I interviewed Renee Cohen on the morning of 2/21/18 at her rental home in Houston, TX, where she and I interviewed Renee Cohen on the morning of February 21, 2018 at her rental home in Houston, where she and her family are living temporarily. Their Meyerland home flooded three times in three consecutive years, and after weighing their options, the Cohens decided to elevate their home and stay in Meyerland. In this interview, Ms. Cohen discusses her personal experiences with flooding, as well as the Meyerland Jewish community and how it has been affected by serial flooding.
An observant Orthodox Jew who participates actively in her synagogue, Meyerland Minyan, Ms. Cohen offers insight into the personal, cultural, and financial consequences of the floods on individuals, families, and the community. This interview was conducted as part of The Center for Public History’s Resilient Houston Project, University of Houston.
Interview with Renee Cohen
Interviewed by Paula Davis Hoffman on 2/21/18 in Ms. Cohen’s home in Houston, TX
PDH: It is February 21, 2018 at 9:30 in the morning. My name is Paula Davis Hoffman. I am interviewing Renee Cohen and we are at her home in Houston, TX. Renee, can you tell me a little about yourself? Name, age, job?
RC: My name is Renee Cohen, and I am 34 years old. And I am originally from South Orange, NJ. And I’ve been living in Houston, Texas, for about 13 years, and I have a few jobs. I run a Sunday school for my shul, Meyerland Minyan, and I teach Zumba and Cardio Dance. And I run a food truck with my husband.
PDH: Can you tell me about your experience during Harvey and the previous floods?
RC: Sure. Should I start with Memorial Day?
PDH: Wherever you feel comfortable.
RC: So our home flooded for the first time on Memorial Day in 2015, and it hadn’t occurred to us that our house could actually flood before then because it was built in ’68, and it had been fine. It’s higher than most of the other homes. It’s kind of built up on a little bit of a hill, on the baseline. The foundation, it looks like it is higher up than the other homes and really there is only one, it’s a cul-de-sac and there are just one or two other homes right down at the bottom of the cul-de-sac that had flooded before then so it just- it wasn’t even on our radar that our house could flood. And I woke up. The month leading up to it there had just been a lot of heavy storms. That night when we went to bed we didn’t have power, which was normal. That week, it had been happening a lot, leading up to that. I woke up in the middle of the night and I heard an alarm going off. It was my car alarm, and the water had come up to the engine height. I looked around the room, everything was floating. And there was like boxes of tissues and shoes, and everything was just kind of floating around. And I ran into my- now she’s 4, at the time she was a baby. I ran into her room. The water was already up to her crib height. So my husband helped me, we got the kids upstairs. We started to get out as much as we could. That was a huge shock, we are lucky that we have a second floor. So we were able to just wait it out and get as much as we could high up. We didn’t really think that it was going to happen again so soon. They called it like a 1 in 500 year flood. But just to be on the safe side when we did the repair we put in tile floor. And we, you know, we did a few precautionary things, like when we put in cabinets we went with 100% wood, things that would just be easy to clean and dry out as opposed to having to tear out and start from the beginning. So we had in the back of our heads, yeah, it is a 1 in 500 year flood, but it could happen again one day. Thinking it could be 10, 20 years down the line. Instead it happened something like 11 months later. We had a newborn baby who was 11 days old. And so that one wasn’t as bad. That one was only 6 inches. The first one we got something like 18 inches. So 18 inches, you really have to cut out a lot and you know we had to pull all of our cabinets that time and throw out most of our furniture and you know that one felt more devastating. The six inches, I don’t know if it was because I had just had a baby, so I was in baby mode, but that one we were able to repair the house much faster. We didn’t change anything that time, so we weren’t out as long. Um, that was like our good flood. Which is funny to me, now. So many with Harvey were affected, and they got like 2 inches and they’re like, you know, it feels funny when I remember the six-inch one fondly, like in comparison. So before Harvey we already had a plan that we were going to elevate the house. And it is such a significant amount of money, we were hoping to get a grant. So there had been a 2015 grant. And a 2016 grant. The 2016 grant we were on the alternate list, but like low down, and they still hadn’t lifted the 2015 homes at that point. When the 2017 grant came out we thought we had a good chance, being that we already had flooded two times. So we had gotten quotes from lifting companies and that was the plan, but we thought for such a huge amount of money we really should at least see if we could get the grant. I am now sorry that we waited. We have heard since. We have not gotten the 2017 grant. So when Harvey hit, we stayed in our house. You know, with the three floods, this was the first one that we knew it was absolutely going to happen. The first one was an absolute shock. The second one it was during the daytime. It was light out, we were able to see the water slowly creeping up the front lawn, so we were able to lift a lot of things. We had a good idea it was coming at least that day. We had a few hours that day to prepare for it. With Harvey, there was so much in the news about it was happening and going to be coming and so we did the things that everyone was doing, you know, making sure we had lots of water on our second floor. Lots of easy food that didn’t need refrigeration, stuff like that. We made sure no one was sleeping downstairs, as we learned from the first time around. And the Friday before the storm we started lifting all of our bottom shelves out. So we wanted to wait and see because there had been changes in the past before and you know you don’t want to go through the hours of flood prep, and then have to put everything back. It’s better than actually flooding, but it takes a lot of time. So, we just started Friday, getting all of our bottom shelves out. Any furniture that we cared about, trying to lift up. And we were just waiting. So after, you know Friday night was not bad. Saturday was not bad. So, after Shabbos we checked the news and the weather, and it did not look good and we just started getting into survival mode and picking up as much as we could. We could not imagine that it would have been worse than Memorial Day, that seemed as bad as it could get. So, at the time we didn’t lift anything higher than like let’s say the second shelf from the bottom, just assuming that was the worst it could get. We took the time to lift our beds up on chairs you know thinking that the water wouldn’t be as high as it ended up being. So, you know, we did what we could. We lifted our sofas onto cans, we spent our night doing that. I’m really close friends with my neighbor two doors down. She’s one of the homes that you know had a flood history before Memorial Day. So, she was able to tell me the water is up to my doorstep. Now we know from experience that when water enters her house we have about an hour before it comes in our house. So, she was in touch with me. At this point, everyone starts calling and it gets like a little bit frantic and I just stop answering the phone and everyone’s like, “You have to get out!” and I’m, like, personally, with a second floor, I would rather be in the house as long as I know my kids are safe upstairs, because, you know, we really were able to save so much more. As the water got higher and we saw that it was going up to the third shelf and stuff like that my husband was able to go downstairs and carry armloads and I was on the stairs, so, it’s not quite as not as devastating when you don’t lose everything you can pick and choose what is more important to you, priority-wise. What you can get up. So that was Harvey. This was the worst one for us. Obviously, the water was worse. We got 29 inches this time. But it was worse because of the hysteria around it. We felt, unfortunately, like seasoned pros. We knew what to do, you know, about calling to make the insurance claims, you know we knew what we were supposed to do and in what order. But the difference was that so many other people were affected this time and the news coverage that people were just calling nonstop and saying that we had to evacuate and we had to get out, and we were hearing helicopter rescues that whole next day so at some point I started to get this image in my head that if the water kept going because you know this was after the first really bad night, they were anticipating another very bad night and you know the water was higher than it had been during Memorial Day, and it seemed to be coming in much faster. So, I could see it going from one step to the next in a shorter amount of time than it had been with Memorial Day. So, we started to get nervous between the constant helicopter noise around our house and just how fast it was coming in. So we started to just get nervous, what if it could actually get up to the second floor. And in hindsight, I never, in a million years, if I had known what the evacuation would be like, I never would have left. It was much safer for my kids to be on the second floor of our house. Dry, without electric. You know, you have to turn the electric off before it gets near the outlets. So, we do that before, a little bit before that. It was hot. It was getting dark. But really it would have been better just to stay because with all the hysteria of everyone being evacuated. And everyone saying you needed an ax if you were to go into your attic, to cut a hole out of your roof. So I had an image of- our plan would be to go on my daughter’s bunk bed, out the window, and there’s a spot where you can climb onto the roof and I am imagining doing this with a baby that’s not walking yet and you know a very clingy at the time 3 year old. And I’m just thinking we’ve got to get out while we can. I don’t want to be in a situation where we are standing up on a roof with these young kids. And my 8 year old was hearing the constant helicopter noise and was like, “I am not leaving on a helicopter! I am not getting on a helicopter!” So at that point we just started to think that it was a good idea to evacuate. So there were boats coming onto our street. Now, here’s the thing. If you evacuate on just a random nice good citizen who got on a boat and canoed around to see who they can help, they can take you just to a friend’s house. So we had a friend like 2 streets away who is in one of the newer homes, that was built up to the newer flood safety codes, so she’s elevated, she only gets flooding in her garage, her house was untouched. So she was expecting us. She had said to come and that was our initial plan, was to go there, but we got on one of the official rescue boats. And if you get on one of those they have to take you to a designated shelter. Really, they take you to a, you know, there’s many steps along the way. They don’t directly take you to a shelter. You know, they take you to higher ground. It was the highway. It was 610. And then you get on some kind of a bus. And then they take you an army tank. And the army tank takes you to a shelter. So, at the time, it was just like a decision made in the hysteria of the moment, with all the helicopter noise. And I packed diapers, wipes, I packed a few snacks, what I had packed was not enough. What I packed was just enough to get us over to our friend’s house. So if I had known I wouldn’t have, I would have just said let’s stay put. So we get on this boat and it takes us to you know they took us to 610. It was really kind of a shocking image to see some of the homes on Braeswood. How high the water was. It was- as you got closer and closer to 610, it looked like just the roofs were like peeking out. It was shocking to see how high it was. And then they brought us to higher ground and we got on- it was like a minivan, you know, somewhere between like a minivan and a bus, like something larger than your- like a van, just a regular van. There were lots of people with dogs, and the dogs seemed very afraid and everyone looked like they had been through an ordeal. And we get on this army tank and that was probably the worst part, up until that point, was just that they were very disorganized. And they didn’t know, they didn’t seem to have, like a walkie-talkie system of you know you should go here, you should do this, so these were young guys, they looked like in their early 20s, and they didn’t know what they were supposed to do, so they took us to a shelter that was full already, and we just sat there while they got orders for where they were supposed to take us. And so we sat there for like a couple hours. And there’s not like a real cover on these tanks, it’s just like a fabric kind of thing that they have over it. So we were lucky to be in one of those, like it was a caravan of these army tanks, so I could see the one behind us there was nothing, like not even a fabric cover. And it was raining this whole time and you could see elderly people just like sitting there. My kids had been real troopers up until this point. They really, really held it together. The younger two did not really understand what was happening. But we had brought you know like everybody had their little blankie or lovie kind of thing. So they were sitting with us and pretty much holding it together. One was a little nervous with all the dogs. One thought it was kind of exciting. They were all just tired and worn out. And at this point they started to get hungry. My oldest one started to say how hungry she was and I didn’t have any more food for her. They didn’t have any food on the tank, on the vehicle, and we were just sitting there and waiting. Just sitting and sitting and waiting. And eventually one of the other people who was sitting with us heard her, and she had brought, she had snacks with her. So she gave her some food and it is both sad and funny when I think back on it. She had given her an apple. So as soon as my other daughter saw that the oldest one eating, she said, “I’m hungry.” So I was handing it back and forth, taking turns taking bites of the apple. And the baby was sitting on my lap, and as he’s seeing the apple going back and forth, he just lunges forward and he started taking a bite out of it as well. So we wait and we wait. It was just a blessing that nobody said they had to go to the bathroom. I still don’t really understand how that happened because in normal time there would have been like 3 potty runs over that span. So that’s just a little miracle right there. And eventually, and really I mean it dragged on between the- just sitting there with no information and the constant rain we eventually were- there was some kind of communication where we were told that we were going to go to the convention center. So they brought us there. The really odd thing about this is there is no close way for them to drop you at the entrance. I still don’t understand it. Where the vehicle had to stop and you had to get out, you still had to walk a very large distance. So we’re holding our kids because the water was already ankle-height just in that area and we- my husband and I were each holding one the younger kids. And whatever bags of stuff we’d grabbed. I had a bag of IDs and my jewelry and whatever- that was one of the things I learned from the previous floods, I have like a grab bag of important stuff, documents that we could need, so we are each trying to carry, and it was like a long, long distance to walk in the heavy rain. And at that point my 8 year old just lost it. She just started sobbing. The whole day, the exhaustion of everything just hit her and I think it didn’t help the long walk in the heavy rain, she was sobbing hysterically by the time we got inside. As soon as we got there I knew we couldn’t stay there. Like, just standing in the check-in line, it was like everything that you would ever want to protect your kids from. There are people that were not allowed to enter. So I asked why they were not allowed to enter and that’s either that you have something on you, like, I don’t know, a gun? Or what. And they were like shouting, because when we got to the convention center they had given us a Snickers bar, each of us a Snickers bar, and the people on the outside that weren’t allowed to enter were yelling things like, “I’ll give you 25 cents for that,” you know, just things like that. So I just got the kids, I had grabbed dry stuff knowing we were going into the water, so I grabbed, they each changed. The bathroom was already beyond belief disgusting. Like it just- it was like your- I just, we have to leave. I had this image of like pedophiles, you know what I mean? I don’t know if it was the stuff I have heard that happened at the Superdome with Katrina or the obviously disturbed people that were coming over and talking to us. But I think it was within 10 minutes we were working on a plan to get out of there. And we have a friend of a friend. It is my husband’s brother- so my brother in law’s- wife and him have a very good friend who lives in the area near the convention center. So she said she would come and get us. I had put something up on Facebook, you know, “We’re at George R. Brown [Convention Center], can anyone come to get us?” So she had contacted me and she said she could come. And again there’s this awkward thing with the way that the setup is. And the way the roads are. Whatever that entrance was, where there is only one place that you can enter and exit, you couldn’t get there, she could not drive up to that. So she was planning on coming to get us. This was- we were one of the earlier people to get to George R. Brown, I guess it was when they had first opened it up, things were not quite organized yet. And they had towels. They had towels for when people came in because everyone was coming in so wet from the rain. But they had the air conditioning freezing, like it wasn’t adjusted yet for all these people coming in soaking wet. So we’re just watching our kids like shivering, you know, trying to warm them up with the towels, just, it was ridiculous. How cold it was. But we heard, I was in communication by text with our friend, so she was on her way, she was very close by, so we had to kind of make a run for it. Now, at this point it’s hard to see anything, you know the rain was coming down really heavy and we don’t know the area so well. And she couldn’t stay so long because the water was getting higher and higher in the street. So she was like, “I don’t want to get stuck. You know, that won’t help anyone.” So we were just- it was a frantic kind of a run, we ran across some courtyard or something. I still don’t know how we found her. I think we saw a sign and we were able to communicate, you know, a sign- like for a hotel. We sort of were able to meet there. You know, what’s funny is, like, a regular day, you’re so careful as a mom with like you know what I mean, car seats. I always like, you know, if I see that it is too loose I stop and adjust it and we just got in a car no car seats, we just held our baby, and she drove the best she could, at some point it was too high for her to get back to her house but we were close enough to walk so she pulled into a driveway to kind of protect her car, you know to kind of keep it elevated. We got to her house, and I just remember the walk to cross the street, the water was so high at that point that there was a current, you know our 8 year old had been walking all that time but we actually had to lift her up because it was too forceful for her. And the craziest thing is that our friend, her name is Kristen, she had told us that when she left, the street was fine. So it had happened- that’s how much rainfall was coming down, that it had just happened so fast. And so that- we tried to get the kids to bed. We gave them a bath. It was probably like midnight by then. I didn’t have a Pack-n-Play or anything for the baby. So I put him to sleep in a laundry basket. And then we just- that was that night. Harvey is definitely- you know, the evacuation made the whole thing worse. Like, it was, you know, it was more exhausting to start the process afterwards, because of that evacuation process. If we had stayed at home on the second floor and just done the best we could I think it would have been not as traumatic. And another friend picked us up. Kristen, our friend who got us from the convention center, is not Jewish and doesn’t keep kosher, so she had a lot of, you know packaged stuff that we were able to eat, but then we had friends from the kids’ school who live in the medical center, you know because our area, you still would not have wanted to drive in the next day, so they, once the road was clear enough, he came to get us, the father came to get us from Kristen’s house, and then we had lunch there, this was already the next day, and we had lunch there and the kids played and it was just like being in a similar environment to their own. And you can see, Thank G-d, because they are so resilient, they were already kind of bouncing back and everything was sort of fun and all the toys and they recognized the kids from school and you could see they were doing well. We really wanted just to get back to our house as soon as we could just to see how high the water had been. But it still had not fully- I forget the word, you know, when it leaves. Recedes. So, at that point we were just trying to get closer. So Fondren. We had friends that had offered for us to stay with them during the storm and we at the time really- still, despite all of this, I would still say, having a second floor, I would rather be there to know how high the water goes and what you can save. It does make it easier not to have everything ruined afterwards. So I would still stay in our house on the second floor, I just wouldn’t leave. That’s the difference. So we came to- different friends came to pick us up- I don’t know if it helps to use the names, but the friends in the Medical Center who had come to get us from Kristen’s house, they are the Camhis, and then the Meckleys and the Cohens from the Fondren neighborhood had come to get us from the Camhis to bring us to Fondren. So then we just, we just started to make our plan, what our strategy was. Our cars had been parked in Fondren, in anticipation of the storm. I had put something on Facebook, you know, “Where could we park our cars?” I did not want them in Meyerland. And so a friend had said to call Mrs. Lazaroff, she is the head of the school where my kids are, she had put something out on a WhatsApp group or something, saying if anyone wanted to they could park in the parking lot at school, which is elevated. You have to drive up a ramp to it. So we had parked the cars there, thank G-d, because you know they would have been flooded if we had left them at our house. So having- after a flood, having gone through it two times before Harvey- to have a working car is like a night and day difference. You are so helpless without a car after a flood. And so many people are affected that they run out at the rental places. They tell you it’ll be 2 days, then it’s 3 days and then you go and you wait and it’s a whole thing. So this was a game changer, in terms of helplessness. Because people will be like, “Oh, come to us for dinner,” but you can’t, you know? You don’t have a way to get there. And it makes you feel like a baby, you know. Like, “Can someone drive me here?” And you know, just being able to drive yourself to Walgreens and pick up stuff that you need, mentally it’s a totally different thing, like “Can someone drive me? I need help!” It makes all the difference. So that was great that we had those two cars. And then I think it wasn’t until the next day that we were able to get to our house, but in the meantime I contacted a realtor friend because in the past it was very difficult to find a place to rent short-term until we knew what we were going to do with our house, and I could only imagine, since so many more people were affected with Harvey than Memorial Day and Tax Day, it would just be that much more difficult. And because for us we really are limited to specific neighborhoods because we need to be in walking distance of an Orthodox synagogue. So that really just leaves a few choices, in terms of locations where we could live. So I did not want to be in Meyerland this time. After Memorial Day we stayed in Nob Hill, which is like a whole other- it is a whole other subject. In terms of what that was like in terms of living there as a family. Because we had lived there before we bought our home, when it was just David and I. But it’s a whole other thing in and of itself. But I just didn’t want to be in like that post-flood scene, I wanted to just kind of leave that. So we were looking for something in Fondren and I just felt like I had to move really fast so my realtor friend drove me around, and we visited a few options and I got an idea of what pricing was and things like that in this neighborhood. So when we got in our house we saw what the damage was. So it was just much higher than we had expected and the water sat for a much longer time. With Memorial Day, it got up to 18 inches but then it receded, and the difference, with it just sitting there. First of all, the house smelled unimaginably bad, it was just disgusting. You know, like, just walking in. And it helped when you opened up all the doors and the windows, but it is just a distinctly awful flood smell. And then we were working on getting a mitigation company to come. You know, it’s kind of a race against the clock, with mitigation. The sooner you get your walls cut, and all the wet stuff out of the house, the insulation and everything like that, the better. It’ll just kind of soak up higher and higher, the moisture readings will be worse, the longer it sits, and the more mold will grow. You need to act fast. And these companies they have so many customers to deal with at once that it is very hard to get someone to come as fast as you need them. And then you have to pack. Because they are doing heavy duty demolition. So your dishes that you had put up on the counters in hopes that they would- our water did not cover our countertops. So we had had a lot of stuff on our counters. And just packing up the kitchen in and of itself is a whole day activity. And I wish I- should I keep going? Yeah? Okay, just like, what it was like right after, all that? Okay. So we were packing as fast as we could, we had a mitigation company lined up, and just going through room by room and figuring out, the big thing at that point is just emptying cabinets and packing them. There was a wide array of volunteers who came to help. So, some volunteers are just a blessing. They are just amazing. They just get to work, they have great common sense, you know pack this thing in this way and if it’s glass, pack it in wrap, and you don’t have to give any direction, they can just kind of take over. Some volunteers, it’s painful to have them. They come in like someone died, like they’re making a shiva call. And it just kind of makes the situation worse. And there’s sort of- one of the things I have seen with people with really good intentions is that there’s ways to help and there’s ways to not help. So it’s like a sensitivity I have about this now. Like, the floor is really gross after a flood. It’s like dried nasty flood water from the bayous, it’s just really really gross. So all these things you worked so hard to save and get high up, like there are people who will just put them on the floor and you’re like “C’mon! I don’t want that now!” I mean like just, you know. So there was a range. There were a few people who I don’t know how we would have made it without them. You know what I mean? Just in terms of the time pressure. And the quantity of packing up a family of five on a first floor, with two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, with like a set of dairy dishes, a set of meat dishes, a set of fancy Shabbos meat dishes, lots of serving platters, party stuff, all the kids’ stuff, the toys – it’s a lot. So you really need a lot of help. And then the other thing was just juggling where my kids could go each day. So really friends took them, and the baby had a hard time. This, I remember from the first flood, when my younger daughter was a baby then, is just a shock to the system to physically be so attached to a mom and spend such a large quantity of the day with them, really, every minute except naptime. And to not be with them, this sudden, without any kind of transition, you know if you were going back to work and you would do a few hours of daycare and kind of transition into work, it’s just kind of like this shock of separation. But they really can’t be in the house. It’s not safe, and you really have to be there to help with the packing and the mitigation process. So for the baby, you see it. I remember with my daughter, with the first flood. I remember at night when I would come back, I remember her just trembling in my arms. I could have let go of her because she was holding onto me so tight. It is traumatic. That sudden separation. Even if they’re having fun. Even if- it was a good day, they got to play in the playground and they had a great time- it’s just a shocking separation. My older kids, my two girls, I think they have fun after a flood. It feels like a playdate every day. They are going to different people’s homes. And people are sending them toys and they’re getting- we’re usually health conscious, and they’re getting all sorts of candy and treats and you know I think for them those first few days after- it feels like visiting Grandma’s house or something. But there’s different opinions on this. I personally don’t want my kids to see the house right after. There’s so much out on the front lawn. You know, you’re trying to drag everything out that has water damage. So it’s all the furniture, the sofas and the beds, and a lot of their toys, anything that we didn’t put high enough. There’s a lot of things that we had lifted up, you know, put up as high as we could but because the quantity of water, the things that we had put it up on, to like, fell over in the water- so even our sofa, which was so heavy, it just toppled. Like it, you know, tipped over. You know our washer and drier tipped over. Our fridge and freezer tipped over. So a lot of the things, like I remember a box of Barbies. I felt like especially terrible- even though it’s something that is relatively easy to replace, we had gone through the work of making sure they were in a safe place, and then they ended up in the water anyway. So the first few days, it’s just very like, make the insurance claim and arrangements for the kids and find a place to stay, pack up the house, that’s pretty much it. It is exhausting. It is like a 72 hour a day kind of a job that you have to squeeze in, and I will say there’s some kind of survival instinct that takes over. At least for us. You know, I’ve seen friends who just lose it completely. They just can’t handle it. It feels like you can’t handle it, but you do. You just get through it, and there were so many people that helped us. You know, just everyone from really close friends who we have known for years to absolute strangers. Friends of friends of friends who heard about this family. And you know it is especially- with the floods I have become especially aware of how important it is to be part of a community. The school that my kids are at- they are at Torah Day School. I cannot even describe what like the mothers of that school have done for my family. From, someone packed snacks for my kids when school started up. Someone was in charge of their lunches. They had new backpacks and new lunch bags, and you know they didn’t feel the loss of- you know, they were able to be protected from the feeling of loss. There was so much support. One of the other things I remember, I had put up a picture on Facebook of the baby’s changing table on the front lawn with all the garbage. And like within minutes someone sent a message being like, “I have a changing table for you!” and like she sent a picture and you know it’s on indefinite loan until we don’t need it anymore. Our community- we are part of Meyerland Minyan, it’s an Orthodox synagogue. We have been a part of it since before we got married. And it’s a really special place. It’s not your typical- it’s not a typical synagogue. You know, the rabbi is Orthodox, most of the people are, but there’s a wide range of people who drive, who don’t, and you know one of the things I love about it is that my kids get to live an observant Jewish lifestyle, but they get to see lots of different types of Jews and they get to understand that there’s a wide range of people out there, and I think that brings a certain richness, as opposed to everybody looking the same and doing the same thing. I like them to have that exposure. The rabbi and rebbetzin are just very warm, they don’t feel distant, they feel like close friends and they are- they’ve been with us with along every step of this, and you know this was the first time that our shul was affected so significantly. The first two floods, it was really- of our community, it was really just a few streets that were affected, so the shul lost a few families along the way. The first flood, there was a pretty active family that we were close with, and they had a one-story house on Braeswood, and they spent the night in the dark with their two very young kids and their dogs on mattresses piled up high, not knowing when the water was going stop coming in, going higher and higher, going closer to the top mattress, and they never moved back to that house. They bought a house in Fondren, and I don’t know if they sold that house or if they’ve been renting it out, but they just never returned. So that was a very significant loss because we were close with them, and you know when it’s a small shul everybody is really needed. We felt that. But for the most part, with those first floods, there were really only a few families affected. So it didn’t really shake the shul in the same way. This time, I don’t know the percentage or anything of how many people, but it was so many and it just-we go there and stay with friends now and we went there for Rosh Hashanah and we go every few weeks, when we can. And it is really small now, and it is sad to see because it is such a special place and there is so much learning going on there, and growth, and it is just is so small now. And it is painful to see that. And anyways so it was just in the days after it was just relying on a lot of help, and it was a stress like I can’t even describe, you know, it’s not- you know, after I- I remember after having my first baby I felt like a lot of stress with the lack of sleep, and I couldn’t stay on top of the housework, and that was stress, but this is an entirely different planet kind of stress. Like, there’s so many levels to it. And the emotional toll that it takes- beyond even the financial aspect of it- it’s so draining to rebuild and then it just gets ruined again and then rebuild and then- I have a friend who came to visit once after we had already somewhat settled in our temporary rental, and she sat on the sofa and she said, “Renee, you have had so many sofas in the last three years!” I don’t- I want to- I can’t even remember them all. And it’s just constantly starting over, that’s what it feels like. And so much gets lost in the shuffle, like I had saved meticulously. My older daughter was the first and at the time the only girl granddaughter so my mom bought her the most amazing clothes. Just the most gorgeous stuff. And I remember, I always packed it away, so organized because I hoped that one day I would have another little girl and it’s like, I don’t even know where that stuff is. I can’t even put my hands on it. So we just missed a bunch of those sizes with each of the floods, so- you know, it all works out. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal, but I can’t find stuff. That’s like a constant thing. Each flood. Just finding a nail clipper. You just have to keep buying this stuff because when so many people are helping you pack you don’t know where anything is because what you would think would be an obvious way to label something someone else has a different way that they think is an obvious way to pack it or label it and so that is one of the challenging things, is just finding stuff. Like when winter comes and it’s cold and, you know, I just bought new coats for everybody. I couldn’t start digging around in all the boxes beyond the amount of time I already spent doing that. So that’s how that went.
PDH: Renee, you talked a little bit about Meyerland Minyan and the community you described is a really close community. I would like to hear more about that. And also, what it’s like- you lost a few families. Meyerland Minyan lost a few families, and it’s so small now. I wanted to know, are they returning? Do you see Meyerland Minyan going back to the community that it was before, and I just want to know you are not in your home now, we are sitting here in your rental house in Fondren. Do you plan to go back? You mentioned you wanted to leave the scene of the flooding. I mean, are you going to stay in Meyerland?
RC: So, even before all the flooding, my particular community was dealing with an issue that the price of the homes were going up. So what was happening was people who love the shul and were part of the community wanted to start having a family and wanted to move out of the apartments and into a house. And the homes in Meyerland, the prices were just starting to go up at that point, and it was becoming more challenging to afford a home there. Just as it was becoming very clear that there were much cheaper homes available in Fondren. So that had kind of started as a trend, even before the flooding. With the floods, I can’t- there’s really only a few families that I can think of, [that were affected] by the first two. One was the one I mentioned before, they had young kids that just- in a first floor house, they were done, you know? It was just too traumatic. There’s another family, an older couple, their kids are already moved out, they had already flooded before. I don’t remember if it was Tropical Storm Alison, but they had been through it before. So they moved into apartments, they didn’t need the space, and they’re part of another community now. So this time most of the people are coming back, because most of the people, Harvey was their first flood, and they’ve already seen Memorial Day and Tax Day and they know that most likely, unless there’s some crazy weather pattern, where things like Harvey become normal, they have a good chance of not flooding if it’s just a regular Memorial Day/ Tax Day scenario. The friends that we stayed with immediately after Memorial Day and Tax Day, they flooded, this time. You know, that whole street flooded this time. And those particular friends, they are already in the process of rebuilding and repairing. Across the street, they’re repairing, they’re almost done. Our neighbors I mentioned before two doors down, they had actually had gotten the 2015 grant to elevate. They are still not elevated. It is mind-boggling that in 2018 they are still not elevated. They are almost done with all of their repairs. She kind of did her, after Memorial Day and Tax Day, whatever she did, she made it so that she could do the fastest turnaround possible, which a lot of people are doing now. When they do repairs, is thinking you know, picking spots of the house where they just don’t put in insulation because they just don’t want to have to tear out in that area. You know, people are putting up different kinds of materials than just traditional sheetrock. Everybody who has the slightest bit of common sense is putting in tile floor. I get frustrated when people are like, “Well, you know, I like the way wood feels more.” Well, you know, like that’s- in terms of the repair process, flooring is one of the most time-consuming things. So you kind of- you’re going to have an awful second flood if you put in wood floor a second time. But that’s just one of those things. So our neighbors are definitely coming back- when I say back in their house, they are already back in their house and almost everyone I can think of who flooded this time just repaired. Because like I said, if I, you know, if Harvey was your first flood, we’ll know in a few years if this is just the weather pattern now, and we’re going to have this kind of thing again and again, or if that was just one crazy time and you know expect a Memorial Day. I don’t give too much credit for any kind of work that the city is doing on the bayous. I would not count on that to really make a difference- maybe for the people who just get an inch or two in their house, that might help, but for those of us who are getting more than a foot of water, I don’t think it is really going to make a huge impact. For us, we did not want to be in Meyerland immediately after the flood. There were people who tried to help us. In other words, in Fondren if the rent was $1700 but in Meyerland a not-flooded house was $2200, there were people from the community who offered to subsidize the difference so that we would stay in Meyerland. You know, we are both very involved in our shul. David does a lot. He checks the eruv. The eruv is kind of like, the way that allows people within the community to carry on Shabbos. It is one of the things in a community that makes it possible- it’s really- really, it’s nice for women. Because when you have a kid who is not walking yet, you don’t want to be isolated at home, you want to be able to leave. So that’s like, at its most basic level, you can, you know, push the kids in the stroller and carry kids- that’s like at the baseline. That’s what I would say is the most important thing. But it’s also being able to carry something like your key. Or food to someone else’s house. You know, if you’re joining them for lunch, that kind of thing. It is largely a convenience thing, but it makes it nicer for young families with young kids to be included and part of the community. So he’s involved with that, he’s on the board. He helps out with, you know, the davening, the prayers, so our absence is felt. And when it’s a small community, just us not being there- each family that’s not there. You feel it. But we are both very active, so there was an effort made to get us to rent there as opposed to here. We went for Rosh Hashanah, which was the first time going back on a holiday. David had been going on different weeknights, just regular men daven with a minyan three times a day, so whenever he could he had been going three times a week, but we hadn’t gone as a family where we would need to like stay with other people because we wouldn’t be driving, so Rosh Hashanah was the first time and I was very unhappy to be there to see all the devastation that was still there. There were heaps of everybody’s lives in front of their homes still, all the smell was still there, and it’s just, it’s depressing. You know with your own family, all the memories that are associated with different objects. And I get that it’s just objects. And you make new memories with different objects. It’s not the objects that are important, it’s just what they’re associated with. But, yeah, there’s something awful about seeing a crib out in front of someone’s house. Or the kids toys or things like that. I really was so sad to be in that area but I was so happy to be with our community because it is just a warm place. You know, most of us, either it’s parents whose kids live far away, or kids whose parents live far away, so we are all like family. And the same way you would miss your family that’s across the country, it’s hard to be separated from your community because these are- you know, my kids call the neighbors two doors down, Aunt Holly and Uncle Elliot, and you know for all practical purposes they would never know that they aren’t blood related. They really feel like an aunt and uncle. It was good to be with everyone, but it was still too much- the trauma of the flood was still very apparent. Largely, it’s the garbage piles. That’s just- all the furniture and everyone’s stuff. That was just overwhelming. When it was just our couple of streets, with the other floods, it didn’t feel as bad, even though I was one of the people who flooded, the neighborhood was still very much alive. But with Harvey it was overwhelming. I am glad that we were able to be in another neighborhood during the recovery process. That being said, I am so ready to go home now. With Harvey, I knew there was no way I was going to live in that house now until it was lifted up. That became very apparent. Because it was just too draining to do this again. I know there are people who have gone back with a third flood. But to me, especially with young kids, I am not doing this again. I am so done with that. At that point, for the last few months, we have been trying to make a decision based on a variety of factors. One is the value of the house. We bought our house for just around $300,000. Before Memorial Day it was in the high 400s, after Memorial Day, back down to what we paid for it. But we’ve already put on all new siding, all new plumbing, so when you just look at the numbers, we have put so much into that house, and for what we would be selling at lot value, if we wanted to stay in Meyerland, we would not be able to buy a never flooded home now. Because those have just gone up. So we’d be walking away with like, we’d be lucky if we got $300,000 for that house, as is. But just to buy in that area, we would not be able to with the money we’d get out of it. So we were looking at that. Just until recently- this is February. When I say recently, it was last Friday, we got our insurance proof of loss. So we did not know how much we would be getting in terms of insurance. It makes it very difficult to make a decision about what to do in terms of repairs, not repairs, lifting, not lifting, selling as is- that was its own kind of stress, just not knowing what that would be. And then the other factor is the feeling of the community in Fondren verses Meyerland. So Fondren is much larger. Fondren has Chabad, Young Israel and Beit Rambam. As the Orthodox communities. So a lot of our friends from the last 12, 13 years have moved to Fondren over time like I said when they wanted to buy homes, they are just much more affordable in this area. So we do have a fair amount of friends here, but it is so large, I don’t really feel their presence, do you know what I mean? And if David is tired and wants to sleep in on Shabbos, no one is going to care or know if he doesn’t go to shul. If we don’t come for a week to shul at Meyerland Minyan, there will be concern. Like, “Are you guys okay? Do you need soup?” It’s a very apparent thing when it is such a small community. But here nobody really knows, or because they don’t know, they wouldn’t care, you know? And on top of that, there are so many New Yorkers that have moved in here because of the cost of living in Houston versus the Northeast, that it’s losing that Houston Jewish community feeling, to me. That’s how it feels for me. It’s just like, there’s all these New Yorkers, which I can say because I am from that area. But it just doesn’t have the same kind of warmth, it’s just so much larger. Sometimes that’s really nice, when you are in a small community, when there’s a party, expect that you’re going to have a job at the party. You are going to have to do something, whether it’s grocery shopping or sitting at a table and taking entry money and giving out tickets, you are going to have a job. Versus just showing up and being one of the many faces there. So sometimes that’s harder. But the difference is the warmth of something so small and tight-knit and everybody knowing everybody and it sounds like Cheers to me, but it is special. And my kids have grown up in our shul. You know the shul moved. The shul used to be right by the old HEB. Right near my house. I didn’t even have to pack a diaper bag. I could just take the kids home and change them there. And then after the first two floods, there was a huge fundraising effort, and one very generous donor on top of all the other fundraising, who bought a property, now on the Belden’s side, it’s over by Fioza. And that’s where Meyerland Minyan is now. So that actually has helped in terms of the flood is just that the shul didn’t need to be fixed. And it was able to be used as a place where people could go to pick up all the bedding that different Jewish communities across the country sent. There were buses of food. Not buses, trucks of food sent. Diapers and wipes and everything that was challenging to get, there was a big effort from, I guess the New Jersey/ New York area of kosher food that was sent right after, and the Dallas community provided meals for weeks after the flood to the kosher community here. Every holiday meal was sent. Which is incredible when you think of the expense and the time and the effort involved in that. So over the last few months we were able to get some clarity on what we wanted in terms of what our preference was, and while I don’t want to be around the flooding, even if our house is elevated, and lifted up out of it, I think it will be really awful to see that devastation annually, if not even more often than once a year. And to always have the stress of getting our cars into a safe place, and I think that will be hard but when I look at the alternative I would rather be there with a rabbi who knows my kids’ names and how old they are and what their interests are, and he knows who David and I are as people and if we come to him with a question or we need help making a decision, he knows the context and the background, and he knows our families and the fact that my kids can walk into a place and it feels like a second home to them, what that gives them, to me it’s worth it. And so we are planning on getting our house elevated. We signed a contract with Planet 3 a couple of weeks ago.
PDH: Mazel tov!
RC: Thank you! I just saw the sign for the first time, they put it in yesterday. I actually cried a little bit when I saw it because, just like everything that it means. And it feels amazing to have a plan. I am not a “Let’s just see what happens!” kind of a gal. I like a plan. And it’s been really hard between not having an insurance proof of loss and just not having enough information to make a decision. That same realtor friend who drove me around to look at rentals right after Harvey, so that same friend she spoke with us a few months ago and helped us look at what the price of homes that were going for in Meyerland that were not flooded and what people who sell right now at lot value, their flooded homes are getting, and we were able to get some clarity in terms of the actual numbers to help us make our decision. There’s layers to why we are staying and lifting, but definitely the financial component is one. It is a huge amount of money to lift the house. It is still less than what we would be losing if we sold now. Which paying mortgage and rent, you don’t want to hold onto a house that you can’t live in for too long. It feels really good to just be able to make a decision, and I really can say I want to move on as fast as possible. I have done the whole mourning process, and I have felt the awfulness of it, and I don’t want to live there. I don’t want to live in that negative place. I just want to get from Step A to Step B and my kids will still, they still get sad about not being in the house and things they can’t find, or that they lost, toys that we haven’t replaced yet, that kind of thing, but it is so good just to be able to say, “Well, this time next year we’ll be in our house, and we’ll be high up” and just to have that to be able to say to them, as opposed to, “You know, I’m really sad, too and I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.” So it has changed the whole mindset of we’re not just sitting and waiting and we are not in limbo. We have a plan. We have to get a whole lot of money together, but it is a plan. And it makes a huge difference, just psychologically, just to be able to work towards that.
PDH: Why doesn’t Meyerland Minyan just pick up and move?
RC: Because we’re smaller it is not impossible, but there are enough people who own homes who did not flood who do not want to move. And I think that’s largely a financial thing. There’s at least two families who built new homes since all the codes have changed about how high a house needs to be elevated to build a foundation from. So those are already two families, which are at most- there are like 30 active families, and of that there are even fewer that are active on a regular, daily to weekly basis. Two of the- these are very active families- have these new beautiful homes that they’ve built. They’re not going to want to sell. There’s enough other people who have homes that are not flooded. On top of that, I guess it’s two years ago, the shul itself- the community- bought a property. And the property is safe. It is a gorgeous, beautiful shul now that really a lot was put into it. And it was with the understanding that the community would grow and eventually thrive. So now it would be even harder to move. A few years ago, back during the first flood, that was a rental space. It was a rental space, you know Bricksmore owns that HEB property. So renting was never a comfortable situation because the rent could always go up and they could at any point say, “We need this other… we don’t want to renew the contract.” That was never a really safe option, long term, so that would have been an easier time to move, but now there has been this huge investment in an actual owned property. I don’t think it’s realistic after all that expense to sell it and walk away.
PDH: Let’s talk about the future of Meyerland. Do you think Meyerland is still going to be a Jewish area?
RC: Meyerland in general, not Meyerland the shul. So, I think that as long as the JCC stays there, it will always stay a Jewish community. I like living near the JCC. I like that I can drop my kid off for a 30-minute swim lesson, run home, change the laundry, go back and pick her up. I like that. My kids are excited to go. When I say, “We’re going to the JCC!” It’s a fun, happy place. And it’s good to grow up knowing that you are part of something larger. The Jewish community itself is so small. We are such a tiny fraction of the larger population and, religious or not, we have things that make us different and we are separate. Whether observant or not observant, there are distinct, separate differences. And I think it is really good to have that feeling of being part of something larger. And I love that to me the JCC is a lot of the appeal of Meyerland. And I like that when we’re walking from shul to our house or from our house to another house, that people, like random people that are sitting out on their front lawn or doing yard work and obviously don’t keep Shabbos, will yell out, “Shabbat Shalom!” Or something like that. I love that feeling. And I like seeing, during Hannukah time, to drive by and seeing everyone’s Hannukiahs by the window and I like- you know, I think it is special. We go off into this world where you could be the only person working in an office who is Jewish and having to explain why you do things differently and this or that. I think it’s great that my kids, despite all the flooding- and let’s not joke, it’s awful stuff, despite that I love the feel of growing up in a community like that.
PDH: Do you think other young, Jewish families are still going to be attracted to Meyerland? Or do you think they will be deterred by the flooding?
RC: For sure it will deter. That being said, it is crazy to say with the flooding, it is an ideal location in terms of the Medical Center, the proximity. And easy access to get onto 610. I worked in Greenway Plaza and it was an easy commute to work and it’s a- I think between the location and the public schools, I think a lot of people still- you can kind of see it based on the prices of the homes, specifically the not-flooded homes- it still is a desirable place to live. I think that we’ll know soon. In a few years, we’ll know very soon. But when you drive on North Braeswood and you see some of these monster mansions that are being built, I think that it- there is a lot of potential for the neighborhood to still attract.
PDH: Jews and non-Jews?
RC: Jews and non-Jews, but, like I said, there’s a connection to the JCC. Because it’s really a desirable option for a lot of things. Whether it’s the gym or kids’ classes or community events. Things like book fair or Israeli Independence Day. As long as that stays in Meyerland, it still will bring people that want to live near that. Now, if we have a flood every year and this is like 10 years in, I think that could change. If we get a break, like when we moved here it was right after Tropical Storm Allison and I remember looking at an apartment complex and everything smelled kind of fumey, new everything and the paint smell and this and that and I remember them saying, “Yeah, we recently flooded and then we rebuilt.” And then I had lived here for so many years, and I had never seen a flood. I had never been here for a flood before Memorial Day and I was here during Hurricane Ike. And there were some trees that were down and there were roofs that were damaged, but it was not this overwhelming, devastating loss. If something like that could happen- Meyerland is used to that! I wasn’t here for it, but it sounds like there have been floods, every few years, it’s just there were long enough stretches that people were like, “Oh! I could buy a house for this price because it flooded 10 years ago? Great!” Which is, you know my neighbor that bought 2 doors down, she bought a house knowing it had flooded before. But it had flooded years before, and it was beautifully redone, and it was like, “Wow! I could buy a house for that price in Meyerland, just because if flooded this many years ago! That sounds good!” If you don’t see it, now I think there is more of an awareness because it affected so many people and it was on the news and everyone has a friend who was affected by it, so I think there is a more general awareness. And when you drive by and you see a house for sale and it’s a never-flooded house, it says it in huge letters. It’s better than a pool! It’s never flooded! I think we’ll see over time if this is just a weather change, and we have to accept that this- either move out, or deal with the constant flooding, or we can go a nice, long stretch. I personally, as someone who has flooded three times in three years, I think that this is something we should anticipate now. Like, I think this is how it’s going to be. You either sell, lift, or work out psychologically how you are going to be able to just turn around. Yesterday I was at my house getting the mail, and I spoke to my neighbor and this is a situation where the wife had passed away, the husband remarried, and then he passed away, and he left the house to his wife for her to live in it, and then the kids. So she flooded Memorial Day, repaired and went back. And then after Tax Day she moved into an apartment for good, and now his kids are living there. One of the sons, so the grandkids are living in the house. So I was talking to the son, and he is a contractor, so he was able to do a quick turn around each of the times because he has his own tile guy and this guy and whatever. And this time he rebuilt for it to flood again. Like, he put hearty backer on the walls and it’s the kind of thing you would stick in a shower. But he knows how to do it, and it looks nice. For where you would normally put wood molding, for decorative molding, he used plastic. But it’s painted and it looks the same. And if it is just a few inches, like Tax Day, they don’t even have to do anything. He used styrofoam insulation. They just let it dry out and they’re good to go. If it is Harvey, then he would have to do work on it. He said, “If the house really floods, like we are talking a foot or more of water, like I would just knock it down at that point.” And it is a gorgeous house, you know what I mean? It’s like when I was pricing out the idea, when I was thinking what makes the most sense financially? Like if you take away the “this community or that community,” like what makes the most sense financially? When you think about demolishing one of these homes- Look, not every home in Meyerland is amazing. But on our street they were custom built, they were beautiful homes. Any time I have ever had to have any work done, the people always come and they’re like, “This was built so beautifully!” They made it- it’s a special house, it’s not just a regular- you know, maybe everyone thinks that about their house, I don’t know. But yeah, I can say that about my neighbors. When they say, “Yeah, I’ll have to demolish it, I can’t keep doing this.” They own the house fully. When you think of family by family, all the factors that go into it, who has a mortgage and who doesn’t have a mortgage, and how much do you feel your mortgage? Like, for us, we feel our mortgage. It is a significant amount of what is coming in monthly is going out towards mortgage. So when you own a house outright and you’re done with the mortgage, that can help, that frees you up to think in other ways but yeah, when you hear about a beautiful house being demolished, it’s not something to be taken lightly, it’s really, it’s a special place.
PDH: You mentioned the JCC a few times. You’re talking about the Jewish Community Center on South Braeswood?
RC: Yes.
PDH: You mentioned swim lessons and day care. But none of the things you mentioned are particularly Jewish, certainly not religious. What do you think the JCC offers in terms of Jewishness and resiliency of culture?
RC: That’s a really interesting thing and I probably would not have thought of that if you hadn’t said that. We do so much Jewishly, like every minute of our lives, that I don’t think of the Jewish community as a place to do Jewish stuff. In other words, my kids are in a Jewish school. My husband and I are, all day long, whether it is praying or learning, or whatever it is, we are constantly connected Jewishly. So if you eat a food and you say a blessing on it before you eat it, you have that constant Jewish connection. And the vast majority of my friends are Jewish. And we have a very strong Jewish identity religiously as well. It is part of the structure of our day, from the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep. For me, the Jewish community is not a place where I go to do religious things. To me, the Jewish community I see – it might serve that purpose for other people. I don’t see our particular JCC- and it is probably just proportionate to the makeup of the actual Houston Jewish community. It’s not really an Orthodox environment. What I mean is – I took my baby to a fun Shabbat, sing along thing on a Friday morning. It is saying a blessing with Hashem’s name in it, just as like a fun song, and things like that. Which I wouldn’t normally do. I think it is fine. I think it is a fun thing for kids, and I love that Jewish people can come together and do that. I don’t- it’s not my personal comfort level. To me, I wouldn’t use Hashem’s name, unless you are really actually doing the thing that you are saying the blessing for. For me, the JCC- why I would prefer that as opposed to a YMCA or a- whatever, a general community, like there’s the Bellaire Rec Center or something like that. So why the JCC is more appealing to me is I like to be part of the Jewish community. So it is a comfort thing. As I said before, I like my kids to grow up feeling like they’re part of something because I know from personal experience there will come a time where you’re the other. Where you eat different foods and you dress differently and you have different holidays. And depending on what you do as a job and where you live, it can be overwhelming to be the only one, or to constantly have to be the representing one. It can be very challenging. I love for kids, especially, but even as grown-ups, but I really love for them to be a part of something they- where what they are doing is normal, and they are not constantly having to explain it, and that’s a lot of it. That’s what is largely appealing to me. And there are certain things that are culturally Jewish that I like about the JCC. Things like Book Fair. Or, I forget. The Film Festival. That is something that the JCC does that I appreciate. If it was farther away. As it is, since having kids I barely go to those things anyway. You know, the two events that I will go to, I like that it is so nearby. And I love annually, the Israeli Independence Day, the Yom Ha’atzmaut party and that kind of thing.
PDH: Before we wrap up, is there anything else you want to say?
RC: I can’t think of anything at the moment.
PDH: Thanks again. We are going to conclude the interview now.
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