{"id":22,"date":"2017-12-03T16:46:17","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T16:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stories.kera.org\/after-the-flood\/?p=22"},"modified":"2017-12-18T20:08:18","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T20:08:18","slug":"harveys-deluge-forced-a-katrina-survivor-to-start-over-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/after-the-flood\/2017\/12\/03\/harveys-deluge-forced-a-katrina-survivor-to-start-over-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvey’s Deluge Forced A Katrina Survivor To Start Over Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hurricane Harvey \u2014 and the devastating rainfall that came with it \u2014 changed countless lives. Thousands of families were displaced \u2014 and some landed in North Texas. Since August<\/em>, more than a hundred of those families have decided to stay. For one woman, it’s not her first time to start over in a new city after weathering a major storm.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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‘Just water everywhere’<\/h5>\n

With five kids, Daphne Griffin says she’s always cooking and constantly cranking through piles of laundry. Those are two truths she can set her watch by, certainties she can count on.<\/p>\n

She never anticipated she’d have to uproot her life again. She evacuated her home in Beaumont ahead of Hurricane Harvey and didn’t move back. She did the same thing in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina destroyed her home in Lake Charles, Louisiana.<\/p>\n

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Daphne Griffin sits outside Walnut Hill Recreation Center in Dallas in August. Photo\/Courtney Collins<\/p><\/div>\n

“It was very terrifying,” she said. “Imagine just water everywhere, and you’re trying to pull a disabled person out of a home.”<\/p>\n

As the storm whipped across southern Louisiana, a tree crashed through the house, temporarily trapping Griffin and her then-husband inside. He was confined to a wheelchair, which was too wide for the only door they could use to get out.<\/p>\n

“So I had to actually get a twin-size bed mattress and lay him on it and pull him out the door,” she said.<\/p>\n

When she was stuck inside the house, she thought she might die.<\/p>\n

“I would rather risk dying saving him than dying not doing anything,” Griffin said.<\/p>\n

They made it to safety.<\/p>\n

After four months in a shelter, they moved into an apartment. Six months later, Griffin decided to leave Louisiana and relocate to Beaumont, where her parents live.<\/p>\n

Griffin lived her life, starting a family and building a catering business. She met someone new and got married.<\/p>\n

Scenes from Beaumont<\/h6>\n\n
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    Beaumont in November 2017. Photo\/Thorne Anderson<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    Debris is scattered in Daphne Griffin's Beaumont neighborhood in November 2017. Photo\/Thorne Anderson<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    Daphne Griffin's Beaumont neighborhood is filled with damaged homes and broken furniture. Photo\/Thorne Anderson<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    Beaumont homes still have tarps covering them three months after Harvey brought unprecedented flooding. Photo\/Thorne Anderson<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    Daphne Griffin's home sustained water damage from the storm. She came back to Beaumont to see if she could stay. She says she \"came home to nothing.\" Photo\/Thorne Anderson<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n