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August 24th, 2017 my husband, myself, and our then 9monthbold son, left Oregon with everything we could fit in my 2014 Kia Forte. We were on the road to our new home here in Houston.
Some ask why we decided to move THAT weekend, well, reason being, is wildfires were rapidly spreading in Northern California/southern Oregon at that time, and we had a very small window of getting out safely. So we left. At the same time, we were driving towards the hurricane, hoping to get to my fathers house before it was too late. I, myself drove the whole way due to my husband not having a license. 2 1/2 days of driving, we made it to Waco,Tx. We had planned to stay the night in Waco, (mind you, we only had $1,000 to our name for this move) I had budgeted just enough for one more stay if needed (and I was TIRED). I called my father, and he urged me to get to Houston as soon as possible. So we decided to continue driving. Well as we got closer, we were notified of road closers, all the roads we needed to take to get to my fathers house off of Barker Cypress and Clay road. Closed.
It was 9:30pm and we were driving south on 45, and came to the 1960 exit, when we saw nothing but flashing lights, and water. I had to turn around (on the south side) and go north on a south bound lane. I ended up getting onto Luetta, and we drove to the Circle K at Luetta and TC Jester. We were stuck. I tried to go to 259(?) and hit water so high it came up over the hood of my car, but miraculously, I was able to flip in reverse and get up in a parking lot without my car stalling.
Somehow, by the grace of god, I was able to get to the comfort suites off 45, and waited for my dad.
My father is a 71 year old Uber driver, and while I was trying to find a way to him, he was trying to find his way to us. I have NEVER been more scared in my life. Somehow he made it to us. We had to drive North on southbound lanes, with water pushing concrete barriers against us. We probably broke 1,001 traffic laws that night, but he found us and guided us to his house safely.
That next morning, on the news, the gas station we were at, WAS 14 feet UNDER WATER!!!!!
I don’t know how we made it, but we did. And thankfully my fathers neighborhood didn’t flood!
It was definitely a move we will never forget!
Some ask why we decided to move THAT weekend, well, reason being, is wildfires were rapidly spreading in Northern California/southern Oregon at that time, and we had a very small window of getting out safely. So we left. At the same time, we were driving towards the hurricane, hoping to get to my fathers house before it was too late. I, myself drove the whole way due to my husband not having a license. 2 1/2 days of driving, we made it to Waco,Tx. We had planned to stay the night in Waco, (mind you, we only had $1,000 to our name for this move) I had budgeted just enough for one more stay if needed (and I was TIRED). I called my father, and he urged me to get to Houston as soon as possible. So we decided to continue driving. Well as we got closer, we were notified of road closers, all the roads we needed to take to get to my fathers house off of Barker Cypress and Clay road. Closed.
It was 9:30pm and we were driving south on 45, and came to the 1960 exit, when we saw nothing but flashing lights, and water. I had to turn around (on the south side) and go north on a south bound lane. I ended up getting onto Luetta, and we drove to the Circle K at Luetta and TC Jester. We were stuck. I tried to go to 259(?) and hit water so high it came up over the hood of my car, but miraculously, I was able to flip in reverse and get up in a parking lot without my car stalling.
Somehow, by the grace of god, I was able to get to the comfort suites off 45, and waited for my dad.
My father is a 71 year old Uber driver, and while I was trying to find a way to him, he was trying to find his way to us. I have NEVER been more scared in my life. Somehow he made it to us. We had to drive North on southbound lanes, with water pushing concrete barriers against us. We probably broke 1,001 traffic laws that night, but he found us and guided us to his house safely.
That next morning, on the news, the gas station we were at, WAS 14 feet UNDER WATER!!!!!
I don’t know how we made it, but we did. And thankfully my fathers neighborhood didn’t flood!
It was definitely a move we will never forget!
Creator
Mikaela Barrett
Title
A memorable Move
Type
personal narratives
Language
en
Rights
This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
Source
This item was contributed via the Harvey Memories Project "Contribute an Item" form.
Date Created
2018-08-24
Date Submitted
2018-08-24
Date Available
2018-08-24
Temporal Coverage
start=2017-08-24; end=2017-08-26; scheme=ISO 8601;