John Rocco lives in Kingwood Greens where 225 out of 225 homes flooded according to statistics compiled by the Kingwood Service Association. John is a man of few words. He let these images tell the story for him and sketched out a few details (see below). All images were taken after he was able to re-enter his home. I can only imagine his horror. It looks like his whole home was shaken, not stirred. But the home wasn’t the real tragedy.

Death and Destruction in the X-Zone

Said Rocco,  “I’m supposedly not in a flood plain (Zone X) and I did the research on the build up of the Greens area after the 1994 flood before buying here in 2015. My house was built in 2005. Before moving here, I lived on Scenic Shore in Kings Point since 2001.”

“My son lost his house in the Enclave as well as his business next to the FEDEX store. We restored both as well as my house. My neighbor and I rescued the 90-year-old next door just as the water was within an inch of covering her bed in her first floor master. She had no idea. Unfortunately, she died about 2 months later.” 

“My wife was suffering with stage 4 cancer. I had to carry her out of the house in waist deep water to a rescue boat that our son arranged to pick us up. She was in shock. She caught pneumonia twice,  spent time in the hospital. She passed away in May, 2018, nine months later. I’m not blaming the flood per se, but it certainly had an effect.”

“I will say this. I will not restore all this again if we don’t get appropriate actions to mitigate flooding problems.”

Directly Impacted by Mouth Bar

Thank you, John, for reminding our political leaders of the pain that thousands of residents suffered. The homes in Kingwood Greens, like those in Foster’s Mill, Kings Point, Kings River and Atascocita Point were directly impacted by the mouth bar.

A year and a half after Harvey, a year after Mayor Turner said the mouth bar would be removed, and six months after “everybody but Trump” met in Austin and agreed in principle to remove it, not one cubic yard has been removed.

Performance, Not Promises

As we head into another election season AND another hurricane season, we need to remind our elected officials that it’s time for performance, not promises.

Posted by Bob Rehak on March 14, 2019

562 Days after Hurricane Harvey