By Gilbert Hoffman
An information forum held last week at BakerRipley was attended by several hundred, and as the evening wore on the audience vented anger and frustration at the amount of flooding and little relief from the government.
BakerRipley in East Aldine was the site last Wednesday night of an Imelda Recovery Community Forum, sponsored by State Representative Armando Walle, with Carol Alvarado, Sylvia Garcia, and Rodney Ellis.
In addition to those government leaders, other officials from the City of Houston and Harris County were on the panel, to explain the work currently underway to alleviate future flooding, and to hear and respond to individual complaints.
Also present were representative from a number of government departments, and the Red Cross, providing a point of contact to those in the community and the room who were in need of assistance to recover from the devastating rainfall from Tropical Storm Imelda on September 19. It was reported that the storm dumped as much as 43 inches of water on some parts of southeast Texas, and from 10 to 30 inches in the greater Houston area in just 72 hours.
Thousands of homes and vehicles were flooded, and five deaths were recorded. The storm is the strongest to his Houston since Hurricane Harvey in 2018.
