Watching Harvey Unfold from Afar: Reflections, Two Years Later

The Brookner family moved out of their Meyerland home following Hurricane Harvey. Here the family is pictured in 2017 in the building they leased for 13 months following Harvey. Pictured are (from left) Lauren Brookner, Hannah Brookner, Michelle Brookner and Brad Brookner.

The pitter-patter of rain hitting the rooftop used to be a soothing sound for Michelle Brookner. But the 2015 Memorial Day flood that brought 12 inches of rainwater into her Meyerland home changed that. 

“I had PTSD after the Memorial Day flood,” she says. “I used to sleep very well when it rains. But after that, I would be up pacing. It taints your life.” 

In some ways, therefore, Michelle says it was a blessing that she was away from Houston when Hurricane Harvey hit two years ago, flooding her newly-remodeled home. “It was good mentally that I wasn’t there,” she says. 

In other ways, though, being away from the scene added more stress. “I could hear in [my husband] Brad’s voice how bad it was,” Michelle recalls. “There’s a shock part and a PTSD part. You become a shell. I became just numb.” 

Two days before the storm hit, Michelle had flown to Virginia with her daughter Hannah to drop her off at college. Before leaving, Michelle, along with Hannah and her friends, helped elevate the furniture by 18 inches in preparation for the storm. Michelle had bought bed risers after the Memorial Day storm.  She also laid out all the portable phone chargers on the counter, reminding her husband Brad to keep them charged in case the power went out. 

But she and Brad weren’t prepared for the havoc Harvey would wreak. On Saturday night, Michelle began receiving texts from friends, asking if she was okay. She immediately tuned into Space City Weather and started watching the flood gauge, refreshing every few moments. “Once you flood once, you know your number, you know what to look for,” Michelle said. Finally, at 12:30 a.m., as the flood gauge was rising, she called her husband. “He was dead asleep, but he said he’d go check to see how things were. Once he got up, he never went back to sleep.”

Michelle and Brad were up the rest of the night. Brad had about 45 minutes before water entered their home during which he was bringing valuables from downstairs to the second floor. Even after it started flooding, he’d communicate with Michelle and she’d let him know which items to try to retrieve. 

“He went down several times and would say, ‘okay what do you need to get?’ He was in waist-deep water, so he had to do a complete change of clothes every time.” The Brookners ultimately ended up with about 32 inches of water in the house. 

Because Michelle wouldn’t be able to fly into the Houston airport the next day, she caught a ride to D.C. with the parents of one of Hannah’s classmates. During the entire drive there, she was registering the damage with FEMA and taking care of other insurance and administrative details while Brad was without power. 

When Michelle finally made it back, the damage sunk in, and she and Brad made the decision to move out and sell the house. Of course, there are items the Brookners lost in the storm, but they are happy to now live on the sixth floor of a high-rise, and Michelle can again sleep peacefully when the rain hits. 

“One thing you learn from flooding is you can say ‘shoulda, coulda, woulda’ all the time, and it’s not going to help because you just have to go forward and know that what you have and what you saved is enough,” Michelle said.

Like Michelle, Rupal Mehta was worriedly watching from afar as her family’s Bellaire home flooded during Hurricane Harvey. Rupal was living in her own apartment in Midtown, while her parents were in their Bellaire home of 17 years. Rupal, now a first-year MBA student at UT-Dallas, remembers receiving a text from her parents that Friday night saying water was coming into the house. Since her house had never flooded before, Rupal was shocked to receive the news. And when she called her dad, he said he could not talk for long because his phone was about to die, and power had gone out. 

For the next 24 hours, Rupal had no way to communicate with her parents and no way of knowing what would happen. 

“It was scary not being able to know what was going on,” Rupal said. “Nobody understood what the damage would be.”

One week after Hurricane Harvey hit, the Mehta family gathered at Hugo’s to celebrate Rupal’s mom (Reeta Mehta’s) birthday over brunch. 

Over the course of the evening, Rupal spoke to her older sister, Sonal Mehta, on the phone several times. Sonal lived in Seattle and was even more distressed, being so far away from her family. “We had this whole conversation where she was talking about how hard it was being away from home,” Rupal said. “I remember having to calm her down.” 

The following day, Rupal began receiving communications from her parents and from the family friends who had rescued them. She learned there was three and a half feet of water in their house, and her parents got out using a neighbor’s lifeboat. Family friends who lived nearby on a street that did not flood were waiting for her parents in their vehicle. 

Though it was difficult for Rupal to be separated from her parents during the storm, she was happy to see all the friends and neighbors who came through to help them. 

“I’ve never seen the neighborhood come together like that. Everyone was so willing to lean in and help,” Rupal said. “It just makes me love being from Houston even more.” 

For six months, Rupal’s parents lived on the second floor of their house while contractors repaired the first floor. They are now happy to have their first floor back to normal. 

“My mom wanted the house the exact same; she said ‘I’m not changing it, this is our home.’” 

Editor’s Note: See more Harvey-related stories: Weathering the Storm: One year after Hurricane Harvey by Jennifer Oakley; Saving Meyerland: Residents rise to the challenge by Michelle Casas Groogan; A year after the flooding by Annie Blaylock McQueen; The Holidays After Harvey by Deborah Lynn Blumberg; Flood of Humanity: Our neighborhoods during Harvey by Jennifer Oakley; Harvey, Houston and Heart by Andria Frankfort; Houston Rises: Falling in love again with our city by Rania Mankarious.