Healing From Harvey

After two days, the stubborn rain had transformed my parents’ backyard into a small lake that linked the neighboring houses. Although we still had three feet to go before the water reached our back door, we hurriedly barricaded it with duct tape, sand bags, and scrap wood and swiftly moved our most prized possessions upstairs. Outside the rain tirelessly drummed on the leaves, the frogs croaked wildly, and the crickets sung in unison. Despite being deceitfully serene, this wild orchestra was the overture to the torrential waters that inundated thousands of homes and invaded people’s lives; and because the highways into Houston were underwater, I would helplessly watch the devastation unfold from the comfort of my parents’ living room.

The severity of the situation became apparent that afternoon, when news broke that Ben Taub, the beloved County hospital where I trained, was beginning to flood and the menacing waters made patient evacuation impossible. Ben Taub Hospital’s wonderfully diverse patient population and passionate faculty make it a sacred place for learning for Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) medical students, so the announcement was heartbreaking for all of us. We received numerous emails from our deans urging us to stay home and reiterating that only essential emergency personnel were allowed in BCM’s affiliated hospitals. Feeling intensely uneasy sitting on the sidelines as my city drowned, and knowing that my classmates felt the same, I created The Baylor College of Medicine Harvey Relief Facebook Group, which became a platform for the BCM community to communicate relevant news and coordinate Harvey relief efforts.

More than 300 students and residents joined overnight and the group took on a life of its own. Although I wrote a daily post that consolidated donation requests from shelters, reported road conditions, and volunteer requests, I was amazed—but not surprised—that many of my classmates became proactive leaders. As group members visited the different shelters in the city, they reported back on needs for volunteers and calls for specific donations. Those with large trucks collected donations for shelters and carpooled with members without the means to navigate the high waters. Joniqua Ceasar, a BCM medical student doing a research year in Maryland, created a comprehensive, 15-page Harvey resource guide that neatly outlined everything from open pharmacies, to mental health services, to emergency numbers, and more. When the group grew to over 600 volunteers that same day, I contacted Dr. Joseph S. Kass, Dean of Student Affairs, and Dr. Jerry Clay Goodman, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education, to suggest that we recruit the BCM Harvey Relief Group’s members to help clean up the homes of affected BCM families.

By the following day we had set up a team of student leaders, deans, and administrators that became the structure for BCM’s Harvey relief efforts, which we named Healing From Harvey. I wrote a “Needs Assessment Questionnaire” that was distributed school wide that identified individuals in need of shelter, donations, and/or help cleaning up their homes. With the help of Justin Cardenas, MS4 Student Body President, we simultaneously started organizing the Harvey Cleanup Crews, which were composed of 5-10 BCM students, residents, faculty, and employees. Given the inherent risk of sending volunteers with little or no manual labor experience into flooded homes, we did our best to manage that risk. All volunteers were asked to read the American Red Cross guide, “Repairing Your Flooded Home,” and with funding from the Office of the President, Emilie Warren, Student Senate Vice-Chair, set up a supplies corner in the student lounge where volunteers gathered N95 masks, gloves, ear and eye protection, and tools before going to their assigned jobsite. Within twenty-four hours of the water receding we had requests for home cleanup and more than 20 Harvey Cleanup Crews ready to work.

Driving through affected neighborhoods after the storm was overwhelming. Oftentimes every single home was torn apart, their front lawns cluttered with soaked carpets, deteriorating drywall, and beautiful furniture tarnished by muddy floodwaters. The Harvey Cleanup Crews helped expediently clean up over 50 homes in the days and weeks after the storm, restoring some normalcy into people’s lives after their immense loss. The homeowners frequently called me and texted me to express their gratitude and to boast about how their remarkable volunteers completed in one day what they alone could not have accomplished in weeks. As devastating as Harvey was, I had the privilege of witnessing first-hand the BCM community’s generosity in the face of adversity and how Houston began healing from Harvey with the help of diligent and talented individuals working together.