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'You Only Get One Life In This World': Voices From Houston's Convention Center

Lines of people wait outside the George R. Brown Convention Center, which has been turned into a shelter for people seeking refuge from Tropical Storm Harvey, in downtown Houston.
Ryan Kellman
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NPR
Lines of people wait outside the George R. Brown Convention Center, which has been turned into a shelter for people seeking refuge from Tropical Storm Harvey, in downtown Houston.

Erica Brown called 911 for two days before a helicopter finally spotted her, trapped in her Houston home with her 7-month-old son and three other children. Sometimes when she called, she got nothing, just a busy signal and a disconnection. Multiple times she was told that they'd try to send help. Hours would go by with no rescue.

The family spent two nights in their trailer watching the floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey rise up the foundation. "It was a hard feeling because I thought me and my kids were going to lose our life in this hurricane disaster."

On Tuesday around 11 a.m., a rescue team finally came.

Erica Brown is from Houston and is now at the convention center with her four kids. A helicopter rescued the family.
Ryan Kellman / NPR
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NPR
Erica Brown is from Houston and is now at the convention center with her four kids. A helicopter rescued the family.

"The helicopter came over my house and I heard him, and he saw me waving the white shirt. And he came on down and he got us in the basket and pulled us up," says Brown, 29. They had to go two-by-two in the basket. She sent her two oldest girls, a third-grader and a first-grader, up first with a small suitcase of clothes.

When the basket came back down, she lifted her kindergartner in ahead of her and then carried her infant son. It was still raining.

Erica Brown's children, JaCorey Landheart, 7 (left), Jazmine Brown, 8 (top right), and Cal'Rhyanna Brown, 6 (foreground), play with another girl at the convention center.
Ryan Kellman / NPR
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NPR
Erica Brown's children, JaCorey Landheart, 7 (left), Jazmine Brown, 8 (top right), and Cal'Rhyanna Brown, 6 (foreground), play with another girl at the convention center.

Brown and her family are now among the estimated 9,000 people at the downtown George R. Brown Convention Center, where officials said they had been expecting about 5,000. Outside on Tuesday, the scene is chaotic, with police, Red Cross volunteers and National Guard members patting people down, directing traffic and trying to help new arrivals and people dropping off donations.

Inside, families have spread out their soaked belongings to dry. There are long lines for food. A play area for kids is now a place for people to sleep, as space has become tighter in the past 24 hours.

Rico Smith has been at the George R. Brown convention center in Houston since Sunday. He is with his extended family. "It's a blessing that we are dry and eating." Smith was in Houston for Hurricanes Ike and Alison and was a volunteer in New Orleans after Katrina. "I'm numb to it. I'm affected but not too down about it. I'm used to it."
Ryan Kellman / NPR
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NPR
Rico Smith has been at the George R. Brown convention center in Houston since Sunday. He is with his extended family. "It's a blessing that we are dry and eating." Smith was in Houston for Hurricanes Ike and Alison and was a volunteer in New Orleans after Katrina. "I'm numb to it. I'm affected but not too down about it. I'm used to it."

Brown says the kids got fresh clothes at the convention center. Overnight, they slept on cardboard and Army blankets on the floor, but on Tuesday morning an air mattress arrived. "They were very nice to us. It's helpful for now until everything clears over," she says.

"I was scared for our life," Brown says. She says she found out on Monday that a friend died in the flooding over the weekend.

Another woman at the convention center, Michelle LaVan, 49, says she escaped her flooded home with seven family members.

They wanted to evacuate to a shelter beginning on Sunday, when their street flooded, but they couldn't get through to emergency responders to help them. By midday Monday, they decided they needed to leave, or risk drowning in their four-bedroom apartment. They loaded suitcases with extra clothes and walked out into waist-deep water, yelling after a passing Coast Guard rescue boat.

Michelle LaVan, 49, escaped her flooded home with seven family members.
Ryan Kellman / NPR
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NPR
Michelle LaVan, 49, escaped her flooded home with seven family members.

"Someone flagged them down, said, 'Hey, no no, stop! [There are] kids!'" LaVan recalls. The boat took them to a dump truck that took them to a parking lot, where a private citizen drove them in the back of his pickup to the convention center.

Now she's worried about what comes next. "Hopefully it stops raining tomorrow," she says. "I know the water will go down in my subdivision if the rain stops."

Her niece, 11-year-old Journey Booker, says the evacuation was mostly scary but a little bit fun. "All the water," she says, smiling. "It looked like I just walked out of a bath after getting too much mud!" But it's hard, knowing some of her friends and family are still in flooded homes, and that her middle school is flooded. Journey likes school, and she was excited to start sixth grade on Monday.

"I was excited. I was supposed to start yesterday, but Hurricane Harvey had a change of plans," she says, sitting under a Red Cross blanket on the floor of the convention center.

Nearby, volunteer Emma Jones, 27, is handing out markers and paper to kids, and watching children while exhausted parents get food or use the bathroom. Jones is a social worker who works in crisis mental health at an outpatient clinic at UT Health in Houston.

Jazmine Brown, 8, and volunteer relief worker Emma Jones, 27, spent the morning drawing and writing notes.
Ryan Kellman / NPR
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NPR
Jazmine Brown, 8, and volunteer relief worker Emma Jones, 27, spent the morning drawing and writing notes.

"I think I wasn't expecting this many people to be here. Especially yesterday, there weren't as many people," Jones says. She says she's talked to many people who don't have their usual psychiatric medications and are struggling to handle the trauma of the storm.

"As I walk around, I'm hearing a lot of people saying 'I don't have my medications for bipolar disorder or schizophrenia for the first time.' So we have these people who have this extreme experience, and also don't have the medications they need for mood regulation," she says.

Emergency officials have asked social workers and other mental health professionals to help as they can at shelters.

For those waiting out the rain at the convention center, many say they are just thankful to have a dry place to stay but are anxious for the future.

"It's not a joke," Brown says. "You only get one life in this world, so I'm glad we're safe and sound now. But we have to start all over again."

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Joseph Guilroy, a server at IHOP, got to the convention center via a city dump truck that took him to a transit center and then he got on a bus. "My apartment is done. It's been hell. This is my city, I been here all my life. We are gonna get through it though. We always do."
Ryan Kellman / NPR
/
NPR
Joseph Guilroy, a server at IHOP, got to the convention center via a city dump truck that took him to a transit center and then he got on a bus. "My apartment is done. It's been hell. This is my city, I been here all my life. We are gonna get through it though. We always do."

Rebecca Hersher (she/her) is a reporter on NPR's Science Desk, where she reports on outbreaks, natural disasters, and environmental and health research. Since coming to NPR in 2011, she has covered the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, embedded with the Afghan army after the American combat mission ended, and reported on floods and hurricanes in the U.S. She's also reported on research about puppies. Before her work on the Science Desk, she was a producer for NPR's Weekend All Things Considered in Los Angeles.