"Wake me up when September ends"

My experience of evacuation from Houston

Saliendo de Houston – a la velocidad de los peatones

Leaving Houston – at walking pace

Raus aus Houston – im Schritt-Tempo

Foto: Santos © 2005

En medio de la destrucción... In the middle of destruction... Mitten in der Verwüstung…
New Orleans despues de „Katrina“ New Orleáns after Katrina New Orleáns am Tag nach Katrina
Autos y vidas en en ruinas Cars and lifes in rubble Autos und Leben in Trümmern
“Cronica” de huracanes Chronicle of hurricanes Eine besondere “Hurrikan-Chronik”
Salir de la casa sin saber si y como volver Leaving one’s house without knowing whether to come back and what to find... Evakuation, das ist: aus dem Haus gehen und nicht wissen, ob man wieder dorthin zurück kann Fotos: Alvaro R. Morales Villa © 2005

UNITED STATES, Angie Santos. The song by Green Day "Wake me up when September ends…"has been a hit during the month that ends today, because among other things this rock band of "protest" recorded a special edition for the benefit of the victims of hurricane Katrina. It has been a month that has marked this country and all of us who live here, when we encountered the destruction of New Orleans it seemed like a bad dream and we wanted to awake from it. So many lives were lost and so many persons saw their lives totally destroyed!

In Houston we felt the secondary effects of the hurricane. The buses arrived with thousands of "evacuees" and many volunteers of this generous city went out to help, to receive people in their homes, to give their time after work and to collect necessary items. All of a sudden our streets were full of cars from Louisiana and the hotels were full. The children were enrolled in school, families in our churches were offered jobs. We prayed continually for our brothers during these difficult times.

To leave home without knowing what you would find when you returned

We became addicted to the "Weather Channel" and the weather forecasts. When the route of Rita became known on September 18^th and 19^th all the channels coincided that the hurricane would hit Houston directly. On Monday, my brother had a reservation in Dallas for us and our friends and when he and his wife went to Wal-Mart on Tuesday, he found that people had already grabbed everything, and there were no canned goods and bottled water. Then the dilemma started, to evacuate or not… My brother had experienced hurricane Andrew and he wanted to stay, but my sister-in-law and I did not want to experience those days of waiting and nerves so we insisted on the idea of evacuation.

To evacuate means to leave home without knowing whether you will have anything left when you return, the implication is to decide what to take, of course, it must be the minimum. My selection process had to be fast because my parents (especially my mother) were calling very often telling me to go to my brother’s house, that is one hour north, so I looked around with resignation, I packed a suitcase, I took my Pilgrim MTA, my laptop, my cameras, my iPod, some books and magazines, canned food and the water I had and I left.

While I drove at least I was secure in knowing we had a hotel reservation and we were somewhat ahead of the rest, since so many people had not decided whether or not to leave the city, but my brother called to tell me that the reservation had been cancelled and that there were no vacancies in the hotels in Texas.

From Tierra del Fuego to Canada they are praying for us…

My brother and sister-in-law spent all night looking for options on the internet and they found a hotel in Oklahoma City, some three hours north of Dallas. They generously placed their "reward points" at our disposal so we would not have to pay for the hotel. I was ready to leave immediately, but my brother wasn’t, because he had many preparations to make. So we spent all of Wednesday, fixing their house, moving furniture away from the windows, etc, and waiting for two couples, who are our friends, to decide whether they would go with us or not, they had to prepare their things and get on the road. The next morning I was impressed when I saw that the highway to Dallas (I-45), which is close to my brother’s house, was getting full of the autos of families who were evacuating. We were no longer ahead, we were getting behind. It is not easy to remain calm under these circumstances.

In the meantime it was comforting to receive email from people who were worried about us, and from Sister Kornelia who praying for everyone. And it was also comforting to know that Schoenstatters from "Tierra del Fuego" were especially praying. My "spiritual logic", whether it is valid or not, told me that this could not happen to so many generous people of this city, that had done so much for the evacuees from Katrina. God would permit it.

Perhaps the Holy Spirit illumined us to look closer at the map and to check Google maps carefully, and we decided to take the back roads and alternative routes from I-45 to Dallas. Of course the roads were unknown to us and we left when it was about to get dark. We were in two cars, my brother Juan Andres, his wife Daniela and their dog Colin were in one and my friend Susi her husband Carlos and myself were in the other one. We were supposed to meet another family in a town we had never heard about, they are Maria Fernanda, her husband Alvaro, their small boy, Sebastian and their dog Lucus, a friend of Colin.

Personally I felt a special protection and I felt the prayers

What worried me a little was not being able to get out of Houston, not knowing if the roads we chose would be all right or that we would be stuck in traffic. The roads were dark with large pines on the sides. I held the rosary tight, but I was so impatient to arrive that I did not pray very much. So it was a great relief when we arrived at that town and we met the third car with its occupants. Not we were more at ease, we all together and almost out of Houston and close to a big highway where traffic was flowing. Later on we heard about what a torment it was for hundreds of thousands of persons who traveled on I-45; they spent 20 hours on the highway to arrive at a place that usually takes 4 hours. All this happened in the midst of extreme heat and in danger that they would run out of gasoline. I-45 became famous, it appeared in all the newspapers and television stations, I just saw an impressive photo in Time magazine, that says the cars advanced one mile per hour if they were lucky.

We traveled all night making several stops and taking turns driving. Most of us had worked or studied all day, but in spite of being tired we remained positive and willing. I took two turns driving different autos and I was surprised that I did not feel tired. Personally, I felt a special protection and I felt the prayers. I could imagine among other things how my mother was praying the prayer to Our Lady of Perpetual Help for her children, I had seen her say that prayer several weeks ago when my parents were in Houston for my sister’s operation. (She has cancer). Thanks to God it was at the beginning stages and it was controlled. During that time the prayers were also felt.

It was an experience of the first Christians

We arrived in Oklahoma City at 5:00 a.m. and went directly to bed. We were in two rooms, one for the men and the other one for the women. We were there for five days, at the beginning we were praying and watching the Weather Channel, we thought about different options in case we could not return to Houston in weeks or perhaps months, and then we were relieved and grateful to see that Houston was not greatly affected. All in all it was a beautiful experience, it was something like what the first Christians did, we placed all our belongings at the disposal of the community, from food to shampoo. One of our friends summarized it by saying, well, maybe we will lose everything, but "we have each other "it may sound "mushy" but it was the truth. It was also beautiful to experience the solidarity of the people, when we would say that we were from Houston and they would say: "Bless your heart". We joked about wearing T-shirts that would say "Evacuees from Rita". We also took these days as an unplanned vacation. We went to the museums, the zoo, the malls, and I did something that I usually do not have time for: I spent the whole day at a public library that was super modern.

We returned through the same route and we made the same time about 9 hours. We felt protected to very end, because I almost had a wreck as we were nearing my brother’s house. When we arrived everything was all right and we "jumped" into our activities, impressed by the previous experience and to see how everything was returning to normal, meanwhile, we were interested in knowing about the experiences of our acquaintances and of those we met on the way.

We have been blessed.

Every day on the way to work I pass by a Methodist Church that has a sign with interesting messages that are changed frequently. During these days, the sign reads: "We have been blessed!" We truly have been blessed. Thanks to God! But one thing is certain, we pray for all those who were victimized by these two hurricanes that made their presence felt in August and September.

Note: At the last moment, the Sisters of Mary from Lamar, close to Corpus Christi, did not have to evacuate, and nothing happened to them or to the Shrine.

Translation: Celina M Garza, Harlingen, TX, USA

See also: In storms you remain in view