Mexico Medical Student |

Ay Dios,

Poor Houstonians, open their hearts and homes to Katrina only to have to flee from Rita.

I know my huband and he loves Houston. He is a UH Cougar all the way. I moved there to be with him and got to know the city through his eyes. One thing that surprised me about Houstonians was their attitude. They could be fiercely proud and tough–there was more than one time when I heard people say stuff like “This is Houston baby, get used to it.” Houstonians are known for being the toughest most “ghetto” of all Texans. Texans know this, when somebody askes a person what part of Texas they are from and the person answers “I’m from Houston”, that’s instand respect cuz nobody messes with Houston. Austin is the weird town, or our San Francisco if you will. San Antonio is the sleepy town full of raza and familia. Corpus is our beach town while Dallas is our metropolitan high-society place. The Valley, well most everyone forgets about the Rio Grande Valley unless you have family ties there. Nobody forgets Houston.

And yet, with all it’s so called rudeness, the nicest bosses I have ever had in my professional career have been the directors in oil companies I worked for. Sure I had some rude co-workers, and some mean ones to boot, but I also had the pleasure of getting to work with some of the nicest, most wonderful people I have ever met. I miss them. I hope they are safe.

Seeing what the city might endure makes my heart ache. I worked in several high rises in the Houston downtown area as well as in the Greenway Plaza area and feel like, I don’t know, sadness I suppose. These buildings will most likely sustain major damage from the winds as they are constructed in the “skin and bones” architect style made famous by Ludwig Miles van de Rohe; not to mention one of the building of the Houston Fine Arts museum was designed by the maestro himself.

Let me tell ya, there are many, mant high rises in Houston and they are spread throughout the city not just in the in downtown area. Shell, Exxon, El Paso, Continental, Halliburton, Schlumburger and many others all have their headquarters in Houston. In fact, Houston was just starting to boom again as a lot of the oil companies that left in the oil bust of the 1980’s were moving back to the city.

The tunnel system of stores and shoppes that link the downtown highrises to each other like a never ending umbilical cord will probably be ruined by the flood waters. The new light rail system that I took to work will most likely not do too well either. We lived south of Bellaire in Meyerland on Braes Bayou, I know that our old neighborhood will not survive this without massive flood damage. Meyerland is known for it’s Jewish community and I so enjoyed their celebrations, especially Hannukah. In my apartment complex, the Jewish people proudly put up their Hannukah celebrations up with bright blue lights that at times seemed to outshine their neighbors’ Christmas decorations. I loved it all and I miss it.

I fought my husband’s decisition to move to Houston with everything I had. I even had a saying that I would live anywhere in Texas but Houston. Now I realize how much Houston has become a part of me.

God Speed Houston. My heart is very heavy tonight.