‘If people need help, we’re going to go’: North Texas responders wade into Harvey’s path

The water grew deeper on Memorial Drive in west Houston. A 5-ton military truck kept rumbling along, past the flashing red lights and the crushed brick walls, where floodwaters had turned streets into rivers and neighborhoods into lakes.

When the truck reached Garland Robinson and Linda Glaw — displaced homeowners who were puttering through the muddy water in a tiny shallow-water fishing boat — the smell of fuel from a gas leak rose into the air, accelerating a rescue.

As water splashed up to the top of the truck’s tires, two police officers pulled Robinson and Glaw into the flatbed.

“It’s good to see you guys,” Robinson said. He shook the officers’ hands.

“Hey, I recognize you,” he told one of them. “You’re always directing traffic down at the Catholic church.”

The officer laughed.

“No, that’s not me,” Anthony Hogan said. “I’m from Grand Prairie.”

Hundreds of first responders from across North Texas remain in the Houston area as relentless rainfall from Harvey shifted east, driving people out of Beaumont and Port Arthur. Some searched for survivors in flood-ravaged neighborhoods. Others helped in shelters and with law enforcement.

Arlington police were working security at a shelter in Conroe, about 40 miles north of Houston, and staying about 30 minutes up Interstate 45 in Huntsville at Sam Houston State University, where they slept on racquetball courts.

They helped people like Norman Pelletier, a single father of two boys, ages 5 and 6, at the shelter.

On Thursday, Pelletier talked on the phone to a friend about helping with a rescue, Cameron and Cayden played a small, handheld video game with Arlington police Sgt. Scott Vickers.

“They think we’re just on vacation,” Pelletier said. “I don’t want them to know what’s really going on. They’re happy. They’re playing.”

Vickers, a hostage negotiator, was one of 19 Arlington officers sent to the Houston area Monday night. He grew up in Beaumont and has family scattered across southeast Texas.

“It was a no-brainer for me,” Vickers said. “We don’t draw the line at the city, county or even state. If people need help, we’re going to go.”

The Arlington officers also assisted county sheriff’s deputies in Montgomery and Liberty counties.

Firefighters from Bedford, Hurst, Haltom City, Grapevine and Trophy Club were on water rescue teams.

“They are working in areas where people are in awe,” said Haltom City Fire Chief Perry Bynum. “They are almost speechless when they are rescued.”

Drone missions were the focus for a team with officers from Johnson County, Everman and Mansfield, helping inspect levees in Fort Bend County as the Brazos River swelled.

‘I’m just here to help’

Hogan, a SWAT lieutenant with Grand Prairie police, and James Edwards, a sergeant over the department’s community services division, arrived in Katy on Monday with six other SWAT officers.

On Tuesday they teamed up with a Texas National Guard unit based in Waco, equipped with four military trucks that could navigate high water. The crew evacuated 65 people from surging floodwaters in Humble, northeast of downtown Houston.

The Star-Telegram rode along with the crew Wednesday as it combed the neighborhood along Memorial Drive, looking for last-minute evacuees.

The calls for help swelled Thursday, as flood waters rose in Katy, a western suburb. The crew evacuated 25 residents, Hogan said. They spotted a flooded house that caught fire and were able to get firefighters and their hoses through water.

For Edwards, the mission was personal.

He grew up in south Houston and still has family in the area. His relatives were safe this week, but Edwards knew many others in the city — his city — were not.

“You have all these people who have lost everything,” Edwards said, “and I’m just here to help. You get rest, you wake up, you go again. My adrenaline is coming from helping as many people as we can. We’ll sleep next week.”

An unprecedented flood

Harvey made its first landfall on Aug. 25, and over the next few days unloaded as much as 50 inches of rain in some parts of greater Houston. Researchers with the University of Wisconsin Space Science and Engineering Center determined that the flood was a 1-in-1,000-year event, according to the Washington Post.

The latest death toll stood at least 43 people, a number that will likely rise as floodwaters recede. Officials estimate that 156,000 structures in Harris County, including Houston, were flooded. More than 32,000 evacuees were living in shelters across the state, including Fort Worth and Dallas.

“We never thought it was going to get this bad,” Robinson said during his rescue.

Robinson and Glaw’s neighborhood sits just east of the Barker Reservoir, where officials began releasing water from dams Monday to control flooding downstream. The reservoir runs along the Buffalo Bayou, the main river in Houston that snakes through downtown and empties into the ship channel.

On Friday, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said that the homes in west Houston will likely see more flooding for 10 to 15 days as water is continued to be released. Officials estimate between 15,000 and 20,000 homes will be affected.

Even before the reservoir release, Robinson measured 17 inches of water at his front curb. By Wednesday, when he caught a ride to his home on the shallow-water boat to salvage what possessions he could, the water was up to his chest.

“The whole bottom floor is toast,” he said, including his wife’s family heirlooms.

‘It’s Book of Revelation stuff’

In some areas, including Conroe, the floods had mostly dried out by Thursday but the need for help persisted.

Arlington police Det. Tim Henz spent Thursday at a warehouse in Conroe, helping collect donations. Mountains of donated clothes and stacks of bottled water filled the building.

Henz, a 34-year police veteran, said he remembered how outside agencies helped Arlington after a tornado in 2000 and when the area hosted Hurricane Katrina evacuees in 2005.

“I kind of look at this as exchanging it — they helped us, so now we’ll come help them,” Henz said.

Arlington police also delivered the donations to neighborhoods in need.

At one location, the River Plantation neighborhood in Conroe, Scott Stidham and his wife, Nina Stidham, were collecting supplies

Their home had flooded, taking on 18 inches of water. They evacuated on Monday and by Wednesday, the water had drained out and they began cutting out the damaged sheetrock and moving their ruined furniture and appliances to their backyard.

They live near the San Jacinto River, but they never thought a flood like Harvey was possible.

“It’s apocalyptic almost,” Stidham said. “It’s Book of Revelation stuff.”

Navigating flood waters

Hogan and Edwards jumped at the chance to help.

On their first day with the guardsmen, they shipped over to Humble about 10 a.m. and worked through the afternoon, figuring they’d be back at their Comfort Inn in Katy by nightfall.

Instead, the calls for help kept coming and they didn’t leave until 1 a.m. They returned to Katy in the back of the truck, the rain soaking them for an hour.

“You just wanted to get out of those wet clothes, take a shower and get to sleep,” Hogan said.

The next day was a slog: The sun came out, raising the temperatures, and the flooded areas they were working had mostly been evacuated, either by first responders or residents leaving on their own.

After receiving orders to check on the neighborhoods of west Houston, the Grand Prairie officers and the guardsmen loaded up and went to Memorial Drive, near the Barker Reservoir.

Residents congregated at the water’s edge. Some floated out trash bags of belongings on surfboards and kayaks.

Because the water was too deep and unsafe to drive through, the crew had to circle back to a flooded Interstate 10 frontage road, near the oil and gas company BP’s U.S. headquarters.

Then they discovered an oil and gas leak at a nearby automotive repair shop and rerouted, only to get into deep water. They backed out.

Eventually, the trucks made it to a gated neighborhood, where they had an address for a woman who might have been stuck.

The water was more than 5 feet high at the gate, too high for the truck, so Hogan hopped into a civilian’s boat. He said when he reached the home the water was high enough to peek inside a second-floor window. He knocked on the front door but no one answered.

When he returned to the truck, it pressed forward until the crew reached Robinson and Glaw.

The two live near each other and had gone back into the neighborhood to try to salvage what they could from their home. Robinson had to leave behind his wife’s antiques. Glaw had to leave behind her cat, hoping it would stay on the second floor.

“You look at the destruction of all this stuff around here,” Hogan said. “Sometimes you just have to do some good for someone else.”

This story was originally published September 2, 2017 at 5:08 PM with the headline "‘If people need help, we’re going to go’: North Texas responders wade into Harvey’s path."