The Hurricane in My Backyard

It was Friday, August 25, 2017, the day Hurricane Harvey began to hit the Gulf Coast. Somewhere in the middle of Houston, I was panic-buying lunch at a Whataburger, the Texas-based hamburger chain, for my two children, Simon (then 8) and Claire (13). It was like being about to get on a plane: a strange moment of misrule, like the days after Christmas, where you allow yourself to do childish, comforting things. It was a sign of things to come in the Morton household.

A few days later, I looked out of the window and saw the street still underwater, the rivers four feet deep at either end, another kind of world turned upside down. I was bored, scared, and slightly ashamed of myself—too curious for the cabin fever, but too cautious to venture much farther than the rivers adjoining our street.

I live in the Montrose area of Houston, right smack in the middle, and we had been told not to evacuate so as not