![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Neighbors.jpg\")
About 50 people showed up Saturday for a disaster preparedness workshop in Fifth Ward. Credit: April Towery<\/p>\n
Residents came for coffee and breakfast tacos; they stayed for interactive preparedness drills that NAC volunteer Regina Johnson said could save lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Johnson said the organization does more than show up after a storm. NAC recently distributed more than $13,000 to neighbors whose food stamp benefits were paused during the government shutdown. She urged residents at the December 6 event to call upon each other when a crisis arises.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI want you all to take this time to remember that when there\u2019s a need, and you don\u2019t see any hope, remember the yellow shirts,\u201d she said. \u201cRemember West Street Recovery. Remember we are here to support you and stand with you.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
During Harvey, no one was getting through to 911 or 311 and certainly not City Hall, residents have said. NAC cofounder Doris Brown told<\/a> the Houston Press in June that when her roof caved in during the 2017 hurricane, it didn\u2019t even cross her mind to call FEMA. She went outside and yelled for her neighbors, checking to make sure they were OK.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Guevara said family members from San Antonio and Corpus Christi made calls for her about her house. She says she was consumed with guilt that she didn\u2019t stay on the phone with her nephew and talk him out of trying to flee. The nephew narrowly escaped the floodwaters in Halls Bayou by cracking a window in the van that held his parents and his four children.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe said he took his parents out of the home because, at the time, the water was to their waists,\u201d Guevara said. The four children who died in the flood ranged in age from 6 to 16 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe current was so strong and [my nephew] couldn\u2019t save anybody,\u201d Guevara recalled. \u201cThe kids were in the back of the van and my sister and brother-in-law were in the front with him. Luckily, he was small enough to get out. He almost went down himself but he grabbed onto a tree.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n West Street Recovery formed in the aftermath of Harvey, sending inflatable kayaks to pull people out of their homes and helping people rebuild after the deadly storm passed through the Gulf Coast.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Becky Selle, West Street Recovery\u2019s co-director of disaster preparedness, said the group has been holding workshops twice a year since 2020 to help residents get ready for the next Big One.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur winter events are largely centered on our experience from Winter Storm Uri, teaching everything that happened to us and how we\u2019ve adapted since that storm,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Texas power grid failed during Uri, leading to more than 246 confirmed deaths and knocking out electricity for 4.5 million homes across the state. The event triggered a long-term water crisis for residents in northeast Houston and \u201claid bare the failures of our state\u2019s outdated and privatized electricity grid,\u201d Selle said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Guevara explained that homes in older neighborhoods lack the infrastructure to survive a major storm, and power outages are devastating for her adult son Billy, who is blind and uses a machine to help him breathe. He also recently began dialysis treatments, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Selle said there are hundreds of Houstonians in the northeast part of the city who rely on electronic medical equipment and are vulnerable to the cold.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDuring Uri, probably about one-third of homes in northeast Houston lost water,\u201d she said. \u201cThe pathway to restore water was delayed and required serious fixes or full re-pipes of the houses. A bunch of sewer lines broke, which shouldn\u2019t happen in the cold but because in some places, the sewage system is so poor and backed up, the sewage pipes actually burst.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe were one of the only organizations restoring water access,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n West Street Recovery invested in household-level renewable energy for hundreds of homes and installed cold-resistant piping when making plumbing repairs.\u00a0<\/p>\n In response to Uri, NAC launched seven \u201chub houses\u201d where people can go during a power outage to charge their phones or get out of the heat or cold. They can pick up batteries, bug spray, water, fans and other essentials. The hub houses \u201cmeet a critical gap in the sparse official government-run shelters and emergency protocols in Houston,\u201d the West Street Recovery website states<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Beth Lumia, another co-director of disaster preparedness, said West Street Recovery and NAC aren\u2019t trying to replace city services but rather develop a social infrastructure so neighbors can support each other.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Montrose resident got a degree in social work and said she spent her early career supporting disaster survivors and working on recovery efforts, which opened her eyes to the need for preparedness.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lumia said \u201cof course\u201d there\u2019s a responsibility of local government to help residents prepare for disasters, especially in a city like Houston where unpredictable weather is common.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t have the tools and the community outreach to be able to do that,\u201d she said. \u201cThere has to be collaboration between the public sector and the nonprofit sphere. We have the reach, but they have the money and the authority.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNortheast Houston is consistently looked over,\u201d she added. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen that in Harvey, Uri and our recent disasters with the derecho and Beryl. The idea for hub houses came out of Winter Storm Uri, that we were not getting help so we needed localized community, neighborhood-based resiliency centers and places of refuge and relief.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Guevara is a hub house block captain, meaning she distributes supplies to neighbors and has solar panels and a dual fuel generator to ensure a power source even when the electricity goes out.\u00a0<\/p>\n She sees it as a way of paying it forward eight years after the Cajun Navy, a volunteer network of boat owners in Louisiana, rescued her from her home during Harvey. She remembers trying to find a temporary home and worrying about her lost loved ones, needed repairs and money. That\u2019s about the time that Andrew Barley \u2014 now West Street Recovery\u2019s director of rebuild efforts \u2014 showed up to help.\u00a0<\/p>\n Guevara says her son advises her that she can stay home once in a while and doesn\u2019t have to say yes to every request for help, but she knows how much it meant to her when strangers helped her rebuild after Harvey. She wants to offer that same support to others, she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI do a lot of running around, and I just pray that God gives me the strength to keep on going,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I\u2019m out helping people wrap their pipes, because I\u2019m older, they tell me, \u2018I\u2019ll do it,\u2019 but I\u2019ve got to make sure they\u2019re doing it right.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n At Saturday\u2019s event, the multipurpose room was filled with people of all ages and races. College students passed by and said hello to \u201cMs. Anita\u201d as though they were attending a family reunion rather than a disaster preparedness workshop.\u00a0<\/p>\n Guevara has lived in Houston since 1964 and was first flooded out of her home back in 2001. By the time Harvey hit, she had retired from a job in advertising sales and when she provided bank statements on her application for disaster relief assistance, she was told she had too much money to qualify for help, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Becky-Selle.jpg\")
Becky Selle, West Street Recovery\u2019s co-director of disaster preparedness, facilitates a training exercise at Wheatley High School on Saturday. Credit: April Towery<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Training2.jpg\")
About 50 people attended a training workshop Saturday hosted by West Street Recovery and Northeast Action Collective. Credit: April Towery<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Tracy-Hamblin-1.jpg\")
West Street Recovery rebuild contractor Tracy Hamblin, right, conducts a training exercise at a disaster preparedness event in Fifth Ward on Saturday. Credit: April Towery<\/p>\n