Houston, we have a hurricane problem that our politicians won’t solve
This is my love letter to Houston, and an appeal for us to fight for the city we care about after the vice presidential debates.
Before you read any further, I am a Democrat. Even if you do not share the same political ideology as me, I ask that you read this with an open mind. My goal is not to change your ideology nor to insult it; instead, I hope for us to find some common ground.
“Do you believe as the scientific community has concluded, that man-made climate change has made wildfires bigger, hotter, and more deadly and have made hurricanes wetter, slower and more damaging?”
When Susan Page, the moderator of the Vice Presidential Debates, asked this particular question to Vice President Pence, my shoulders began to tense. As a native Houstonian, I had a personal stake in this particular answer: would the current leadership of the United States protect the communities I come from and the people I love and care about against the highly visible and adverse effects of climate change?
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In more words, the answer was no.
Now I wasn’t particularly surprised or even upset by parts of Mr. Pence’s answer — even though the scientific community has been unequivocal about this topic, I knew that Mr. Pence had a history of discrediting the scientific community by casting doubt over “what’s the cause” of climate change.
The callousness of Mr. Pence, however, when he claimed that hurricanes weren’t actually getting worse, and the flippancy of his attitude when he attributed wildfires to forest mismanagement, made my blood absolutely boil.
Now I’m not here to overload you with numbers and statistics about whether or not man-made climate change is real. All I can do is share a young woman’s love letter to Houston, the city that she came from and the city that’s inextricably woven into her identity, and why this is so important to her.
I moved to Clear Lake City, a large suburb southeast of Houston and the home of NASA Johnson Space Center, when I was five years old. Like many stories, my story of Houston didn’t begin with me, but it began with my parents, Najma and Samsuddin Maredia, who immigrated to Houston in the late 1980s.
I could write a whole other post about the difficulties my parents experienced as brown-skinned Muslim immigrants, but in short, my parents have a complicated relationship with Houston. They underwent immense pain and hardship, the kind of trauma that’s difficult for anyone to completely heal from, in the pursuit of the American Dream. However, some of the most notable memories of their early lives in America — my mom’s graduation from Sharpstown High School, my dad’s first job in the US, my parent’s wedding in Richmond — are all tied to Houston. While moving to Houston was novel for me, it was a bittersweet homecoming for my parents.
But I’m not going to lie, that first summer, I absolutely hated Houston. The weather was hotter than anything I had ever experienced, mosquitoes had literally eaten me alive, and worst of all, I couldn’t stand the Rockets fans who dared to claim that their team was superior to my beloved Lakers. Quite honestly, five year old me thought that moving to Houston was the silliest thing my parents had ever done.
But over time, I grew to love Houston.
I grew to love Houston because that’s where our small family grew to a bigger one, where my two younger brothers, who I had prayed to have for so many years, were born.
I grew to love Houston because that’s where, after visiting NASA Johnson Space Center for my eighth birthday, I gained my lifelong conviction that one day, I would go to space.
I grew to love Houston because that’s where I found a village of mentors and teachers who supported my dreams — my fifth grade teacher who introduced me to the crazy world of computers, my 11th grade English teacher who pushed me to be a more critical thinker, and my robotics mentors, Luis and Ross, who encouraged me to not just be a better engineer, but to be an advocate and team leader.
I grew to love Houston because that’s where I found my best friends, who I stayed up with until the wee hours of the morning playing video games with.
I grew to love Houston, because that’s where I fell in love for the first time.
But when the floods of Hurricane Harvey came pounding at our doors the night of August 25th, 2017, the city I loved was in danger.
Hurricanes are no stranger to Houstonians; in fact, most Houstonians can tell you about how they spent 15 hours in traffic on I-45 trying to get from Scarsdale to Katy (normally a 45 minute drive) when evacuating for Rita, or how they spent the many days off of school following Ike.
When you mention Harvey to a Houstonian, however, their face immediately drains of color.
My family was spared — even though the flood waters of Harvey crawled all the way to our doorstep, by a stroke of luck, my house was two inches higher in elevation than other houses in the area. My community, unfortunately, wasn’t so lucky.
The following morning, I received pictures from loved ones, documenting up to three feet of water in their homes. I soon learned that the flood waters completely submerged Dickinson, only four miles south of my home, and since most of the roads were flooded, the only way to rescue survivors was through boats. The very slowly receding flood waters — a concoction of various chemicals and sewage — exposed streets entirely covered in the debris of the storm.
In total, Harvey incurred $125 billion in damages, and displaced over 30,000 people.
In this moment of suffering, our community came together. We brought out our own boats to rescue fellow Houstonians. We helped each other rip sheetrock out of each other’s homes in the blistering, humid Texas heat. We cooked for and shared food and water with our neighbors. Party affiliation — Republican, Democrat, Independent, Libertarian — none of it mattered because we all loved our city, and we knew that the only way we were going to get through this disaster was to see what brought us together rather than what could drive us apart.
Houston and its citizens are undoubtedly strong in the face of trials, but we never asked to be put on trial in the first place.
So when Mr. Pence propagates lies as truth on national television about the validity of man-made climate change, when he boldly flouts claims of scientists, I am personally insulted and horrified. The city I love, my home, was devastated because of Hurricane Harvey, and to this day, Houston still hasn’t completely recovered. Yet, Mr. Pence has the gall to push a narrative that will put our city on trial again. Mr. Pence’s stance, and by extension, his administration’s chance on climate change, has made a few truths abundantly clear to me.
Mr. Pence and his administration do not acknowledge, truly understand, or care about the amount of suffering Houstonians went through, because if they did, then they would do everything in their power to prevent another Harvey from happening to us.
For motives that we can only speculate about, Mr. Pence and his administration would rather let our homes be destroyed by more Harveys than start listening to the scientists and fighting the root cause of this devastation.
In other words, we don’t matter.
So what’s the point of this entire thought vomit? In an age of hyperpartisanship, it’s easy for climate change to become a Democrat vs. Republican issue. I am a Democrat, but my political affiliation does not preclude me from feeling something that all Houstonians, and by extension, all human beings feel: the need to protect the people they care about.
I am asking my fellow Houstonians, my fellow friends, to see what unites us over what divides us. We each have our own love letter to Houston, and we each care about our city. I don’t care if you’re voting for Trump-Pence or Biden-Harris in this election, but all I ask is that we Houstonians bind together and demand more accountability from our politicians, Republican and Democrat, when it comes to climate change. We need to work together to make sure that regardless of which administration ends up in office in 2021, that our homes and our city aren’t just political fodder.
We are Houston strong, and to those who act like Mr. Pence, we will not let you destroy the city we love.
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