I told my parents to come to Tyler as I was watching the news nonstop a few days before Hurricane Harvey. We'd ridden out a few hurricanes before, but I had a gut feeling that this one was going to be worse than the others. They said, "no, we'll be fine, we're just gonna barbecue and use the generator if the power goes out."

Harvey made landfall on Friday, August 25, and it was hitting Houston hard with rain by Saturday, August 26. And then it stalled. For days. I sat in Tyler with skies and streets dry as a bone as I watched so many familiar places in downtown Houston go underwater. My hometown of Kingwood was getting heavy rain, but it wasn't looking too bad yet. Sunday, August 27 through Tuesday, August 29, though, the Northeast Houston suburb experienced major flooding in many places -- floodwater was so high in our Town Center area (think main place for shops, groceries, restaurants, etc.) and at our high school that boats were able to go whatever speed they wanted down Kingwood Drive and West Lake Houston Parkway, as both had become lakes with lapping waves. It's so surreal to see places that you have so many memories attached to filled with floodwater. I saw countless Facebook posts from friends and neighbors about flooding in their homes, some of whom had to be evacuated by boat or helicopter.