Poor drainage leaves northeast Houston residents with full ditches, flooded homes after Beryl

Early Monday, Esmerelda Medina was startled awake to the sounds of wind and rain screaming outside her bedroom window. She pulled herself from under her sheets and immediately stepped into a puddle near the bed. Blearily she thought the dog’s water bowl had tipped over. If only.

Her bedroom floor was covered with about 6 inches of water. Tropical Storm Beryl – which had made landfall earlier in the morning as a Category 1 hurricane – had flooded her bedroom, her parents’ bedroom, the kitchen, the backyard, front yard and ditches at her family’s northeast Houston home.

She said the city had come by briefly to address the flooded ditch, but she didn’t see any difference.

West Street Recovery also would come by later to help the family. The organization offered a hotel, but Medina was concerned about leaving her place alone for the night.

“All we can do is wait for it all to dry,” she said.

In 2001, the city moved the responsibility of maintaining the open ditches from city crews to homeowners, leaving the ditches in primarily minority and lower-income neighborhoods without property maintenance for years. In response to that and other climate disasters, West Street Recovery and Northeast Action Collective created resiliency hubs throughout communities for residents to find resources and assistance in times of need.

Regina Johnson, also in northeast Houston, has one such hub – a recently built storage shed at the back of her property with supplies, ranging from  first aid kits, to fans and batteries. Throughout Monday, neighborhood residents stopped by to pick up supplies. Most in the community lost power after Beryl. Flooding was minor.

“Community members have been calling me all day for supplies,” Johnson said. “I just say we have it here, you can come here. We have snacks, we have water, we have air conditioning. Take a second.”

Vicky Solco, 60, and her husband Al James, 68, stopped by late afternoon, grabbing a fan, a battery and lantern. The couple’s home did not flood, but they said they are always worried about it and what kind of damage the storms can bring.

“It’s exhausting,” James said. “This just happening again and again.”