Nine years ago August 27th, Hurricane Harvey came ashore and began wreaking havoc across South Texas. Harvey wasn’t primarily a wind event for us. It was the rain, relentless, extraordinary amounts of rain.

Watching the weather radar, the heaviest bands looked almost like fingers stretching across the Houston area. As long as you weren’t underneath one of those fingers, or as long as they kept moving, you and your home had a chance of being okay.

On August 26, the rain came and went throughout the day. The bayou in front of our house had filled, but by midday the rain had almost stopped and the water was receding. I walked over to the bayou, saw that the level had gone down and allowed myself to believe the worst was over.

I was wrong.

At about 7:00 that evening, one of those fingers of rain moved over our house.

By 8:00 PM, water was rising in the street. By 9:00 PM, the street was no longer drivable. The rain was coming down with an intensity I had never witnessed before. I had never seen it rain that hard, for that long.

Around 10:00 PM, Brett and I decided we needed to try to get some sleep. Brett went upstairs to the only room we had on the second floor. I decided to sleep on the couch downstairs with the television on so I could continue following the storm.

Surprisingly, I fell asleep.

At about 3:00 AM on August 27, I woke up.

The rain was still coming down every bit as hard as it had been when I went to sleep.

I knew instantly: this was not going to be good.

I opened the front door and saw the water had reached the step at our entrance. I looked out the back door and saw that our swimming pool had completely disappeared beneath the floodwater.

At that moment, I knew we had minutes.

It was no longer a question of if our house was going to flood. The only question was how bad it was going to be?

I woke Brett, and for the next hour we raced from room to room, trying to get anything we could off the floor. We had no idea how high the water would rise, so we moved everything as high as we possibly could.

At about 4:00 AM, the water began coming into our home.

First through our bedroom.

Then the kitchen.

And finally, through all the doors.

We moved all of our pets upstairs and blocked the exit so they couldn’t come back down. Brett stayed on the second floor while I occasionally ventured downstairs.

At one point, I had to wade through the rising water to the back of the house to shut off the main electrical power.

Nothing quite prepares you for standing in knee-deep floodwater while dealing with electricity.

Eventually, there was nothing left for us to do.

We spent the next several hours in that upstairs bedroom, waiting as the water continued to rise below us, until rescuers finally came and took us out.

There is a much longer story about what happened during those hours and in the days and months that followed. But nine years later, there are a few moments that remain especially clear.

While Brett and I were standing upstairs watching the water continue to rise, we stopped.

We hugged each other.

And for a brief moment, we allowed ourselves to spiral into the sorrow of what was happening around us, our home, our belongings, our sense of security disappearing beneath that water.

Then we were done with that.

Not because the loss wasn’t enormous. Not because we weren’t devastated.

But because there was nothing we could do about what had already happened. We had to begin thinking about what came next.

I remember telling Brett, “It will be eight months before we feel like we’re standing on firm footing again.”

I hoped I was wrong.

I wasn’t.

It took almost exactly eight months.

What Recovery Taught Us

One of the greatest lessons of Harvey came after the floodwaters receded.

Our family and friends came to our aid in ways I never expected. Brett and I rarely had to ask for anything. People simply showed up.

They were there when we needed them, and they continued to be there long after the television cameras had moved on and Harvey was no longer the lead story on the evening news.

That is something I will never forget.

There was another side to recovery, however, and I think it is important to talk about that as well.

Many organizations were highly visible in the media, telling everyone they were there to help. Our experience was often very different. In some cases, not only was help unavailable, but dealing with the systems that were supposedly there to assist us actually made recovery more difficult.

I don’t say that simply to criticize.

I say it because there is a lesson in it.

When disaster strikes, the people affected are already exhausted, frightened and overwhelmed. They will face disappointment after disappointment as they try to put their lives back together.

So, when we say we are helping, we need to make certain that the help actually reaches the people who need it.

Sometimes the greatest help isn’t an organization, a program or a press conference.

Sometimes it is a friend standing at your door saying, “What do you need?”

And sometimes it is even better when they don’t ask at all, they simply see what needs to be done and start doing it.

Nine Years Later

I don’t want to leave this story on a sour note.

Brett and I talked about Harvey last night, and we both realized something: enough time has finally passed that the sensitivity surrounding those memories has dulled.

We can talk about it now without immediately feeling the weight of those days.

We are in a much better place.

Our lives have been filled with remarkable events, some wonderful, some difficult, and some that changed us forever. Hurricane Harvey certainly belongs on that list.

Nine years later, I don’t think first about the water.

I think about Brett and me standing together on that second floor.

I think about our family and friends who showed up.

And I think about everything that came afterward, the work, the exhaustion, the setbacks and, eventually, the recovery.

Harvey took a great deal from us.

But it didn’t take us.

And nine years later, we are still here, still together, and still telling the story.