Harvey: This is probably the worst US flood storm ever; I’ll never be the same
Enlarge / Houston, on Monday, basically all across the city. (credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Saturday August 25 marks the one-year anniversary of the Texas landfall of Hurricane Harvey. Alongside Hurricane Katrina, it ranks as the costliest hurricane on record for the United States. Revisiting this story now, as another slow-moving hurricane pounds the Hawaiian islands with heavy rainfall and life threatening flooding, seems both appropriate and unfortunate at the same time. As such, we're resurfacing this first-person account from Ars' Houston-based space guru, Eric Berger. The piece originally ran on August 30, 2017 and appears unchanged below.
HOUSTON-Lightning crashed all around as I dashed into the dark night. The parking lot outside my apartment building had become swollen with rains, a torrent about a foot deep rushing toward lower ground God knows where. Amazingly, the garage door rose when I punched the button on the opener. Inside I found what I expected to find-mayhem.
In dismay, I scooped up a box of books that had been on the floor. As I did, one of the sodden bottom flaps gave way, and a heavy book splashed into the water: From Dawn to Decadence, a timeless account of the Western world's great works by Jacques Barzun. Almost immediately, a current from the rushing water beyond the garage door pulled the tome away, forever. Damn, I loved that book. An indescribably bad night had just gotten that little bit worse.
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