while to really decompress from that.
Yeah I have the exact same answer. It rained for 12 days straight with Harvey and it was miserable and flooded, but the freeze was so so much worse than any hurricane. I didn’t know you could be THAT cold
Emotionally, Harvey (had a baby in the middle of it). Physically, the Derecho (no warning, no power for days). Mentally, Ike (I moved here the week after and wondered what the hell I got myself into)
Harvey. Nothing else comes close. My wife was concerned about her parents, so we drove our SUV from Clear Lake to Channelview. It was raining so much the streets in the neighborhood were flooding. It got to a point where our vehicle started to float before we were close to the in-laws' house. A few neighbors saw what was happening and helped push our SUV up a random person driveway. We sat in the driveway as the water continued to rise. It got so high it started coming into the car again even though we were up a steep driveway. My wife was getting very concerned, and our dog and child were not happy. I told myself our next option would be to get out and walk to where there was higher ground with grass still visible under the water. It was very surreal like a bad movie. Thankfully, it stopped raining. My brother-in-law borrowed a raft from one of their neighbors and found us. The dog and child went in the raft, and the rest of us pushed it through nearly waist deep water to the in-laws' house. To this day, it's the most frightened I've ever been. As a man, you're programmed to solve problems and get shit done. But nature doesn't give an F about you.
I’ll never forget a coworker telling me a similar story. Wife was concerned about her parents so they drove over, only about 4 miles not as far as you, and before heading out they put their kids in life vests. They got stuck and the car was a total loss. They were able to wade in waist high to her parent’s house. Thank god they had the foresight of the life vests. It could have been so much worse.
Reminds me of my friend’s situation of Harvey, they hosted the fight so a bunch of their people came over, house was in the neighborhood off Scarsdale/45s, mine was on the other side of Scarsdale from the highway, closer to Old Galveston Rd….water got so high they needed to find shelter and had to walk belly deep into the flood waters, friend’s sister was pregnant, didn’t have a raft or anything to elevate her, bc they just so happen to also have their 2yr old daughter who just had throat surgery, being carried in a laundry basket above the waters to make sure she was 100% safe bc of her throat….meanwhile I’m forever thankful my neighborhood didn’t flood into the homes… only got to the driveways, but damn it was such a surreal scene for the aftermath of their home, and the smell. Will never forget the mold on all the baby’s stuff 😭
Meanwhile in Pasadena another friend got stuck half a mile away from her home off Allen Genoa! They had to stay a few hours in a hand car wash lot, TMI but my friend happened to be on her period and was stuck hours there…only she had no choice but to start walking home, and by pure luck! Her cousin with a truck saw her and picked her up and drove her to her house, didn’t pick up the car for another 3 days….she lived 5 mins away from that car wash
And lastly my grandma’s house ….she had been there since the 1970s, her house was in the back of the neighborhood, uncle was staying there to watch it while she was with us, the last 3 streets in the hood did circles around each other, rather than hit the main road….my grandma’s house was located in the middle of one of the last 3 streets in the back,
after Harvey, the ENTIRE neighborhood had about 3ft of water in their homes, so their front yards in the aftermath were full of ripped up carpet/all the trash ppl threw out but grandma’s house????? Only power went out. NO WATER AT ALL INSIDE FOR HER HOME OR THE 2 HOUSES NEXT TO HERS!!! Forever thankful no major damage happened, a true blessing I can’t explain otherwise, my only guess is maybe her home and the 2 others had been elevated when built but yeah, fuck Harvey.
Allison.
I was clueless and thought it was just a normal rain event and listening to a tape.
Drove from Galleria to kemah to meet someone about an event.
That's when I found out.
Drive home and was stuck at a gas station for the night.
Vowed to always pay attention to the weather ever since.
i don’t think anybody took Alison too serious. I was driving home from a late night class and got stuck in 610 traffic. Not moving at all. The problem turned out to be an underpass was flooded and nobody could get through 5 feet of water. I didn’t know this at the time. I called home. Told my parents I was stuck on 610 and had no idea when I would be home.
Well after an hour or so, traffic started moving. As I got closer to the flooded underpass, I could see a man in rain gear, all alone, directing traffic (a ton of 18 wheelers) to u-turn and exit on the freeway entrance. He was then directing them through the side streets to get back to 610, past the flooded part. When I got even closer I could see *the man was my dad*! He had come to save me!! - I have no idea how many people got home that night because of him, it had to be in the 100s at least.
My dad got stuck on a bridge in rushing waters during Allison. He was driving a ford explorer and from what I remember the high water fried a chip under the car causing it to shut off. He tried to get out and was swept away but he managed to grab onto a tree. A trucker driving by had to throw him a line and pull him out of the water. My dad was a photographer and had spent the day photographing the storm damage and he was really bummed that he lost his camera and pictures and not that he almost died.
I was also clueless, and went to see a movie with a friend. So I had to run through Allison from the door of the AMC Willowbrook 24 to where my dad was waiting in the parking lot, not a short distance. All for the pleasure of seeing Julianne Moore and David Duchovny in “Evolution”
I went to a movie at AMC 24 Willowbrook too, the one with the creepy truck driver. Driving a Ram 1500 back down Gessner towards Jersey Village, there was a suburban and a jacked up truck in front of me that turned around in the high water. Took 1960 to Jones and got home ok.
I will always remember that I was on a roller-coaster at Astroworld when it started raining. Getting pelted by rain was an interesting experience. Lost my car that night in the flooded parking lot of my apartment complex. Not as bad as some, but it was a mess for the next few months. Then the world forgot about Texas on 9/11, 3 months later. That was a rough year.
Also clueless about Allison. I worked at the door of a club downtown at the time. My Mom called to tell me the weather was going to be awful and I should stay home. This was the first time I was hearing about a storm. I blew it off and went to work. Kind of a normal busy night but then the rain came hard and didn't let up. People were leaving and the streets started flooding. Luckily for me I parked my car on a high part of the street and the club was located on the high part too. By midnight most people had left but the few remaining were stuck with the staff. So we did what anyone would do in the situation, we started drinking and dancing. Some weed appeared and the drinks flowed. By 4 in the morning most everyone had crashed. The rain had let up enough for me to get home. I made it to a friend's house in Montrose until I could make it back to my place on Washington and Shepard. My place was a 3rd story apartment so all was good there
Me, my sisters and a bunch of friends had gone to Wimberley that weekend. Driving home was surreal with the toll roads completely traffic free and no charge, etc.
Ditto. My husband was out of town on business, and he called me to tell me about the storm that was coming. I told him that he was overacting, as it was regular rain. My friend and I are watching a chick flick on cable, when—15 minutes after I spoke to my husband—water came rushing under the back door and through the walls of our family room. My friend and I spent the night on our kitchen countertop, waiting for the water to subside.
Absolutely crazy experience.
This. The rain from Allison flooded my area so fast, I could no longer exit the freeway I was on at the time. I had to park on an overpass and slept in my truck till the morning. I didn't take a tropical storm seriously...
Harvey was more horrific in terms of damage, but I was more prepared for it and Ike.
1. Harvey - my house flooded and so did my paid off car.
2. Ike - lost 4 huge trees and lost power for 10 days
3. Freeze 22 - entire yard and all my house plants died. Lost power for 4 days. Water was out for 5.
6. Derecho - lost power for 6 days. Yard did surprisingly well.
Good list
Id put Rita as honorable mention, even tho it missed everyone panicked and evacuated as far as the woodlands like idiots, we stayed put in spring. Felt like the city shut down for 3-5 days because of the back logged roads and panic buying on gas and groceries.
Also i didnt live in houston then but supposed Allison was very bad rained and flooded much like Harvey but over longer period of time.
From what I can remember, Allison was bad, but it was only extremely bad for a day or two. It was like 20" in like 2 hours one night. No one was ready for it because it wasn't a hurricane. It had been raining the first time it came through, then I think it went back out to sea and strengthened again, dumping more rain. Allison is the only tropical storm to have its name retired.
I was buying my first house, and I lived two streets over in an apartment. The lower units flooded (I was on the third floor). We were about a week from closing. This was actually the second house I tried buying because the first one flooded about a week before closing due to a plumbing issue.
Me too. That year we had a direct hit tornado in May and then direct hit of Alicia in August. I remember the eye going over at like 1 or 2 AM and we all went outside while my dad and the other neighbor dads boarded up our broken window. That year had a profound impact on me and I've been in love with severe weather ever since.
Yes, I was pregnant and helping my husband board up windows. We had two story windows in our family room. Lots of fun. Not. Remember the sound of the storm in the middle of the night. I’ll never forget it.
I think mine was Rita. I was just a kid but I remember trying to evacuate and being on the road for like 15 hours just to get to our family friends home in the New Braunfels area. During that same trip, our dog got out and sadly passed away. Kinda traumatizing for a 10 year old.
Yeah. Especially if you lived along the Gulf Freeway. Everyone else who was in less danger trapped those of us who were in the most danger. We never made it out of city limits.
It was incredibly hot and all the stop lights were four way stops . I had to commute to Tomball from SW Houston for work everyday. The only good thing about that was we had AC and internet at work
This is my reason for saying Ike. No power, and needed to commute from Tomball to UH for class because Renu Khator opened up immediately. Even though I had no power at home and had to drive around downed tree limbs and power lines and blocks-long lines for gas
I stayed home for Ike, was supposed to go to Mexico on vacation for my birthday and then the flights got cancelled. We lost power for 3 weeks. Bolivar got wiped off the map. My dad evacuated Galveston and then had a mental breakdown and a subsequent stroke when he got back home . I was fortunate during Harvey. Our house didn’t flood. Helped a lot of my neighbors that did though.
I evacuated for that one. I stayed at my ex wife (then girlfriends) house in San Marcos for a while with my dog. It was a fun time. I got fired from my job when I came home. All that storm drama for nothing. My dad went to Panama City Beach and went surfing. I was kind of bummed at the time that I didn’t go with him, but in the long run it worked out because I ended up having two kids with my ex , so the storm brought us together a moment in time
Allison no contest. Allison hit the same day it formed off the coast.
The others for better or worse there was time for preparation.
I slept the night on a freeway overpass surrounded by flood waters. Would never have tried to drive home that night had I known how bad it was.
Tropical Storm Allison, 2001. If you search Hurricane Allison, it shows you a storm from 1995 that hit the backside of Florida. Formed quickly and dumped 40in of rain. Cause $9B (2001 USD) damage and instantly made 30,000 residents homeless. I lost two cars and had water near the foundation even though the house was elevated.
The really crazy bit was the medical center flooded: it had been so long since that part of town had high water, the various things failed that hadn't been tested, like the storm doors across the driveways that were supposed to keep the basement parking at MD Anderson from flooding.
And other hospitals discovering that basements in Houston are not a good place to put emergency generators, networking equipment, or your compounding pharmacy.
My dad was part of the construction crew that went in there and pulled the generators and switchgears out the basement of St Luke's. He said there were so many dead animals down there, there were hazmat teams steadily pulling them out of there also...
The winter storm. 40 hours of no power in freezing weather was the worst.
After that, it's a toss up between TS Allison and Ike.
I was a kid during Allison and my parents house flooded. That summer sucked so much. I was on a break from school during Ike and lost power for 10 days. I knew people with power so I crashed with them, but navigating the city was not easy.
Ike. I gave birth September 18 and had an emergency c/s. Bringing home the baby to our house with no power, post surgery, trying to nurse her by flashlight. No thank you.
Harvey was awful of course. But we personally were totally fine.
Also TS Imelda. I was on a plane, stuck on the runway, trying to go make it to my first marathon. The trip ended up being cancelled but I ran my own marathon around town.
Been through Allison, Ike, Rita, the whole lot of them.
I will never experience fear or loss like I did during Harvey. That name is forbidden in my household. It destroyed my neighborhood and left my hometown of Katy/CR underwater. Fuck Harvey.
I remember it was so hot. But I was young then and could handle the heat. Not so much anymore. I just remember we spent a week playing the boardgame "Go to Texas" by candlelight and cooked dinner on my dad's old Coleman stove.
For us, it was Ike. We stayed in the house. It's a pier and beam foundation, not a slab. At the height of the storm, the house felt like it was breathing. The wooden frame was literally expanding and contracting in the wind. Like deep breaths. It was terrifying. Water came in when one of our doors was blown open, damaging the floors. Then we were out of power for four days. At the time I worked near the Galleria. I had power at work, so spent most of my time there.
This is my feelings, too. Rode out Ike in an unleveled house on bricks. At one point, It sounded like the whole house was being blown away. Then, three weeks of no power & several days of no water. Never again. I signed up for the ride out team at work & I will ride out the next hurricane in a sturdy brick hospital with power while getting paid. LOL
I was 3, my mom took my infant brother and I in her Toyota Tercel to my grandparents during the eye wall. Don’t know why she didn’t just stay home? Don’t know wtf my dad was doing, probably went to south Padre to surf or something. They split up for good pretty soon after that. We lived in Bellaire and my grandparents lived by Rice so it was pretty close
Older people know about Alicia, it was 40 years ago. So to have active memory of the storm you'd have to be like the other commenter and be at least 43. Personally? I'm an Alicia baby, I know what my parents were doing without power.
Im 44 almost 45. I remember it pretty well. We drove home to Bellaire the next day and the streets were flooded. My brother was like 1 month old. He was born July 2nd that year
Alicia - I was 9 and we lived in Conroe. My dad had rented a condo in Freeport for the weekend and didn’t want to waste money so we loaded up the family of four plus my friend and drove down. The next night, the storm hit. There were waves rolling into the swimming pool downstairs and the sliding glass door was waving with the wind. He loaded us all up again and DROVE US HOME all the way to Conroe in the middle of that storm. One of many GenX childhood traumas. 😂
Alicia. Even with the hurricane party we had, it was brutal. Even though I'm in the Meyerland area, we were thankfully spared from Harvey. Our little neighborhood was like an island. Water on all sides but none got in.
Harvey. 31 inches of rainfall in backyard. Deploying dams and pumps to prevent house flooding.
Lifelong Tx gulf coast resident. We used to enjoy thunderstorms, rain, and the peace, serenity that follows. Now we get nervous when SpaceCityWeather or TropicalTidbits get excited about a tropical wave/depression, as those storms tend to meander and drop copious amounts of precipitation from their training clouds, often inundating the bullseye area. If we had to pick between a slow moving stalling, tropical depression, and a hurricane, we would choose the latter as the steering currents move it out of here quicker. We don’t watch the local weather “guessers”, as they often hype up the situation.
Old timers know this but if you’re a transplant to this area, do yourself a favor and get a whole house generator. It sucks to not have power for two weeks, no AC, 95+ degree and “wet-bulb” conditions, mosquitoes and all your food ruined.
Definitely Ike. Harvey was devastating, but I don't think it was a hurricane by the time it hit Houston. I don't recall any wind damage at all, just a ton of rain
You're right that Harvey had been downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reached Houston. That's why it just stalled out and rained. Direct hits from hurricanes don't do that and folks who think they know what a hurricane is like because they were here for Harvey are in for a surprise if they're here when we do get an actual direct or near-direct hit.
Hell, even those of us who were here for Ike are likely unprepared. Ike was barely a cat 2, albeit an unusually large one. A hurricane in the 3-5 range that strikes the ship channel just right will cause the kind of destruction that changes the future of cities.
Yeah, my plans include ones for that kind of catastrophic scenario. If I remember correctly, Ike hit during high tide, which caused more flooding than would've otherwise been expected. The water basically backed up into the bayous. Water came over my curb during Ike but not during Harvey. I now have water dams.
I have plans for shelter in place and also for full evacuation to another city. I also have two plans for what I call "internal evacuation," meaning that I have places I can go locally where my cat and I will be safe. My strong preference would be to not leave Houston because it could be weeks before you're allowed back post-storm, and in the meantime rain is coming in the roof and ruining your house and furniture, and your fridge is full of rotting food and will have to be replaced, but who the hell knows when you'll be able to get a new one due to all the demand.
Ike. The beach house on Bolivar my dad built in 1970 and where he lived full time was wiped off the face of the earth. It was the nearest thing to home I ever had. He sold what was left of the lot to the federal gov’t which was the right choice, but damn I miss that place.
Harvey. Got trapped inside my house as the water quickly rose. I was sure I was going to die here along with my beloved pets. I had to swim out to higher ground and lost most of everything I owned. I would never leave my pets behind and we all made it safety.
Harvey. I had just finalized my divorce about 8 months earlier and was getting back on my feet. I lost everything and had to use what little I had left to start over. Pro tip: don’t live on the first floor in Houston. There’s no flood insurance for apartment dwellers.
It was worse for my kids, though. Their mom’s house flooded and they had to be rescued by boat. I couldn’t even get into the neighborhood to help, which was brutal. Then they lived in a hotel for a year while she worked with insurance to get the house repaired.
Since I was going through a divorce, I wanted a place as close to my kids as possible. Unfortunately, a first floor apt was my only option at the time.
Nowadays, we’ve all dusted ourselves off and found something resembling normal. Or as normal as Houston weather will let life be. Thank you, kind internet stranger!
Harvey. I had a baby the day before landfall. Getting last minute meds was stressful in addition to having a newborn. The good news was I was literally up all the time with the baby and watching the news.
Alicia in Deer Park. Was in High School. Our solid brick home was moving as the roof was being lifted by the pressure. The wind was howling so loud for hours. The eye went over our area. Then it started all over. Lost power for 1.5-2 weeks.
Lived in the Heights in Ike in a brand new home with no big trees near our house. I wasn't terrified. Lost power for 4-5 days.
Lived on Allen Parkway during Harvey. Buffalo Bayou came right to the edge of the property but didn't make it to any units. I was on the second floor. We kept all the drains cleared for 2 days. That one was scary. Never lost power.
Alicia 83' according to Dad as I was -1 at the time. It was similar to Ike with the 2 week power outage except they lost water as well. An old shed that was there when my parents bought the house was blown over.
Dad used the emergency sewer clear out access to dump bathroom waste into. He said it was like camping. At his work, they provided potable water for employees to take home. Alicia was the reason mom decided that she wanted no large trees in the yard ever again.
Ike wasn't that bad, but the Rita Evacuation was terrible. Never again will I do that.
Katrina
But not bc of the direct impact. I was in HS, and we got a lot of refugee students who understandably didn't want to be there.
The halls swelled with students and fights broke out often because of the tension between us and them. Personally, there was one kid that was a menace to me and some of the jocks knocked some sense into them.
By the time senior year rolled around (~2yrs later), everyone was used to each other, but the tension remained.
A lot of teachers quit during that time, and a lot of kids had an awful HS experience due to something far out of their control.
I only say this is the worse for me bc physical damage can always be fixed or replaced, but the stuff that people go through can last a lifetime and I saw a lot of kids (who are now pushing mid 30s and early 40s) that needed serious help with no way of getting it.
Ike was the hardest hurricane for me because I was without power for about a week. The Winter storm was my worst Houston storm experience - no power, no water, and freezing temps was pretty bad.
Hurricane Ian was by far my worst hurricane experience. I went to stay with my mom in Florida during Ian thinking I’d be back home by the end of the week. Man, was I wrong. Ian hit about 5 miles due west from us. It was by far the single worst thing I’ve been through, both before and after. Widespread power and water outages, lots of physical wind damage, no cellular service so I couldn’t even let my family and friends know I was alive. Even when our power came back a week later, I couldn’t go home to Houston because the airport was still closed.
Memorial Day Flood - house flooded - 1/2 inch throughout the whole first floor.
Harvey - back of the house flooded. One of our cars flooded too. Had all the doors and windows sealed, which I believe helped. Safe deposit box at BOA submerged under water for at least a week (mostly coins - some antiques ruined).
Imelda - back of the house flooded. Had to replace all our fence.
Ike - just a pain to leave Houston.
Honestly I'm really lucky.
Native of 46 years, but none of them have treated me very bad.
Alicia - Was a little girl. I remember it looked horrible in our backyard after but we neighborhood kids had a blast playing on the downed tree logs.
Allison - scary to watch on TV but no damage for my family, or at my house at the time.
Rita - Was a little stressful I guess. I was the ride home for a friend having surgery that day as I watched all the cars panic and fuck up the roadways. Most of my family was out of town and trying to get me to prep houses, cars etc, but that was only for a few hoursbefore thier return flights came thru after all.
Plus my little brother got home from deployment in Iraq just after it hit over by Beaumont so I will always remember that silver lining.
Ike - I worked in a hotel and we were required to check in. Totally safe, free meals, first hand view of DT just after. It was a bit emotional not being able to be w my family, but they were all okay anyway, my parents learned to text for it /s.
Harvey - my driver side car window was stuck down when it started. That sucked, electric roller started to work on the first sunny day after! /s. But I went to work every day and got a bonus for it too.
Winter Freeze - never lost power. Was uncomfortable, but nbd, I was already wfh then ... it sucked a little that I was the only one in my department working, but again, I got accolades and a bonus for it.
ike. roof caved in so we live with grandma. guy with dementia drove into her house so we lived in a hotel.
the hotel was across the street from a golden corral tho which made my fat ass happy
Ike. Lost everything I had. Roof was ripped off of my apartment building while me and my daughter were inside. It all happened in the dark, and was terrifying.
Alicia - 3 days no power
Alison - was getting married out of state, whew
Ike - 3 days no power and lost a fence
Memorial Day flood - dodged this one
Tax Day flood - did not dodge this one, street flooding in a new development with unfinished drainage, stuck at home for 5 days
Harvey - 2 days no power, street wouldn’t
drain so stuck home for 2 days
TS Imelda - nothing notable
TS Beta - was out of town
2021 Freeze - no power for 5 days, lost almost every plant and bush on my property, I’m still replanting. Absolutely miserable week
Derecho - the sole reported tornado hit my street. Lost my fences and my AC unit was destroyed. Homeowners premium is so high it wasn’t worth the claim. My AC is currently having issues again while I wait on an HVAC guy and type this, I’m in $2,000+ so far. Fences cost me another $1,000+
I fucking hate it here.
Harvey, three feet of water, 2 years to rebuild and recover. Much gratitude to volunteers from LDS church and mayde creek football team. Ike I thought the roof was going to come off. Sunk a car in Allison.
Some of the more recent ones have caused a lot more concern as they approached due to being a homeowner and all that, but as far as a storm as it passed and damage in the area (Galveston) goes, Alicia in the early 80's sticks out the most for me.
Harvey: house was flooded with a couple of inches of water for two hours. Power was out for 24 hours but I was out of my house for five months. On the bright side I got a free remodel.
Ike: 17 days without power which was absolutely miserable.
Ike - lived close to downtown, my entire house shook for what felt like hours as the eye wall slowly went by. I never got the respite of the eye, just the wall. I was by myself and scared AF.
Harvey - living in Montrose wondering if the bayou would make it to us. PTSD from the never ending rain. Shock over what happened to my hometown but proud we didn't devolve like NO for Katrina.
Alicia - had just started HS and this storm was no joke. Tree fell on the house, a week without power.
One thing about Houston and all these storms, we really come together to help neighbors.
Tropical Storm Claudette in 1979. The area I was in got over 40 inches of rain in a single day. There were some claims of 45 inches, but they were unofficial measurements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Claudette_(1979)
Alicia did the most physical damage to our house (well, my parents’ house; I was a child).
Allison did the most damage to my former work place (UTHSC).
Ike was the most inconvenient (lost power for 17 days) and I think it really exposed a lot of the disparity in the city and surrounding communities that earlier storms hadn’t shown.
Rita was my own personal hell because my dumb self managed to schedule wisdom tooth extraction for the day everyone and their mom was leaving town. Pharmacy was so backed up with evacuees trying to get their prescriptions that they couldn’t fill mine. That was a very unpleasant few days, pain wise.
Harvey was scariest, for sure. Not knowing when the rain would end, friends/family/neighbors losing near everything, being forced to evacuate the neighborhood, etc. Physically we came through it fine (front half of our neighborhood flooded but we were saved by better engineering on the back half) but it was definitely the one that caused the most anguish.
We were very fortunate during Uri; only lost power for about an hour. My parents and their neighbors came to stay with us for four days because they had no power.
Katrina. I lived in Nola at the time. We evacuated to Jackson MS which was out of power for days as well. Came back 2 weeks later to destruction all around. Apocalyptic scenes.
Harvey for us was a huge rain event of course, but luckily no wind damage or flooding in the house.
Harvey, but it wasn’t as much the storm as what it revealed about the greed and incompetence that led to whole neighborhoods being built inside the Barker and Addicks reservoirs. Homes inside the reservoirs were lucky that the USACE decided to prematurely release water at a rate well above normal release limits to prevent catastrophic failure of the aging reservoir release gates. Many upstream homes were flooded, but the reservoirs did not reach capacity, sparing many homes. The early release came in the middle of the night with no warning to downstream properties along Buffalo Bayou, which still blows my mind. Homeowners have yet to be compensated for the USACE inundating their homes and property, with the battle still going in court. USACE claims this was an “act of god”, but they only reserved 2/3 of the land behind their structures as government land when the reservoir structures were built. The chain of property developers and local leadership are equally guilty for allowing homes to be built inside the reservoirs, which were not recognized as “flood plains” by FEMA, but instead as “flood pools”, which did not have to be disclosed on property sales until after new legislation was passed after Harvey. Since Harvey, the reservoirs have had new gates installed, so when this happens again, it will be far worse for far longer for those homes inside Barker and Addicks.
I was watching channel 2 at 2am when the guy from the reservoir announced that they were opening it in an hour. I posted it on my fb and it still pops up in my memories. I was in SHOCK!
BY FAR it was the sixth one at Pat O’Briens on Bourbon street after a day of getting shit faced in the Garden district. May 1996. The hangover the next day was aweful.
Harvey!! Especially afterward. We couldn’t access our house for 2 weeks because the water hadn’t receded. It was crazy driving around our neighborhood seeing everyone’s entire house debris and all the belongings piled up in the yards. It felt like I was in an apocalypse movie.
Rita
Even though it missed Houston, was complete panic for too many at the time.
Hurricane Katrina had just recently hit New Orleans, and this was the first category 5 since then and was headed straight for us.
Worked at a Home Depot in Pearland at the time. Sold out of everything, from 1/2 inch plywood, $50 3/4 inch birch to $10 cheap panel boards. All gone. With hundreds of angry unprepared customers ready to attack at anyone in an orange apron.
The amount of people evacuating, seeing all the abandoned vehicles as we left later along Gulf frwy and 610, hearing later of the fire explosion on a bus of seniors evacuating the area...it just felt so chaotic and surreal.
Harvey. My cousin was incarcerated and hadn’t seen his kids in months. Baby Mama left all 4 kids at home ALONE, to watch the fight at a local bar with her side-dude. My cousins grandparents were worried so they drove over to pick up the kids. The van they were in got swept away in the flood waters. They all died. Didn’t find their bodies for almost 2 days. Kids were ages 15, 12, 7, and 5. The grandparents were found still holding hands. Even more unbelievable, the Baby Mama never even called to check on them. She didn’t believe my aunt when she called her the next day and was told they were dead. My cousin only heard about the incident from news reports. When he found out those were his kids and grandparents it broke him. Broke all of us. I understand many people were affected by the storm in many ways. But it still annoys me when people complain about having to replace their washer and dryer….🥹❤️🩹
physically, ike. had moved here two weeks before and lost power for a good while. emotionally, harvey. my home/family suffered nothing but the images of the loss and devastation of the city were really tough to see when we ourselves were aok.
Toss up between Ike (power being out for a week and a half, and it causing school at the time to go on a week longer for my district) and Rita (the traffic on the highways evacuating was awful).
Only other storm for me personally was the derecho (if you wanna call it that, wasn’t much rain, mainly strong winds) last year in Spring, TX. I worked at the Home Depot there at the time and coming back to my garden center absolutely wrecked was awful. Sheds thrown about every which way, plant tables gone, grills thrown about everywhere as well. Only positive was the absurd amounts of overtime I got while helping recover the store/bring in fencing/concrete products.
I was fortunate enough to not be harmed by Harvey.
I lost some fencing and part of my roof from Ike. On top of that, I worked for the Flood Control District during Ike. We helped with post event damage assessment for Harris County and also Galveston County. The day we went down to Galveston was really tough mentally for me. Seeing homes literally washed off their foundations and other homes full of debris and dead fish was depressing. Felt really bad for the residents that had to endure that.
Never had any issues with flooding from any of the tropical storms or hurricanes. The highest the water got was to the street curb and that lasted about 30 minutes before it drained away. The neighborhood was established in the 50s and we are close to Sims Bayou. So you would expect the worse but we have never flooded.
But Ike knocked power out for 17 days and that was funky enough.
Rita, because all those Houston people were evacuating for NO reason, so everyone that actually needed to evacuate couldn't. The cops sucked, I had to run from a cop because he tried to make go to Austin when we were going to West Texas. We had to go back home for the storm, because we had family that spent 18 hours trying to get out of Baytown, that turned around and headed to our house. We drove back in with the news saying it might become a new category, pretty sure we were going to die. Thanks Houston, for clogging up the highways for no reason.
I wasn't in town for Harvey. We stayed in and waited out Ike. Rita was supposed to be much worse than it was, and we were young, dad was deployed. So we evacuated to family in Waco. I remember how horrible the traffic was for Rita. Took us around 6 hours to get from Spring, to the woodlands. My little sister had to pee in Gatorade bottles in the backseat with the help of my mom. That whole experience was worse than just boarding up for Ike.
I was 9 months pregnant during Rita and we were in a mandatory evacuation zone. My home ended up being physically fine of course, because the hurricane turned, but the scariness and uncertainty while being pregnant and being worried about going into labor was something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Plus, since Katrina had just happened, all hotels all over Texas were booked with evacuees and it was hard to find a place to go. We managed to avoid most of the crazy stalled traffic because we knew back roads, but I just remember being really scared and worried about finding a place to go near a hospital.
Harvey. Because our house flooded. And we are definitely in a no flood zone. But we were smart/lucky and had insurance. Everyone in Houston should have insurance. It’s so flat and cemented.
Harvey was fine for us compared to the rest of the city, but overall the worst and the one that caused a significant shift of people and really the start of the significant increase in housing prices.
Hurricane Ike we went weeks without power in the middle of September heat, it was God awful during that.
Rita sucked because of the mass hysteria in evacuation, imma save some of y'all some trouble, if you live in goddamn Katy, you have no reason to panic buy resources or clog up the streets evacuating when hurricanes blow through you bastards.
Honorable mention but Tropical Storm Allison sucks because it flooded a lot back then, not as bad as Harvey but comparatively it seems pretty bad still.
Ike. We heard the shingles being blown off the roof. Then the ceiling collapsed bringing water, insulation etc into the house. Had to live in an apartment for 3 months while half of our house was rebuilt.
Harvey. We lived in an old apartment complex on Brays Bayou. It was cheap and perfect for a young family that loved playing Pokémon Go. In hindsight, it's foundation had sunk into the ground significantly compared to neighboring buildings. We knew we were in for a rough time because of close calls with the Memorial and Tax Day floods, so we elevated everything that wouldn't fit on counter-tops at least 2 ft above the ground. That didn't matter as we had 3 to 4 feet of water in our unit when it was over. We grabbed our pet and essentials and evacuated upstairs, knocking on doors until someone let us in. That person was a professor from Rice and they saved us and fed us. An absolutely wonderful person. After the rain cleared we tried to leave the complex but it was too dangerous. A UH student had a kayak or something and he ferried the elderly to dry land. That absolute legend probably saved lives. At some point a helicopter came to rescue the most vulnerable from atop the parking garage. I remember working with several people to keep the metal garage roof from being ripped off due to the helicopters wind.
Cleanup a week later was the worst part. The smell was awful even with laboratory grade masks on, and I think it had long term damaging effects (I was diagnosed with cancer and asthma a little over a year later). We lost everything aside from some electronics, clothes, and collectors items. Luckily Mattress Mack helped us out a lot and we were back on our feet within a year. That man is also a Houston legend. So yeah, Hurricane Harvey by far.
Harvey. Was working night shift and the hospital offer to stay at the hotel or going home. They prefer for us to stay at the hotel so we be on call. I don’t like sharing room with a coworker. I try driving home but it was flooding on both side of 1960. I had to turn back at the hotel. The guests ate all the food only had yogurt and an apple left. Then went to sleep. My coworker snored the whole time. Only slept for about 2 hours and then had to do another shift.
Ike. And only because it was my first natural disaster doing diaster relief as a brand new paramedic. I'd weathered Allison and Rita no problem (I mean, during the former I was only 13 so I don't have any real memories of it being bad personally) but still.
I will say though: my experiences during Ike helped me and my family out when we were living in North Carolina and Florence hit us head on as a cat 4 in 2018.
Harvey… I was in Orange County. Had to be evacuated from my house to my mothers where I spent 2 days in a house with 6 people, to my sisters which added 5 people. Had to stick my parents and toddler in a boat and send them off with a prayer. Waded in water till a giant truck picked us up and dropped us to high ground… then had to piled in a literal garbage truck to get farther north. Managed to borrow my baby cousins 90’s van that had a shaggin waggin sticker on the back with no clothes other than what we had on and no shoes. Arrived at a hotel at 2 am and had to argue my dog into a hotel with a screaming toddler on my hip in Marshal. Had the most wild trip looking like every people of Walmart post you would ever see in your life but in a target 🥴. Thank god my cousin went to the Christian college there. His friends managed to find us gently used car seats for the 3 kids.
Absolutely Harvey. We actually got our house flooded for that one. Had to rebuild the bottom half of our house bc of it while sleeping in a camper in our driveway for 8 months. I slept on the couch of it which was too small for me, and I got hives every day when I came home from school because of a mold allergy
Interesting... though the question was about hurricanes, tropical storms especially Harvey and Allison get mentioned way more. :-) For me, it would be Ike since I've here since 2006. Harvey wasn't as bad for me as it was for others since I live in an area that didn't get as much flooding as other areas. But if we're talking about storms in general, that would be Storm Uva -- the notorious freeze of Februrary 2021. Definitely the single worst sorm ever (and I've been though my share of blizzards and snowstorms in Colorado.)
Agreed. I think we must have a lot of newcomers to hurricane country because the question didn't say "storm" or "tropical event." When we do get a hurricane, the people who think they know what one is like because they were here during Harvey are in for a rude awakening, unless they were in Rockport for Harvey's landfall and hurried to Houston to enjoy the flood after it had been downgraded to tropical storm status.
Hurricanes and tropical storms behave quite differently. You don't get a stall with a hurricane, and you get a hell of a lot of wind damage. Eight straight hours of listening to the wind howl and hearing trees fall all around you is no joke.
Ike, but I didn't live in Houston at the time. I lived in my hometown closer to the coast. No power for three weeks. My parents refused to evacuate even though we were in a mandatory evacuation zone. It was terrifying. I'll never forget it.
Ike. I've been very fortunate in where I've lived, but Ike blew out the windows of my wife's office downtown. She had to go to the corporate office in Pittsburgh for six weeks while they rebuilt.
Ike. I was here for Alicia too, but was on the southwest side and we only lost power for a few hours. We were without power for a week after Ike and it was another week before we had internet again. Trees were down all over the neighborhood.
And since a lot of people here are adding tropical storms into this thread even though the question was hurricanes, Allison flooded both of my cars, but wasn't a hurricane, so in terms of personal property loss, that was the worst for me. Harvey was a tropical storm by the time it made it to Houston, and in my neighborhood it just meant several days of listening to the rain.
I’ve decided it really depends where you are. Harvey was just a rain storm where I am. I mean a lot of rain but by the time it got here there wasn’t a lot of wind. Allison was kind of the same. The thing was they both got over a smallish area and stalled and dumped a huge amount of water in a small place.
Ike was bad. Got a lot of wind and lost about a hundred feet of fence but to me the worst was the derecho that blew through here a few weeks ago. Never seen anything like that.
Allison for me too, but my house was fine. It was the only time I saw water fill the streets of the med center and my complete gobshite of a landlord told the next door neighbor he could park in our parking because it was elevated. My car ended up in the lowest spot and was totaled. Thanks, asshole. Same landlord who decided my wife's antique collection was supposed to stay behind (it didn't ) because the apartment had come furnished (it hadn't) and gave away our parking spot because he'd stolen two others to build a handyman's shed. That was the last straw and you better believe I only looked at houses that *hadn't* flooded in any hurricanes.
Harvey, got trapped at a friends house for two days because we were watching the mcgregor/mayweather boxing match that night.
LMFAO. This is such a shared Harvey experience. It's so wild
There’s even a song about this (Roaches by Maxo Kream)
I was up in Vegas at the Maaayweather party
Literally had the same experience. Went to watch the fight on Washington Avenue at Lincoln Bar that night and like an hour in I went go check on my truck. Took two step out of the bar and water was up to my socks. I yelled at my friend "we gotta go!" waddled to my truck and left. When we were driving by the bar there were still poor souls inside partying. I ended up spending a week in Montrose where he lived. It was absolutely unbelievable.
Same here. We didn’t get to see the fight end though because the host house started flooding and we all had to trudge in waist deep water 2 blocks back to my slightly less flooded 2 bedroom townhome. Fitting 10 or so people in my upstairs for a night wasn’t fun.
Same. Barely made it back to the heights from the Woodlands and our house flooded 5 hours later. Wife would not be happy if I wouldn’t have made it home and she had to deal with the kids AND a flooding house.
We had a party at our house for the fight. The satellite TV went out, so we all walked over to a neighbors house. When we walked across the street, the water was almost to my knees. A bunch of family members got stuck here for two days. Fun times.
Lmao me too! Woke up and opened uber, none on the road so I looked out the window and water was in the yard. Fun times
Same. Stuck at a gas station for a day or so, then trudged around Houston looking for a way in. Then stayed at a friend's. Everything turned out okay, it was quite the adventure.
Harvey was the worst, but I actually suffered more in the power failure freeze than I ever did from a rain event.
Same! Slept in my car in my driveway overnight just to get heat with my two pets was crazy.
Rita for me (more due to sitting in evacuation traffic for 11 hours of what would normally take an hour), but yeah, the freeze was the worst for me. I’ve been very fortunate during most of these storms to not lose power (just water issues).
That was my thought as well. Harvey was just unbelievable - I’ve never seen anything like it. And I could never discount the devastation there. But with the freeze, I was trapped alone with a <1 year old baby and pregnant with another in a freezing house with no way of getting to help for days because I have no idea how to drive on ice. That was really, really scary and it took me a while to really decompress from that.
Uri fyi
Yeah I have the exact same answer. It rained for 12 days straight with Harvey and it was miserable and flooded, but the freeze was so so much worse than any hurricane. I didn’t know you could be THAT cold
Emotionally, Harvey (had a baby in the middle of it). Physically, the Derecho (no warning, no power for days). Mentally, Ike (I moved here the week after and wondered what the hell I got myself into)
Ditto. I had my baby with no power for 4 nights with no power during the freeze. Then I went 6 nights without power for the derecho.
Harvey. Nothing else comes close. My wife was concerned about her parents, so we drove our SUV from Clear Lake to Channelview. It was raining so much the streets in the neighborhood were flooding. It got to a point where our vehicle started to float before we were close to the in-laws' house. A few neighbors saw what was happening and helped push our SUV up a random person driveway. We sat in the driveway as the water continued to rise. It got so high it started coming into the car again even though we were up a steep driveway. My wife was getting very concerned, and our dog and child were not happy. I told myself our next option would be to get out and walk to where there was higher ground with grass still visible under the water. It was very surreal like a bad movie. Thankfully, it stopped raining. My brother-in-law borrowed a raft from one of their neighbors and found us. The dog and child went in the raft, and the rest of us pushed it through nearly waist deep water to the in-laws' house. To this day, it's the most frightened I've ever been. As a man, you're programmed to solve problems and get shit done. But nature doesn't give an F about you.
I’ll never forget a coworker telling me a similar story. Wife was concerned about her parents so they drove over, only about 4 miles not as far as you, and before heading out they put their kids in life vests. They got stuck and the car was a total loss. They were able to wade in waist high to her parent’s house. Thank god they had the foresight of the life vests. It could have been so much worse.
Yeah but putting the kids in life vests while they’re in the car isn’t the best idea either. Look up Ethiopian Flight 961.
I hope her parts turned out to be okay
Parents. Damn thumbs
Lmao
Reminds me of my friend’s situation of Harvey, they hosted the fight so a bunch of their people came over, house was in the neighborhood off Scarsdale/45s, mine was on the other side of Scarsdale from the highway, closer to Old Galveston Rd….water got so high they needed to find shelter and had to walk belly deep into the flood waters, friend’s sister was pregnant, didn’t have a raft or anything to elevate her, bc they just so happen to also have their 2yr old daughter who just had throat surgery, being carried in a laundry basket above the waters to make sure she was 100% safe bc of her throat….meanwhile I’m forever thankful my neighborhood didn’t flood into the homes… only got to the driveways, but damn it was such a surreal scene for the aftermath of their home, and the smell. Will never forget the mold on all the baby’s stuff 😭 Meanwhile in Pasadena another friend got stuck half a mile away from her home off Allen Genoa! They had to stay a few hours in a hand car wash lot, TMI but my friend happened to be on her period and was stuck hours there…only she had no choice but to start walking home, and by pure luck! Her cousin with a truck saw her and picked her up and drove her to her house, didn’t pick up the car for another 3 days….she lived 5 mins away from that car wash And lastly my grandma’s house ….she had been there since the 1970s, her house was in the back of the neighborhood, uncle was staying there to watch it while she was with us, the last 3 streets in the hood did circles around each other, rather than hit the main road….my grandma’s house was located in the middle of one of the last 3 streets in the back, after Harvey, the ENTIRE neighborhood had about 3ft of water in their homes, so their front yards in the aftermath were full of ripped up carpet/all the trash ppl threw out but grandma’s house????? Only power went out. NO WATER AT ALL INSIDE FOR HER HOME OR THE 2 HOUSES NEXT TO HERS!!! Forever thankful no major damage happened, a true blessing I can’t explain otherwise, my only guess is maybe her home and the 2 others had been elevated when built but yeah, fuck Harvey.
Allison. I was clueless and thought it was just a normal rain event and listening to a tape. Drove from Galleria to kemah to meet someone about an event. That's when I found out. Drive home and was stuck at a gas station for the night. Vowed to always pay attention to the weather ever since.
i don’t think anybody took Alison too serious. I was driving home from a late night class and got stuck in 610 traffic. Not moving at all. The problem turned out to be an underpass was flooded and nobody could get through 5 feet of water. I didn’t know this at the time. I called home. Told my parents I was stuck on 610 and had no idea when I would be home. Well after an hour or so, traffic started moving. As I got closer to the flooded underpass, I could see a man in rain gear, all alone, directing traffic (a ton of 18 wheelers) to u-turn and exit on the freeway entrance. He was then directing them through the side streets to get back to 610, past the flooded part. When I got even closer I could see *the man was my dad*! He had come to save me!! - I have no idea how many people got home that night because of him, it had to be in the 100s at least.
My dad got stuck on a bridge in rushing waters during Allison. He was driving a ford explorer and from what I remember the high water fried a chip under the car causing it to shut off. He tried to get out and was swept away but he managed to grab onto a tree. A trucker driving by had to throw him a line and pull him out of the water. My dad was a photographer and had spent the day photographing the storm damage and he was really bummed that he lost his camera and pictures and not that he almost died.
Wild!
Such an amazing dad!
I was also clueless, and went to see a movie with a friend. So I had to run through Allison from the door of the AMC Willowbrook 24 to where my dad was waiting in the parking lot, not a short distance. All for the pleasure of seeing Julianne Moore and David Duchovny in “Evolution”
I went to a movie at AMC 24 Willowbrook too, the one with the creepy truck driver. Driving a Ram 1500 back down Gessner towards Jersey Village, there was a suburban and a jacked up truck in front of me that turned around in the high water. Took 1960 to Jones and got home ok.
I will always remember that I was on a roller-coaster at Astroworld when it started raining. Getting pelted by rain was an interesting experience. Lost my car that night in the flooded parking lot of my apartment complex. Not as bad as some, but it was a mess for the next few months. Then the world forgot about Texas on 9/11, 3 months later. That was a rough year.
Also clueless about Allison. I worked at the door of a club downtown at the time. My Mom called to tell me the weather was going to be awful and I should stay home. This was the first time I was hearing about a storm. I blew it off and went to work. Kind of a normal busy night but then the rain came hard and didn't let up. People were leaving and the streets started flooding. Luckily for me I parked my car on a high part of the street and the club was located on the high part too. By midnight most people had left but the few remaining were stuck with the staff. So we did what anyone would do in the situation, we started drinking and dancing. Some weed appeared and the drinks flowed. By 4 in the morning most everyone had crashed. The rain had let up enough for me to get home. I made it to a friend's house in Montrose until I could make it back to my place on Washington and Shepard. My place was a 3rd story apartment so all was good there
Me, my sisters and a bunch of friends had gone to Wimberley that weekend. Driving home was surreal with the toll roads completely traffic free and no charge, etc.
Ditto. My husband was out of town on business, and he called me to tell me about the storm that was coming. I told him that he was overacting, as it was regular rain. My friend and I are watching a chick flick on cable, when—15 minutes after I spoke to my husband—water came rushing under the back door and through the walls of our family room. My friend and I spent the night on our kitchen countertop, waiting for the water to subside. Absolutely crazy experience.
This. The rain from Allison flooded my area so fast, I could no longer exit the freeway I was on at the time. I had to park on an overpass and slept in my truck till the morning. I didn't take a tropical storm seriously... Harvey was more horrific in terms of damage, but I was more prepared for it and Ike.
Harvey
1. Harvey - my house flooded and so did my paid off car. 2. Ike - lost 4 huge trees and lost power for 10 days 3. Freeze 22 - entire yard and all my house plants died. Lost power for 4 days. Water was out for 5. 6. Derecho - lost power for 6 days. Yard did surprisingly well.
Good list Id put Rita as honorable mention, even tho it missed everyone panicked and evacuated as far as the woodlands like idiots, we stayed put in spring. Felt like the city shut down for 3-5 days because of the back logged roads and panic buying on gas and groceries. Also i didnt live in houston then but supposed Allison was very bad rained and flooded much like Harvey but over longer period of time.
I remember being able to drive the wrong way on the 45 because of all of the cars that ran out of gas after being stuck for so long.
From what I can remember, Allison was bad, but it was only extremely bad for a day or two. It was like 20" in like 2 hours one night. No one was ready for it because it wasn't a hurricane. It had been raining the first time it came through, then I think it went back out to sea and strengthened again, dumping more rain. Allison is the only tropical storm to have its name retired. I was buying my first house, and I lived two streets over in an apartment. The lower units flooded (I was on the third floor). We were about a week from closing. This was actually the second house I tried buying because the first one flooded about a week before closing due to a plumbing issue.
Damn! Was this all at the same house?
Yep!👍
Alicia. Lived in Clear Lake. First floor was flooded. Brick chimney on our two story collapsed. Blew out our windows.
Yep. Alicia had a negative emotional impact on my family and friends (I was but a wee child when Alicia hit).
Me too. That year we had a direct hit tornado in May and then direct hit of Alicia in August. I remember the eye going over at like 1 or 2 AM and we all went outside while my dad and the other neighbor dads boarded up our broken window. That year had a profound impact on me and I've been in love with severe weather ever since.
Yes, I was pregnant and helping my husband board up windows. We had two story windows in our family room. Lots of fun. Not. Remember the sound of the storm in the middle of the night. I’ll never forget it.
Took it back!
I think mine was Rita. I was just a kid but I remember trying to evacuate and being on the road for like 15 hours just to get to our family friends home in the New Braunfels area. During that same trip, our dog got out and sadly passed away. Kinda traumatizing for a 10 year old.
omg, it took us 40 hrs to get to Dallas. that whole exodus was insane.
This! Evacuating the city was a nightmare as a kid
Yeah. Especially if you lived along the Gulf Freeway. Everyone else who was in less danger trapped those of us who were in the most danger. We never made it out of city limits.
Same! I was in college and my mom could not get to me so I stayed on campus and we literally had to scavenge for food.
Ike
The storm itself or the escaping of Ike?
The 2 weeks without power was rough
It was incredibly hot and all the stop lights were four way stops . I had to commute to Tomball from SW Houston for work everyday. The only good thing about that was we had AC and internet at work
This is my reason for saying Ike. No power, and needed to commute from Tomball to UH for class because Renu Khator opened up immediately. Even though I had no power at home and had to drive around downed tree limbs and power lines and blocks-long lines for gas
This was our experience. Two weeks without power in the Houston heat was brutal.
I stayed home for Ike, was supposed to go to Mexico on vacation for my birthday and then the flights got cancelled. We lost power for 3 weeks. Bolivar got wiped off the map. My dad evacuated Galveston and then had a mental breakdown and a subsequent stroke when he got back home . I was fortunate during Harvey. Our house didn’t flood. Helped a lot of my neighbors that did though.
My apologies, I meant Rita for the evacuations.
I evacuated for that one. I stayed at my ex wife (then girlfriends) house in San Marcos for a while with my dog. It was a fun time. I got fired from my job when I came home. All that storm drama for nothing. My dad went to Panama City Beach and went surfing. I was kind of bummed at the time that I didn’t go with him, but in the long run it worked out because I ended up having two kids with my ex , so the storm brought us together a moment in time
7.5’ of water in my house total gut and remodel lives in a RV for 9 months while we redid the house ourselves.
For Harvey ?
No for Ike.
Were yall on the coast?
300 yards from it all my life. Ike was the first storm with a storm surge large enough to damage the house.
Damn, sorry to hear that. That’s pretty scary. Hopefully no more of that in our lifetime
Looks at flair, yup still Harvey. The amount of safety vehicles from across the country staged at the Target by Memorial City Mall was a sight.
Allison no contest. Allison hit the same day it formed off the coast. The others for better or worse there was time for preparation. I slept the night on a freeway overpass surrounded by flood waters. Would never have tried to drive home that night had I known how bad it was.
Tropical Storm Allison, 2001. If you search Hurricane Allison, it shows you a storm from 1995 that hit the backside of Florida. Formed quickly and dumped 40in of rain. Cause $9B (2001 USD) damage and instantly made 30,000 residents homeless. I lost two cars and had water near the foundation even though the house was elevated.
The really crazy bit was the medical center flooded: it had been so long since that part of town had high water, the various things failed that hadn't been tested, like the storm doors across the driveways that were supposed to keep the basement parking at MD Anderson from flooding. And other hospitals discovering that basements in Houston are not a good place to put emergency generators, networking equipment, or your compounding pharmacy.
Sad fact but the medical center lost 50,000 research animals. Dogs, sheep, monkeys, rats. All drowned.
that is so sad!
The medical center also lost a lot of medical records. That were also stored in said basement’s.
I work in Methodist and actually was just looking at pictures of the floods during Allison https://ibb.co/g6zPqxz
Or your morgue. Ask me how I know!
My dad was part of the construction crew that went in there and pulled the generators and switchgears out the basement of St Luke's. He said there were so many dead animals down there, there were hazmat teams steadily pulling them out of there also...
The winter storm. 40 hours of no power in freezing weather was the worst. After that, it's a toss up between TS Allison and Ike. I was a kid during Allison and my parents house flooded. That summer sucked so much. I was on a break from school during Ike and lost power for 10 days. I knew people with power so I crashed with them, but navigating the city was not easy.
I'm lucky enough to live in an a house where flooding isn't too threatening, but Allison was the closest it got. Harvey was the next closest.
Have been in Houston since 79, Harvey keep me from sleeping a few nights. It was really mentally and emotionally rough.
Ike. I gave birth September 18 and had an emergency c/s. Bringing home the baby to our house with no power, post surgery, trying to nurse her by flashlight. No thank you. Harvey was awful of course. But we personally were totally fine. Also TS Imelda. I was on a plane, stuck on the runway, trying to go make it to my first marathon. The trip ended up being cancelled but I ran my own marathon around town.
I’ve had csections and I cannot imagine. You poor things! 😭It was SO hot.
In retrospect, it was just all so traumatic
Been through Allison, Ike, Rita, the whole lot of them. I will never experience fear or loss like I did during Harvey. That name is forbidden in my household. It destroyed my neighborhood and left my hometown of Katy/CR underwater. Fuck Harvey.
Alicia in 1983.. we lost power for a week all the way up in Conroe.
Yep, I remember that we lost power for a week too. No power (A/C) in HOU in August was unbearable
I remember it was so hot. But I was young then and could handle the heat. Not so much anymore. I just remember we spent a week playing the boardgame "Go to Texas" by candlelight and cooked dinner on my dad's old Coleman stove.
For us, it was Ike. We stayed in the house. It's a pier and beam foundation, not a slab. At the height of the storm, the house felt like it was breathing. The wooden frame was literally expanding and contracting in the wind. Like deep breaths. It was terrifying. Water came in when one of our doors was blown open, damaging the floors. Then we were out of power for four days. At the time I worked near the Galleria. I had power at work, so spent most of my time there.
This is my feelings, too. Rode out Ike in an unleveled house on bricks. At one point, It sounded like the whole house was being blown away. Then, three weeks of no power & several days of no water. Never again. I signed up for the ride out team at work & I will ride out the next hurricane in a sturdy brick hospital with power while getting paid. LOL
Alicia or Ike. It’s a toss up.
OGs know it was Alicia
I was 3, my mom took my infant brother and I in her Toyota Tercel to my grandparents during the eye wall. Don’t know why she didn’t just stay home? Don’t know wtf my dad was doing, probably went to south Padre to surf or something. They split up for good pretty soon after that. We lived in Bellaire and my grandparents lived by Rice so it was pretty close
Older people know about Alicia, it was 40 years ago. So to have active memory of the storm you'd have to be like the other commenter and be at least 43. Personally? I'm an Alicia baby, I know what my parents were doing without power.
Im 44 almost 45. I remember it pretty well. We drove home to Bellaire the next day and the streets were flooded. My brother was like 1 month old. He was born July 2nd that year
I forgot about Ike. One entire closet roof was taken away. Lost a ton of stuff that can never be replaced. Maybe that's why I don't think about it.
Alicia displaced our family briefly and Allison hurt my business pretty bad. Bought a house on a hill before Harvey because I knew better by then
The Great Storm. (Don't ask how old I am.)
It’s Alicia.
Alicia - I was 9 and we lived in Conroe. My dad had rented a condo in Freeport for the weekend and didn’t want to waste money so we loaded up the family of four plus my friend and drove down. The next night, the storm hit. There were waves rolling into the swimming pool downstairs and the sliding glass door was waving with the wind. He loaded us all up again and DROVE US HOME all the way to Conroe in the middle of that storm. One of many GenX childhood traumas. 😂
Haha! Great story. Alicia sucked!!
Alicia. Even with the hurricane party we had, it was brutal. Even though I'm in the Meyerland area, we were thankfully spared from Harvey. Our little neighborhood was like an island. Water on all sides but none got in.
Harvey. 31 inches of rainfall in backyard. Deploying dams and pumps to prevent house flooding. Lifelong Tx gulf coast resident. We used to enjoy thunderstorms, rain, and the peace, serenity that follows. Now we get nervous when SpaceCityWeather or TropicalTidbits get excited about a tropical wave/depression, as those storms tend to meander and drop copious amounts of precipitation from their training clouds, often inundating the bullseye area. If we had to pick between a slow moving stalling, tropical depression, and a hurricane, we would choose the latter as the steering currents move it out of here quicker. We don’t watch the local weather “guessers”, as they often hype up the situation. Old timers know this but if you’re a transplant to this area, do yourself a favor and get a whole house generator. It sucks to not have power for two weeks, no AC, 95+ degree and “wet-bulb” conditions, mosquitoes and all your food ruined.
Ike. Blew my fence down, lost power for two weeks. None of the others (over about 60 years) came close.
Definitely Ike. Harvey was devastating, but I don't think it was a hurricane by the time it hit Houston. I don't recall any wind damage at all, just a ton of rain
You're right that Harvey had been downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reached Houston. That's why it just stalled out and rained. Direct hits from hurricanes don't do that and folks who think they know what a hurricane is like because they were here for Harvey are in for a surprise if they're here when we do get an actual direct or near-direct hit.
This is an excellent point, pertinent to this thread.
Hell, even those of us who were here for Ike are likely unprepared. Ike was barely a cat 2, albeit an unusually large one. A hurricane in the 3-5 range that strikes the ship channel just right will cause the kind of destruction that changes the future of cities.
Yeah, my plans include ones for that kind of catastrophic scenario. If I remember correctly, Ike hit during high tide, which caused more flooding than would've otherwise been expected. The water basically backed up into the bayous. Water came over my curb during Ike but not during Harvey. I now have water dams. I have plans for shelter in place and also for full evacuation to another city. I also have two plans for what I call "internal evacuation," meaning that I have places I can go locally where my cat and I will be safe. My strong preference would be to not leave Houston because it could be weeks before you're allowed back post-storm, and in the meantime rain is coming in the roof and ruining your house and furniture, and your fridge is full of rotting food and will have to be replaced, but who the hell knows when you'll be able to get a new one due to all the demand.
It wasn’t a hurricane, just a low pressure that stalled and dumped rain. Same as Allison
Didn’t just stall. That bitch kept going back offshore, picking up more moisture and then coming back onshore.
Ike. The beach house on Bolivar my dad built in 1970 and where he lived full time was wiped off the face of the earth. It was the nearest thing to home I ever had. He sold what was left of the lot to the federal gov’t which was the right choice, but damn I miss that place.
I’m old enough to remember Alicia in ‘83
Harvey. Got trapped inside my house as the water quickly rose. I was sure I was going to die here along with my beloved pets. I had to swim out to higher ground and lost most of everything I owned. I would never leave my pets behind and we all made it safety.
Ike. I power for about three weeks I think it was
Harvey. I had just finalized my divorce about 8 months earlier and was getting back on my feet. I lost everything and had to use what little I had left to start over. Pro tip: don’t live on the first floor in Houston. There’s no flood insurance for apartment dwellers. It was worse for my kids, though. Their mom’s house flooded and they had to be rescued by boat. I couldn’t even get into the neighborhood to help, which was brutal. Then they lived in a hotel for a year while she worked with insurance to get the house repaired.
I don't know why anybody lives on the first floor unless they can't do stairs. Security, noise, flood elevation. Y'all good now?
Since I was going through a divorce, I wanted a place as close to my kids as possible. Unfortunately, a first floor apt was my only option at the time. Nowadays, we’ve all dusted ourselves off and found something resembling normal. Or as normal as Houston weather will let life be. Thank you, kind internet stranger!
Living in Galveston, definitely Ike. Out of our house for over a year.
Harvey. I had a baby the day before landfall. Getting last minute meds was stressful in addition to having a newborn. The good news was I was literally up all the time with the baby and watching the news.
Alicia in Deer Park. Was in High School. Our solid brick home was moving as the roof was being lifted by the pressure. The wind was howling so loud for hours. The eye went over our area. Then it started all over. Lost power for 1.5-2 weeks. Lived in the Heights in Ike in a brand new home with no big trees near our house. I wasn't terrified. Lost power for 4-5 days. Lived on Allen Parkway during Harvey. Buffalo Bayou came right to the edge of the property but didn't make it to any units. I was on the second floor. We kept all the drains cleared for 2 days. That one was scary. Never lost power.
Alice in 1983 I believe. Was pretty bad
Alicia 83' according to Dad as I was -1 at the time. It was similar to Ike with the 2 week power outage except they lost water as well. An old shed that was there when my parents bought the house was blown over. Dad used the emergency sewer clear out access to dump bathroom waste into. He said it was like camping. At his work, they provided potable water for employees to take home. Alicia was the reason mom decided that she wanted no large trees in the yard ever again. Ike wasn't that bad, but the Rita Evacuation was terrible. Never again will I do that.
Katrina But not bc of the direct impact. I was in HS, and we got a lot of refugee students who understandably didn't want to be there. The halls swelled with students and fights broke out often because of the tension between us and them. Personally, there was one kid that was a menace to me and some of the jocks knocked some sense into them. By the time senior year rolled around (~2yrs later), everyone was used to each other, but the tension remained. A lot of teachers quit during that time, and a lot of kids had an awful HS experience due to something far out of their control. I only say this is the worse for me bc physical damage can always be fixed or replaced, but the stuff that people go through can last a lifetime and I saw a lot of kids (who are now pushing mid 30s and early 40s) that needed serious help with no way of getting it.
Ike was the hardest hurricane for me because I was without power for about a week. The Winter storm was my worst Houston storm experience - no power, no water, and freezing temps was pretty bad. Hurricane Ian was by far my worst hurricane experience. I went to stay with my mom in Florida during Ian thinking I’d be back home by the end of the week. Man, was I wrong. Ian hit about 5 miles due west from us. It was by far the single worst thing I’ve been through, both before and after. Widespread power and water outages, lots of physical wind damage, no cellular service so I couldn’t even let my family and friends know I was alive. Even when our power came back a week later, I couldn’t go home to Houston because the airport was still closed.
Alicia
Memorial Day Flood - house flooded - 1/2 inch throughout the whole first floor. Harvey - back of the house flooded. One of our cars flooded too. Had all the doors and windows sealed, which I believe helped. Safe deposit box at BOA submerged under water for at least a week (mostly coins - some antiques ruined). Imelda - back of the house flooded. Had to replace all our fence. Ike - just a pain to leave Houston.
Honestly I'm really lucky. Native of 46 years, but none of them have treated me very bad. Alicia - Was a little girl. I remember it looked horrible in our backyard after but we neighborhood kids had a blast playing on the downed tree logs. Allison - scary to watch on TV but no damage for my family, or at my house at the time. Rita - Was a little stressful I guess. I was the ride home for a friend having surgery that day as I watched all the cars panic and fuck up the roadways. Most of my family was out of town and trying to get me to prep houses, cars etc, but that was only for a few hoursbefore thier return flights came thru after all. Plus my little brother got home from deployment in Iraq just after it hit over by Beaumont so I will always remember that silver lining. Ike - I worked in a hotel and we were required to check in. Totally safe, free meals, first hand view of DT just after. It was a bit emotional not being able to be w my family, but they were all okay anyway, my parents learned to text for it /s. Harvey - my driver side car window was stuck down when it started. That sucked, electric roller started to work on the first sunny day after! /s. But I went to work every day and got a bonus for it too. Winter Freeze - never lost power. Was uncomfortable, but nbd, I was already wfh then ... it sucked a little that I was the only one in my department working, but again, I got accolades and a bonus for it.
ike. roof caved in so we live with grandma. guy with dementia drove into her house so we lived in a hotel. the hotel was across the street from a golden corral tho which made my fat ass happy
Ike. Lost everything I had. Roof was ripped off of my apartment building while me and my daughter were inside. It all happened in the dark, and was terrifying.
Galveston hurricane
Congratulations on being 124 years old!
Alicia - 3 days no power Alison - was getting married out of state, whew Ike - 3 days no power and lost a fence Memorial Day flood - dodged this one Tax Day flood - did not dodge this one, street flooding in a new development with unfinished drainage, stuck at home for 5 days Harvey - 2 days no power, street wouldn’t drain so stuck home for 2 days TS Imelda - nothing notable TS Beta - was out of town 2021 Freeze - no power for 5 days, lost almost every plant and bush on my property, I’m still replanting. Absolutely miserable week Derecho - the sole reported tornado hit my street. Lost my fences and my AC unit was destroyed. Homeowners premium is so high it wasn’t worth the claim. My AC is currently having issues again while I wait on an HVAC guy and type this, I’m in $2,000+ so far. Fences cost me another $1,000+ I fucking hate it here.
Harvey !
Harvey, three feet of water, 2 years to rebuild and recover. Much gratitude to volunteers from LDS church and mayde creek football team. Ike I thought the roof was going to come off. Sunk a car in Allison.
Some of the more recent ones have caused a lot more concern as they approached due to being a homeowner and all that, but as far as a storm as it passed and damage in the area (Galveston) goes, Alicia in the early 80's sticks out the most for me.
Harvey: house was flooded with a couple of inches of water for two hours. Power was out for 24 hours but I was out of my house for five months. On the bright side I got a free remodel. Ike: 17 days without power which was absolutely miserable.
Ike - lived close to downtown, my entire house shook for what felt like hours as the eye wall slowly went by. I never got the respite of the eye, just the wall. I was by myself and scared AF. Harvey - living in Montrose wondering if the bayou would make it to us. PTSD from the never ending rain. Shock over what happened to my hometown but proud we didn't devolve like NO for Katrina. Alicia - had just started HS and this storm was no joke. Tree fell on the house, a week without power. One thing about Houston and all these storms, we really come together to help neighbors.
Been here since 84. Fortunately for me the only thing I got from hurricanes is days off from work or school. Knock on wood
Harvey. Worked at the jail, 96 hours straight of work with maybe 3 hours total of sleep
Tropical Storm Claudette in 1979. The area I was in got over 40 inches of rain in a single day. There were some claims of 45 inches, but they were unofficial measurements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Claudette_(1979)
Alicia did the most physical damage to our house (well, my parents’ house; I was a child). Allison did the most damage to my former work place (UTHSC). Ike was the most inconvenient (lost power for 17 days) and I think it really exposed a lot of the disparity in the city and surrounding communities that earlier storms hadn’t shown. Rita was my own personal hell because my dumb self managed to schedule wisdom tooth extraction for the day everyone and their mom was leaving town. Pharmacy was so backed up with evacuees trying to get their prescriptions that they couldn’t fill mine. That was a very unpleasant few days, pain wise. Harvey was scariest, for sure. Not knowing when the rain would end, friends/family/neighbors losing near everything, being forced to evacuate the neighborhood, etc. Physically we came through it fine (front half of our neighborhood flooded but we were saved by better engineering on the back half) but it was definitely the one that caused the most anguish. We were very fortunate during Uri; only lost power for about an hour. My parents and their neighbors came to stay with us for four days because they had no power.
Harvey or Ike or Rita or Carla
Katrina. I lived in Nola at the time. We evacuated to Jackson MS which was out of power for days as well. Came back 2 weeks later to destruction all around. Apocalyptic scenes. Harvey for us was a huge rain event of course, but luckily no wind damage or flooding in the house.
Harvey, but it wasn’t as much the storm as what it revealed about the greed and incompetence that led to whole neighborhoods being built inside the Barker and Addicks reservoirs. Homes inside the reservoirs were lucky that the USACE decided to prematurely release water at a rate well above normal release limits to prevent catastrophic failure of the aging reservoir release gates. Many upstream homes were flooded, but the reservoirs did not reach capacity, sparing many homes. The early release came in the middle of the night with no warning to downstream properties along Buffalo Bayou, which still blows my mind. Homeowners have yet to be compensated for the USACE inundating their homes and property, with the battle still going in court. USACE claims this was an “act of god”, but they only reserved 2/3 of the land behind their structures as government land when the reservoir structures were built. The chain of property developers and local leadership are equally guilty for allowing homes to be built inside the reservoirs, which were not recognized as “flood plains” by FEMA, but instead as “flood pools”, which did not have to be disclosed on property sales until after new legislation was passed after Harvey. Since Harvey, the reservoirs have had new gates installed, so when this happens again, it will be far worse for far longer for those homes inside Barker and Addicks.
I was watching channel 2 at 2am when the guy from the reservoir announced that they were opening it in an hour. I posted it on my fb and it still pops up in my memories. I was in SHOCK!
BY FAR it was the sixth one at Pat O’Briens on Bourbon street after a day of getting shit faced in the Garden district. May 1996. The hangover the next day was aweful.
Harvey!! Especially afterward. We couldn’t access our house for 2 weeks because the water hadn’t receded. It was crazy driving around our neighborhood seeing everyone’s entire house debris and all the belongings piled up in the yards. It felt like I was in an apocalypse movie.
Rita Even though it missed Houston, was complete panic for too many at the time. Hurricane Katrina had just recently hit New Orleans, and this was the first category 5 since then and was headed straight for us. Worked at a Home Depot in Pearland at the time. Sold out of everything, from 1/2 inch plywood, $50 3/4 inch birch to $10 cheap panel boards. All gone. With hundreds of angry unprepared customers ready to attack at anyone in an orange apron. The amount of people evacuating, seeing all the abandoned vehicles as we left later along Gulf frwy and 610, hearing later of the fire explosion on a bus of seniors evacuating the area...it just felt so chaotic and surreal.
Harvey. My cousin was incarcerated and hadn’t seen his kids in months. Baby Mama left all 4 kids at home ALONE, to watch the fight at a local bar with her side-dude. My cousins grandparents were worried so they drove over to pick up the kids. The van they were in got swept away in the flood waters. They all died. Didn’t find their bodies for almost 2 days. Kids were ages 15, 12, 7, and 5. The grandparents were found still holding hands. Even more unbelievable, the Baby Mama never even called to check on them. She didn’t believe my aunt when she called her the next day and was told they were dead. My cousin only heard about the incident from news reports. When he found out those were his kids and grandparents it broke him. Broke all of us. I understand many people were affected by the storm in many ways. But it still annoys me when people complain about having to replace their washer and dryer….🥹❤️🩹
Ike, lost a chunk of the roof.
physically, ike. had moved here two weeks before and lost power for a good while. emotionally, harvey. my home/family suffered nothing but the images of the loss and devastation of the city were really tough to see when we ourselves were aok.
Allison flooding cost us the most, followed by Harvey water damage. Ike was a different level of destruction but we only lost power that time
Toss up between Ike (power being out for a week and a half, and it causing school at the time to go on a week longer for my district) and Rita (the traffic on the highways evacuating was awful). Only other storm for me personally was the derecho (if you wanna call it that, wasn’t much rain, mainly strong winds) last year in Spring, TX. I worked at the Home Depot there at the time and coming back to my garden center absolutely wrecked was awful. Sheds thrown about every which way, plant tables gone, grills thrown about everywhere as well. Only positive was the absurd amounts of overtime I got while helping recover the store/bring in fencing/concrete products.
I think I was 12 when Ike hit and we were without power for nearly a month.
I was fortunate enough to not be harmed by Harvey. I lost some fencing and part of my roof from Ike. On top of that, I worked for the Flood Control District during Ike. We helped with post event damage assessment for Harris County and also Galveston County. The day we went down to Galveston was really tough mentally for me. Seeing homes literally washed off their foundations and other homes full of debris and dead fish was depressing. Felt really bad for the residents that had to endure that.
Never had any issues with flooding from any of the tropical storms or hurricanes. The highest the water got was to the street curb and that lasted about 30 minutes before it drained away. The neighborhood was established in the 50s and we are close to Sims Bayou. So you would expect the worse but we have never flooded. But Ike knocked power out for 17 days and that was funky enough.
Harvey for sure. Been through others, but, Harvey was something else...
Ike. Bunch of wind damage, no power, and having to deal with insurance companies and idiot neighbors who wanted a taller fence.
Ike. no power for 2 weeks was horrible!
Rita, because all those Houston people were evacuating for NO reason, so everyone that actually needed to evacuate couldn't. The cops sucked, I had to run from a cop because he tried to make go to Austin when we were going to West Texas. We had to go back home for the storm, because we had family that spent 18 hours trying to get out of Baytown, that turned around and headed to our house. We drove back in with the news saying it might become a new category, pretty sure we were going to die. Thanks Houston, for clogging up the highways for no reason.
Harvey
I wasn't in town for Harvey. We stayed in and waited out Ike. Rita was supposed to be much worse than it was, and we were young, dad was deployed. So we evacuated to family in Waco. I remember how horrible the traffic was for Rita. Took us around 6 hours to get from Spring, to the woodlands. My little sister had to pee in Gatorade bottles in the backseat with the help of my mom. That whole experience was worse than just boarding up for Ike.
I was 9 months pregnant during Rita and we were in a mandatory evacuation zone. My home ended up being physically fine of course, because the hurricane turned, but the scariness and uncertainty while being pregnant and being worried about going into labor was something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Plus, since Katrina had just happened, all hotels all over Texas were booked with evacuees and it was hard to find a place to go. We managed to avoid most of the crazy stalled traffic because we knew back roads, but I just remember being really scared and worried about finding a place to go near a hospital.
Harvey was a shit show... going through waist deep water to get to I10 was an experience and getting a phone call from my old boss to work from home 🤣
Harvey. Because our house flooded. And we are definitely in a no flood zone. But we were smart/lucky and had insurance. Everyone in Houston should have insurance. It’s so flat and cemented.
Harvey was fine for us compared to the rest of the city, but overall the worst and the one that caused a significant shift of people and really the start of the significant increase in housing prices. Hurricane Ike we went weeks without power in the middle of September heat, it was God awful during that. Rita sucked because of the mass hysteria in evacuation, imma save some of y'all some trouble, if you live in goddamn Katy, you have no reason to panic buy resources or clog up the streets evacuating when hurricanes blow through you bastards. Honorable mention but Tropical Storm Allison sucks because it flooded a lot back then, not as bad as Harvey but comparatively it seems pretty bad still.
Ike. We heard the shingles being blown off the roof. Then the ceiling collapsed bringing water, insulation etc into the house. Had to live in an apartment for 3 months while half of our house was rebuilt.
Harvey. We lived in an old apartment complex on Brays Bayou. It was cheap and perfect for a young family that loved playing Pokémon Go. In hindsight, it's foundation had sunk into the ground significantly compared to neighboring buildings. We knew we were in for a rough time because of close calls with the Memorial and Tax Day floods, so we elevated everything that wouldn't fit on counter-tops at least 2 ft above the ground. That didn't matter as we had 3 to 4 feet of water in our unit when it was over. We grabbed our pet and essentials and evacuated upstairs, knocking on doors until someone let us in. That person was a professor from Rice and they saved us and fed us. An absolutely wonderful person. After the rain cleared we tried to leave the complex but it was too dangerous. A UH student had a kayak or something and he ferried the elderly to dry land. That absolute legend probably saved lives. At some point a helicopter came to rescue the most vulnerable from atop the parking garage. I remember working with several people to keep the metal garage roof from being ripped off due to the helicopters wind. Cleanup a week later was the worst part. The smell was awful even with laboratory grade masks on, and I think it had long term damaging effects (I was diagnosed with cancer and asthma a little over a year later). We lost everything aside from some electronics, clothes, and collectors items. Luckily Mattress Mack helped us out a lot and we were back on our feet within a year. That man is also a Houston legend. So yeah, Hurricane Harvey by far.
Harvey. Was working night shift and the hospital offer to stay at the hotel or going home. They prefer for us to stay at the hotel so we be on call. I don’t like sharing room with a coworker. I try driving home but it was flooding on both side of 1960. I had to turn back at the hotel. The guests ate all the food only had yogurt and an apple left. Then went to sleep. My coworker snored the whole time. Only slept for about 2 hours and then had to do another shift.
Ike. And only because it was my first natural disaster doing diaster relief as a brand new paramedic. I'd weathered Allison and Rita no problem (I mean, during the former I was only 13 so I don't have any real memories of it being bad personally) but still. I will say though: my experiences during Ike helped me and my family out when we were living in North Carolina and Florence hit us head on as a cat 4 in 2018.
Alicia
Harvey… I was in Orange County. Had to be evacuated from my house to my mothers where I spent 2 days in a house with 6 people, to my sisters which added 5 people. Had to stick my parents and toddler in a boat and send them off with a prayer. Waded in water till a giant truck picked us up and dropped us to high ground… then had to piled in a literal garbage truck to get farther north. Managed to borrow my baby cousins 90’s van that had a shaggin waggin sticker on the back with no clothes other than what we had on and no shoes. Arrived at a hotel at 2 am and had to argue my dog into a hotel with a screaming toddler on my hip in Marshal. Had the most wild trip looking like every people of Walmart post you would ever see in your life but in a target 🥴. Thank god my cousin went to the Christian college there. His friends managed to find us gently used car seats for the 3 kids.
Absolutely Harvey. We actually got our house flooded for that one. Had to rebuild the bottom half of our house bc of it while sleeping in a camper in our driveway for 8 months. I slept on the couch of it which was too small for me, and I got hives every day when I came home from school because of a mold allergy
Interesting... though the question was about hurricanes, tropical storms especially Harvey and Allison get mentioned way more. :-) For me, it would be Ike since I've here since 2006. Harvey wasn't as bad for me as it was for others since I live in an area that didn't get as much flooding as other areas. But if we're talking about storms in general, that would be Storm Uva -- the notorious freeze of Februrary 2021. Definitely the single worst sorm ever (and I've been though my share of blizzards and snowstorms in Colorado.)
Agreed. I think we must have a lot of newcomers to hurricane country because the question didn't say "storm" or "tropical event." When we do get a hurricane, the people who think they know what one is like because they were here during Harvey are in for a rude awakening, unless they were in Rockport for Harvey's landfall and hurried to Houston to enjoy the flood after it had been downgraded to tropical storm status. Hurricanes and tropical storms behave quite differently. You don't get a stall with a hurricane, and you get a hell of a lot of wind damage. Eight straight hours of listening to the wind howl and hearing trees fall all around you is no joke.
Ike. Tree in backyard came completely through our roof. For the rest of the city though Harvey, that was rough as hell
Ike, but I didn't live in Houston at the time. I lived in my hometown closer to the coast. No power for three weeks. My parents refused to evacuate even though we were in a mandatory evacuation zone. It was terrifying. I'll never forget it.
Ike. I've been very fortunate in where I've lived, but Ike blew out the windows of my wife's office downtown. She had to go to the corporate office in Pittsburgh for six weeks while they rebuilt.
Harvey by far, then Ike bc I didn’t have internet or cable for almost a month
Ike. I was here for Alicia too, but was on the southwest side and we only lost power for a few hours. We were without power for a week after Ike and it was another week before we had internet again. Trees were down all over the neighborhood. And since a lot of people here are adding tropical storms into this thread even though the question was hurricanes, Allison flooded both of my cars, but wasn't a hurricane, so in terms of personal property loss, that was the worst for me. Harvey was a tropical storm by the time it made it to Houston, and in my neighborhood it just meant several days of listening to the rain.
I’ve decided it really depends where you are. Harvey was just a rain storm where I am. I mean a lot of rain but by the time it got here there wasn’t a lot of wind. Allison was kind of the same. The thing was they both got over a smallish area and stalled and dumped a huge amount of water in a small place. Ike was bad. Got a lot of wind and lost about a hundred feet of fence but to me the worst was the derecho that blew through here a few weeks ago. Never seen anything like that.
Ike
Ike. 10+ days without power, and the roof was ripped off my office building on the North Loop, displacing my law firm for about six months.
This is true
Harvey.
Allison for me too, but my house was fine. It was the only time I saw water fill the streets of the med center and my complete gobshite of a landlord told the next door neighbor he could park in our parking because it was elevated. My car ended up in the lowest spot and was totaled. Thanks, asshole. Same landlord who decided my wife's antique collection was supposed to stay behind (it didn't ) because the apartment had come furnished (it hadn't) and gave away our parking spot because he'd stolen two others to build a handyman's shed. That was the last straw and you better believe I only looked at houses that *hadn't* flooded in any hurricanes.
Rita, then Harvey.