Idaho family evacuated days after moving to Houston
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MISSOURI CITY, Texas — She had just moved to Missouri City, Texas with her husband and five kids. Then Hurricane Harvey hit.
Cindy Peterson, an Idaho native, relocated with her family on Aug. 5. When news of the hurricane headed for Houston came in, they believed they were far enough out of its path. That all changed Sunday night.
“Our community Facebook page put out a notice from our county’s emergency management page that the river here by our community was supposed to peak at 59 feet,” Cindy Peterson told EastIdahoNews.com.
If the river were to reach that height, the levees would fail, flooding Peterson’s entire community. Peterson said they planned to evacuate voluntarily Monday morning because they could see the river rising.
“We were freaking out about that,” she said. “Our house is right by the levee. We could look out our window and see the levee.”
By the time they finished packing everything, moving furniture to the second story of their house and getting kids ready, the sheriff deputies were going around telling everyone they had to evacuate immediately. She said over 50 roadways were closed due to flooding, making evacuation difficult.
“There were two times when I just broke down crying after leaving our house because the road between our house and the kid’s school is one mile,” Peterson said. “That one mile was completely flooded. We had to drive up on the sidewalk with the bayou overflowing right next to us. The sidewalk had water on it but the road was completely full of water. We finally made it over by the school and the water was a little bit better so, we got back on the road. Driving out of the neighborhood was crazy.”
She said once they made it on to the freeway, they could look out the window and see parking lots completely flooded with cars totally submerged.
She said as they drove north on the freeway, water that flooded the southbound lanes was spilling over into the northbound lanes.
“It was getting flooded,” Peterson said. “We were just praying the whole time that we didn’t get swept away. It was probably a half mile that was so intense and crazy. Then I just started bawling again because I was so stressed.”
Peterson said once they made it out of the Houston area the roads finally cleared up.
“We made it,” she said. “We’re out. We’re good.”
Peterson said they plan to stay with family in Oklahoma and don’t know when they will be able to go back home again.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The author of this story is Cindy Peterson’s nephew