Somewhere Over the Rainbow

I had every intention of writing something witty and profound, but you’ll just have to take my word for it. It would have been hilarious/touching and the best post I’ve ever published, but we have been a tad distracted.

Two weeks ago, we had torrential rain that flooded significant sections of the county. We had high levels in our man-made lakes, which were built to prevent flooding, a river down our street, a swamped yard, a new leak, but otherwise, nothing compared to the folks to the east of us who needed to be evacuated from their homes. The water took what felt like an eternity to recede, and repairs began.

Enter: The Derecho. On Thursday a powerful storm. which I now know has a posh name, ripped through the city, bringing with it a tornado and hurricane force winds. We got a new weather alert on our phones – not a severe thunderstorm, a destructive thunderstorm, something we’ve never been warned about before. Wind whipped debris around the yard and it slammed against our windows. I turned on the news too late and the power flickered before I got the whole story, knocking the internet offline. We had been about to start dinner, but our table is next to the windows that were taking most of the hits, and my six year old daughter started to whimper.

My oldest son and I put on happy faces and herded my daughter and middle son into my closet, an interior room without windows. The power flicked on and off like a light show, never long enough to reset the clocks, but constantly for about forty minutes. My daughter and middle son cried as Jackson (age 10) and I tried to reassure them and lighten the mood. The two of us had our phones at the ready to use as lights if the power went out completely, like it had at my sister’s house fifteen minutes away, where she was huddled with her husband and young son in their laundry room.

Our house groaned in the wind, air vents rattled and the faint thunks of debris hitting the bricks made my kids jump. We talked and cuddled until the howling died down enough to peek out of the closet and investigate. Our back patio was a mess, and our grill had been flipped over, which was even more alarming when I tried to flip it back the next day and realized it weighed well over a hundred pounds.

Seven people died and more than 900,000 people lost power. A day later 600,000 were still without power, and it is getting rather warm here in Houston. Homes were damaged, some destroyed, and windows blew out of high-rises downtown. It feels like an uncomfortable amount of drama following a freeze in January and more rain in a handful of days than we see in an entire monsoon season in El Paso. As a result, I’m fielding a lot of, “but why did you pick Houston?” questions from my children.

A valid question from kids who have been uprooted midyear to a place with entirely different weather phenomena regularly making national news. Of course, El Paso also featured frequently on CNN, but usually related to the border, being used as a talking point by politicians, or because of a mass shooting. We had strong wind, no visibility dust storms, and year round destructive hail. But zero tornados.

I have never wanted to live here. It’s not a beautiful city, in my opinion. It’s extremely hot, but not dry El Paso hot, swampy muggy hot. The mosquitos are the size of horse flies and unfazed by bug spray. There are hurricanes that cause widespread flooding, and I abhor open water, especially water I can’t see through. You know what’s in that water? Gators. Poisonous snakes. Billions more mosquitos. This city is too clunky, with traffic in every direction. Apart from El Paso, I have always lived in big cities, but this one is different for some reason.

The reason we moved to Houston is family. My family and my children’s father’s family. It’s been seven years since I’ve lived near family and it absolutely blows my mind that when I say goodbye to them now, it doesn’t mean, “see you in a year or so.” A hug goodbye used to wreck me, and I still get a little emotional, until I remember my family now lives fifteen or twenty minutes away, depending on the branch. My in-laws live in another suburb of Houston, and my ex-husband was born and raised here. I spent summers in Houston at my grandparents’ home as a kid. It’s a home base, of sorts.

Intense weather events aside, my kids are aware why we’re here. They are overjoyed to see their cousins and both sets of grandparents more often. Change is hard, no matter the reason or how much time you have to prepare. El Paso can be a bit of a hostile environment with it’s scorpions, rattlesnakes, opaque walls of blowing dust, and oppressive heat. El Paso is a hostile environment we know, though. Houston is full of new and sometimes upsetting surprises.

Thank goodness we have family to stand by us as we muddle through.