Gabi Gelman is a Jewish mom who lives in Houston–and has endured the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey. Gelman recently wrote a piece for Jewish Mom, detailing her harrowing experience with the storm–and it’s painful to read.
Gelman, whose husband is the rabbi of an Orthodox synagogue, notes that this is the third time their home has flooded since 2015, causing them at some points to live with neighbors and in a rental apartment for a year. Since then, they bought a new house, moving in last June. Sadly, their new house couldn’t withstand Hurricane Harvey–and they had to make the hard choice to leave their house on Sunday with a kayak.
Gelman wrote:
“We went to a friend’s house – she has a 2nd floor so we knew we would be safe even if her first floor flooded. In the end, she had 24 people in her home, plus a dog. Power went out quickly, and we all spent a long night alternating between a hot, dark second floor and running to the hallway during tornado warnings.
Today (Monday, August 28th) even though it is still raining heavily, the water has subsided somewhat. We walked to our house to see the damage- we have about 2 feet of water in the house and many things are ruined.”
As of now, the Gelmans, who have five children, are living in their local day school, which has power, trying to plan for the post-hurricane cleanup, realizing they “may rent an apartment” again.
But that’s not all the damage sustained, as Gelman notes that the storm affected all of the Orthodox synagogues in the Houston-area.
Please consider donating to these organizations to help the community of Houston survive this storm.