Days after Yvette Flores moved in with her boyfriend at a senior living facility on Houston’s north side in May, a violent storm tore through the city and sent water rushing into their apartment through broken windows and holes in the ceiling and baseboards.
For weeks after the May 16 derecho, Flores and Thomas Wilkins say they asked Independence Hall staff for repairs. Wilkins, who is confined to an electric wheelchair, grew especially desperate. Without repairs to the windows next to his bed, he couldn’t keep water from soaking into his sheets and the floor below.
“We just kept saying, ‘we need y’all to fix this, because we can’t be doing it ourselves,’” Wilkins said. “But it just never happened.”
On July 8 – 53 days after the derecho – Hurricane Beryl struck Houston. Water poured into Flores and Wilkins’ apartment again, through the same broken windows, the same holes in the ceiling, the same baseboards.
Flores and Wilkins are among thousands of Houstonians living in publicly-funded apartments for low-income and disabled seniors who were left vulnerable when Beryl struck – despite vows from city officials to tighten accountability measures for these facilities after the derecho.