“Completely devastated”: Kingwood residents look back 5 years after Hurricane Harvey made landfall

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — It has been five years since Hurricane Harvey made landfall, and many residents in Kingwood are still recovering.

The area alone got about 40 inches of rain in 2017 when the storm hit and was battered with flooding rain from Tropical Storm Imelda two years later.

“I don’t think that people who were not touched can understand the grief and impact of chaos,” Nancy Ackley, a Kingwood resident, said.

“I mean, completely devastated. The culture and the memories are gone. Couldn’t be recovered,” Cebrina Sanders, another resident of Kingwood, described.

“It’s something you see on TV. You see it happening somewhere else and you say, ‘Oh, those poor people,'” Bill Ackley said.

The images are still too vivid to shake for many.

Those who lived through it don’t always want to be reminded of it.

“I try not to think about it because we’ve all moved past it. We don’t want to,” Jennifer Garza explained. “But, it’s hard not to. There are still things that are out of business that you’re like, ‘I remember they were there.’ You remember just the devastation. You kind of can’t get over it when you’re driving certain places.”

It’s something we will always remember because I feel like it kind of shaped who we are. It shows that we can go through whatever is put in front of us,” Marshall Schaffer said.

“It changed my whole sense of security,” Ackley added. “I’m very optimistic, so my optimism has been tempered, not blunted, but I think it’s tempered.”