Do severe weather events like Beryl test the resilience of Houston’s community? How can we reinvigorate it?

HOUSTON – There’s a running joke that Texans know well: If you don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes.

The laughter has since died down as severe weather continues to take its toll and endanger people’s health and well-being.

SEE ALSO: Report: At least 8 dead in the Houston area during Hurricane Beryl

In light of Hurricane Beryl, which caught many Houstonians off guard, one thing is for sure: People’s patience is being tested. I’ve been camped out at the news station because I’ve been without power since Tuesday. We were all hands on deck, working 12-hour shifts as Beryl was about to make landfall.

The next morning, many of us began our commute in complete darkness. And while some CenterPoint Energy customers were making progress, millions more remained in the dark through Thursday, with more than 800,000 (including myself) still without power. Patience was wearing thin, and since CenterPoint launched its recovery map, those of us who could access it have been constantly refreshing our memories and wondering when our lights would come back on—or even becoming skeptical about its results.

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Houston hadn’t even fully recovered from the May derecho, which killed several people and left some people still waiting for debris to be cleaned up.

Amy Davis spoke with clinical psychologist Robert Cuyler, aka Dr. Bob, to learn more about the emotional toll we’ve had to endure. He said something that resonates with me: For some of us, when the power goes out, we know the lights will come back on at some point. It’s just a matter of waiting.

“It’s important to remember that as horrible as these things are, they’re temporary,” says Dr. Bob. “It can be really helpful to look back on the last really difficult time and remind yourself that there was an end to that situation and things are back to normal, because in the midst of it all, it can feel like it’s going on forever. Especially if you’re scared, if you’re hot, if you’re nervous, if you’re angry.”

Anticipatory anxiety is certainly something to consider, but it also doesn’t help when local and state lawmakers point fingers at each other over who is to blame for a lack of transparency or recovery efforts that aren’t moving fast enough.

Being the historian that I am and a lover of cinema There is no country for old men (If you know it, you know it) I wondered how past leaders would have responded in times of crisis. Especially with dozens of people making references to Ike and Harvey. So I consulted Ed Emmett, a former Harris County judge and energy and transportation researcher at Rice University’s Baker Institute, for advice.

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Without naming anyone in particular but simply acknowledging that Beryl caught everyone off guard, Emmett was left speechless by what appears to be a lack of collaboration between leaders, unlike when he was in office during Ike. Indeed, it seems that it is the communities, not the leaders, who need to step in.

““Ike was a storm surge, not a windstorm (like Beryl), but there was also a component where people were without power, right? For two to three weeks in the heat of the summer,” he recalls. “That struck me and I try not to criticize the people involved. But immediately after I got there, we set up Meals Ready to Eat distribution points and everything was staged and ready to go, leaving the power company out. That was a government activity that we did.”

“I remember Mayor (Bill) White and I, in our parking lot, were driving 500 trucks a day in and out for the pods,” Emmett continued. “I don’t hear anything about the pods. I hear about a few places where you can get water or ice. So I have no explanation for why this time is so different. Because if you don’t have electricity, that means all the food in your refrigerator is spoiled. You don’t have cooling, so I don’t know why this time is so different.”

RELATED: Hurricane Beryl vs. Ike: Will it take longer to restore power to Houston customers?

After covering Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s case accusing current Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo of rejecting aid, I was a little nervous about speaking with his predecessor, but my conversation with Emmett was a breath of fresh air because he was all about pragmatism and common sense, at least that’s the vibe he gave off.

“The county has to be involved in the Harris County Flood Control District,” he explained. “It’s not the City of Houston Flood Control District, and the county is an arm of the state. That’s one thing county officials tend to forget: They can only do what the state allows them to do. And so if you’re suddenly at war with the state and you’re an arm of the state, how does that work?”

Arguably the only positive thing that has come out of these natural disasters is that more people are interested in learning and public engagement could be key to building our resilience.

“I don’t pretend to know how the power grid works,” Emmett joked. “But I think the public needs to become more aware of what we take for granted: that you flip a switch and the lights go on… The public is going to have to get involved and care just as much about the power grid.”

SEE ALSO: Houston Continues to Buckle Under Storms Like Beryl. Solutions Aren’t Fast Enough

“So I think we need to pay a lot of attention to restructuring the flood protection system to prevent flooding, for example,” he added. “The public is going to have to get involved and care just as much about the power grid. I think that’s the solution.”

Emmett also hoped Houstonians would still remember their resilience by simply being kind to their neighbors. And there are kind people that KPRC 2 has tried to showcase, including highlighting how neighborhoods come together like in Third Ward that Deven Clarke spoke about the day after Beryl arrived.

“There are some good stories and I think they need to be told. And I think the county, I don’t know how much rain fell. But I think the county deserves some recognition for the fact that there was no flooding,” he said. “Obviously, it wasn’t Tax Day, it wasn’t Memorial Day and it certainly wasn’t Harvey. But regardless, the flood waters receded quickly and I think that’s a good thing.”

RELATED: CenterPoint expects power to be restored to 80% of affected customers by Sunday

“So I think there are some positives that we can take from this situation,” Emmett concluded. “I hope that rather than everyone going after CenterPoint, I’m not their advocate, but yes, they’re there and we need to deal with them. We need to say, ‘OK, what do we need to do to make this all work together?’”

In conclusion of this story, I would like to remind the reader that I have no electricity as I write these lines and that I am visiting a relative who, fortunately, has had electricity restored. I do not know when I and over 800,000 people will emerge from the darkness, but when we do, let us remember that the lights will always come back.