These South Houston Seniors Still Don’t Have Electricity

Meadowcreek Village is one of those friendly neighborhoods where aging residents suddenly find themselves in distress.

While large swaths of the city have been restored, parts of Meadowcreek Village remain in the dark. Residents are approaching their ninth day without power, and with little communication with CenterPoint, with a growing sense of concern that lives are suddenly at risk in this cozy community on the border of Pasadena and south Houston.

“My main concern is our senior citizens,” said Norma Villarreal, who has lived at Meadowcreek Village since 2017. “We have a lot of seniors here. Some are battling cancer, some are on various medications. I worry with this heat, I just don’t want anything to happen to them.”

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On Tuesday, Villarreal stood outside the home of Irby White, a 94-year-old Air Force veteran and unofficial patriarch of the community. Nearby was Carol Vaughn, another longtime resident of the neighborhood and secretary of the Meadowcreek Village Civic Club.

The three men often gather in White’s backyard to listen to his war stories. He joined the Army shortly after World War II, and his service took him to many countries. He said he witnessed numerous atomic bomb tests, saw the first hydrogen bomb explode over the Marshall Islands in 1952, and survived 48 hours in the Alaskan wilderness as part of a survival training exercise.

“I don’t feel comfortable, but I’m not under pressure,” White said with a dismissive wave of his hand. But Villarreal and Vaughn worry about his health, his home and the tight-knit community they’ve built in his backyard.

“I don’t want to say it’s worrisome, but I worry about my neighbors, and especially Mr. White,” Villarreal said. “He helps us make things a little bit better. Mr. White makes us laugh, he tells amazing stories that keep us on the positive side. I hate to think about losing that. I hate to think about losing my home.”

Power outages are a recurring problem in the area, Villarreal said. Unlike many people who live in Houston, the trio’s apartment block was without power for several hours before Hurricane Beryl. Their power went out around 1 p.m. Sunday, and except for a brief period when it came back on before the storm hit, it has been out ever since.

Vaughn, who is in her 60s, said she and others in the neighborhood have tried multiple times to reach CenterPoint, but so far the company has not provided a concrete timeline for when power will be restored. This problem didn’t start with Beryl, either. She said CenterPoint vehicles have always been scarce in Meadowcreek Village.

“They refuse to trim our trees. They refuse to come here and fix some of the lines that are hanging in people’s yards,” Vaughn said. “And then they want all this money. Their CEOs and CFOs are already paid millions.”

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But Beryl’s power outage is just the beginning of the problems facing Vaughn and her community. Meadowcreek Village, she says, has seen better days. Squatters have taken over vacant homes, the local park is unmowed and underutilized, Berry Bayou — the backbone of the neighborhood — has eroded and threatens to consume the yards of adjacent properties.

The aftermath of the storm only makes the area more attractive to vagrants and troublemakers, neighbors said.

The smiles of Vaughn, Villarreal and White evoke Meadowcreek Village’s happier years. But today, the picture of the community that’s emerging includes cracked sidewalks, potholes and dead power lines hanging over the neighborhood’s homes.

“I wouldn’t have lived here for 49 years if it wasn’t pretty good,” White said.