by Robert Stanton
HOUSTON, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- The weather may be getting better in Houston areas on Wednesday, but the panic and stress cannot easily go away.
Sarah Golden cried tears of joy when she was reunited with her 6-year-old daughter after they became separated when Hurricane Harvey hit coastal area of Texas in the United States.
Paisley, 6, had gone to play with her babysitter's daughter when the storm arrived in full force, putting their neighborhood in Dickinson under water. The area is about 50 km southeast of Houston.
"We were upstairs in our apartment, and downstairs the water was almost to the ceiling," said Golden, 37, a waitress. "At the babysitter's house, they were all flooded out, too."
The babysitter escaped the floods on a boat with Paisley, and Golden managed to get out with her kids on another boat. It was until a day later that the family was finally reunited.
Golden and her daughters, ages 6, 3 and 1, along with other flood victims, were transferred to Galveston, where they were flown by a U.S. Air Force C-130 military aircraft to Fort Worth, near Dallas in Texas, to escape the storm.
"We're together, and that's all that matters," she said before the flight out. "I guess we're starting over. As long as we have each other, it's fine."
Shaunna White, 32, said her life has been a whirlwind since Hurricane Harvey arrived in Dickinson. She can still feel the chills when water came to her house.
"We had water coming through the walls and under the door," White said. "We started picking up things and unplugging things, and within 30 minutes it was up to our ankles and 30 minutes later we were knee deep in water. Deep freezers started tilting over and beds started moving."
When White's brother opened the door to look outside, a torrent of floodwaters rushed in and inundated the home.
"We didn't know how we were going to get out of there," she said. "Some of the kids can't swim. It was a little scary to see the water that high. I've never seen a situation like that before. I've lost everything."
Several neighbors arrived with air mattresses and helped the family to higher ground. They stayed at a shelter in Galveston shortly before they took a military airplane to northern Texas.
"We have our health and we're safe," White said before boarding the aircraft. "All we were worried about was, let's not get separated. We're all together now and that's all that matters."
When floodwaters began to seep into Dan Oakes' apartment in Dickinson, he knew he had to get out with his girlfriend, Anita Taylor, and Hobo, the couple's 9-year-old English Springer Spaniel dog.
"It was ankle deep at first, and when we left it was chest high," he said. "I knew everything was going to be wasted so I brought food and water out and gave it to our neighbors."
The neighbors gathered in an upstairs apartment to escape the floodwaters, and 12 hours later the couple were aboard a boat to safety. A bus took them to a shelter in Texas City that allowed them to bring Hobo along.
"I'm scared and I want this to be over," said Taylor. "It's a nightmare."
Although being transferred to a safer place, they planned to return home as soon as they could.
"We'll come back," Oakes said. "My family lives in Dickinson and this is home."
