By Roger Cowles
For The Port Arthur News
Kristi Thompson of Bridge City didn’t want her mom, Libby Arnold of Nederland, to be home alone while the slow-moving remains of Hurricane Harvey were churning up the Texas coast, seemingly targeting the Texas-Louisiana border near Port Arthur.
The rain on Aug. 29, seemed to be the only thing that was constant about the storm. Ditches were filled and yards began to be flooded, but then the rain would back off to barely a drizzle and the pumps protecting Mid- and South Jefferson County would seem to catch up and the water levels would go down.
Then night fell.
The eye of the storm was within 20 miles of the coast, passing south of Sabine Pass in the early morning hours of Aug, 30. That’s when Libby Arnold began to hear a sound that struck fear in her soul.
“I started hearing water; water drops hit the water in the yard. I said, Lord, that’s not a good sound, because it’s not hitting ground, it’s hitting water. Honestly, it was a fear that came over me. Not a fear like oh my God I’m going to drown, and I didn’t think about my material things because I’m not a materialistic person. I mean I have what I need but I’m not looking for the best of everything,” Arnold said last week during an interview at her office at Community Care Prayer Outreach in Nederland, as she recounted her experience with the storm Harvey.
Despite the rain all day on Tuesday and the forecast for more rain and possible flash flooding, Arnold was determined to stay in the home she has lived in since 1970. She had never seen it flood.
“It kept raining and I said I really didn’t want to go anywhere. I don’t want to go anywhere,” she repeated. “I don’t think it will flood. I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
It was still dark early Wednesday when daughter Kristi went to the door and looked out into the yard that she has known all her life. She had never seen it like this.
“Mom, we have to leave,” she said.
“How are we going to leave?” Arnold replied, now beginning to understand that floodwaters were lapping at her door and beginning to come into the house.
“She wouldn’t tell me about the water until I said, ‘Kristy, the water’s coming in,’” Arnold said, remembering the sights and the emotions of that night.
“I was standing there watching it and this feeling of hopelessness just hit me like I’ve never had before,” she said.
“It was coming under the door. We were in the den and there’s two French doors back there. I was just standing there and she opened the door and said, ‘Mom, we’re in the middle of a lake,’ and then she said the water’s coming in. And we all of the sudden went to the front door and it was coming in the front door,” she said.
“I started crying and she said, ‘Mom, it’s OK.’”
Thompson’s home in Bridge City had been destroyed with six feet of water during Hurricane Ike. She got three feet from Harvey’s flood.
Arnold told her daughter she knew in her head that everything would be OK but her heart had a feeling of despair because she was not in control.
“It is a feeling of hopelessness, helplessness,” she said. “For a moment you think ‘Oh my God, it can take it away and even if it doesn’t take it away it’s going to be a life-changing situation for me.’ And that’s where I am. It’s a life changing situation,” Arnold said
They called Arnold’s other son in law, Winston Droddy, to come to their rescue.
“He’s got one of those big trucks. We went maybe about 10 blocks to get to their house. We went 10 miles and hour, and sometimes five. The water was so high. I could not believe the water,” Arnold said.
“It looked just like a black sea. Everywhere I looked it was a black sea. It was still dark outside. It was such a desperate feeling,” she said. “When I looked out my door it was like I was looking at something I wasn’t familiar with. That was the power of that water. The power of overtaking our normal lives and even the outside. I can see now why they say when it’s raining and it’s flooding don’t even go  outside. Stay in your house. You don’t know where the road ends where it starts and once you get in that water, I’m telling you that water, it was deep. It was definitely an experience I’m never going to forget.”
Arnold’s job as director of Community Care Prayer Outreach is to help other people in their time of need.
“I don’t who care who comes through that door, I don’t care what they look like. For them to step in this office, they’re in a desperate situation. I want them treated with kindness, with acceptance. I want them to come in here and know that we are different, that we care about them. That’s why we’re here,” she said. “Because you never know when you may be in that situation.”
Now she is living through the experiences that are common to many of those she’s helped at Community Care Prayer.
“Now I’m looking at a house that is totally in disarray inside. I’m waiting for adjusters. He did come and checked the outside. Then you see people coming in and ripping up carpeting, ripping up flooring. You’re just there and there’s just this feeling of helplessness. I was out of control and you know I don’t like that. It was very hard,” she said.
“I’m staying in my house because the water receded, but I didn’t go back real soon. I’m telling you there was no way I could go back in there,” she said. “I’ve got it cleaned up to where I can live in it.”
Arnold and Community Care Prayer helped people through Rita and Ike, and they stand ready to continue offering assistance in the wake of Harvey’s flooding. With all the help from sources like the Red Cross and other disaster response teams that have come to the area, the demand for help from Community Care Prayer Outreach has been reduced.
But she expects that it won’t be long until the outside help fades and the community will be left with local people helping local people.
“This is what I foresee from all my years here. All this help, all these meals, all these food stamps all the things that have been here are about to end. God is preparing us for when that goes away. That’s when we are really going to start seeing the rush (to local agencies) for help,” she said.
“This is like our calm before the storm.”