Houston Flooding Fiasco

I'm Rahlita Thornton from the Thornton Esquire Law Group. Today, I want to talk to you about what to do when you may be caught in one of these Houston floods.

One of the things I would suggest, first of all, is to be mindful of the weather reports. Back in the day, we used to hear warnings about this and warnings about that, and those things didn't really happen. So we just started dismissing those warnings.

We thought, "Oh, it's no big deal. It's not going to be a tornado. It's not going to be this. It's not going to be that. The lightning, whatever." But lately, in the last few years, starting with Hurricane Harvey, and even the flooding in September of 2019, there have been some serious dangers that we have found ourselves in.

Normally, I stay put for most of these warnings. But in September, I had to be in court that morning and I was delayed in court. When I left, it started pouring down again. It had already been flooding for some days, but it had slowed down a bit.

But after I left court, it started flooding, and it was terrible. I felt like I needed to get home. So I took some back roads, thinking, "This is going to be okay." I went through West University, and I ended up flooded in my car, and I have a small car.

So I was sitting in my car, thinking, "What am I going to do?" I'm just not used to even sitting in floods and trying to figure out what to do. So as I was sitting there, calling my family, trying to figure out what I was going to do, a nice neighbor came up to me.

She had an umbrella, and she had on her boots. And she asked me if I needed any help. I asked her, "Is the water up past my door? Can I open my door?" And she said, "It looks like it is. Why don't you look out the window and see?"

I looked out my window, and saw that the water was just below the line of my door. So I opened my door and got out. And this lady, such a nice lady, started talking to me. I was talking to her, thanking her for letting me get out of the car.

I thought, "Okay, she's just going to let me stay here with this umbrella, while I try to figure out what I'm going to do. But this lady invited me into her home. We ended up talking.

Eventually, maybe three or four hours later, the rain stopped, and I was able to get somebody to pick me up. But I thought, you're probably thinking, should I have gone into this person's home? She was probably thinking the same thing about me. But I guess she felt like I was a nice person, and she invited me into her house.

She asked me if I wanted water or anything to eat and if I needed to use her phone or charger or whatever. And so I sat there, and I got to know that lady. I'm not going to say her name because I think she might be embarrassed.

But eventually, as we talked about different things, it turned out that she enjoyed cycling just as much as I do. And so, I invited her to my cycling club, the Houston Ladies Cycling Club.

That was in September and I'm still grateful for it, so I just wanted to share that with you. But I think before September I probably was turning up my nose at everybody for getting caught in the floods because my thing is you should just sit still. You shouldn't be in these streets, if you know it's flooding.

So I was humbled and taught a lesson that I also needed to sit still myself, regardless of the situation. And I should be grateful and appreciative and have more sympathy for those that get caught in floods. After all, it's a scary thing, and I was scared too. Even though the water wasn't over my door, it was still scary for me. And I try to be a tough cookie.

So I wanted to ask you to be more careful when we have the threat of floods in Houston because we can flood in a minute. And if you have any comments or any other stories to share that are similar to mine, feel free to do that.