Houston Congress 08

For the first time in the history of OCDS Congresses in the USA, we had to cancel our congress at the last minute due to the approach of Hurricane Ike which entered Houston as a category 2 early Saturday morning September 13^th. The Congress was scheduled to begin Thursday evening. That was 9/11. And the hurricane hit Friday night. This was very close to a Friday the 13^th. Because word of the cancellation of the Houston Congress in Houston was too late to reach those on the west coast who had already boarded their planes, our little group consisted mostly of OCDS from that province. I had flown in a day early to have time to settle in and prepare my keynote address which had been scheduled for Thursday evening. I joined the Congress Committee in the lobby Thursday afternoon as our guests checked in. Jeannice Theriot, the Congress chairperson, explains to the arriving guests the Congress has been canceled. Rosemary Ludwig from our western province looks on. All were disappointed to hear we had canceled the Congress. Elizabeth Korves and Fr. Bonaventure check the progress of the hurricane at the hotel lobby's registration desk as Chris Wood tracks Ike on his laptop. The hotel staff called us together Friday morning in the ballroom where most of our Congress activities were to be held.

Since this hotel was basically a big glass box the architectural engineer explained to us the construction of the building in which we would be riding out the storm. It was a steel frame that held the glass wall panels. The rubber gaskets would probably leak water since the rain would not be coming down as normal but sideways. The glass would shake but should not break unless hit directly by loose debris. The architectural engineer is the guy up front in the white shirt. The hotel manager is in front of the blue screen. The TV stations had been warning people all day to secure all their outdoor possessions. We did not want someone’s Bar-B-Q grill to come crashing into our hotel room. The hurricane would plow through Houston between 2:00 to 9:00am that night. We were welcome to spend the night in the ballroom which was our evacuation place as it was the only place in the hotel that did not have an outside glass wall. Our Philippino group set up “Camp Carmel” in one corner. I decided to ride it out in my room, but made plans to grab my pillow and thick comforter off the bed and join them in case the alarm sounded and we had to evacuate.

In addition to being a glass building in which we’d be riding out this storm, another fear was a stream of water that ran through the lobby. The engineer explained that they could close off our interior ‘river’ from the outside, which was fortunate, because the outside flooding would have flooded our lobby.

I woke around two that night to hear the wind battering our walls. We lost power after about 30 minutes of that battering. I knew when we lost power because I was charging my cell phone and it beeps when the electricity is removed. The hotel had a generator, but it only lit emergency lights so we could make our way down the staircases and into the ballroom, plus one elevator to take wheelchair guests from the 2^nd floor to the lobby area. We were warned not to go all the way down the staircase to the ground floor, or we would end up outside and that was a place we did not want to be in the middle of a hurricane. The hotel staff would be stationed on the 2^nd floor to lead us down to the ballroom which would have electricity but no air conditioning. “This will not be a comfortable place to be,” the hotel manager had told us at the morning briefing. Port-O-Potties were set up behind a wall of the ballroom. I took the advice of a more seasoned guest, and took a bath the night before the storm hit, then left the water in the tub so I had water with which to flush my toilet the next day. Everyone else was hauling water in their trash cans from the lobby goldfish pond the next morning up to their rooms. Here the hotel employees are taking the water from the pond for the guests to use.

Around three in the morning, an unexpected thing happened. Instead of the alarm I expected to hear which meant I’d have to evacuate my room, the electricity came back on. This hotel had underground electric power lines, and once the local substation’s fuses were re-set, we returned to full power, A\C and all. We became at that point a little oasis in the city of Houston where millions were without electricity for four weeks. We did lose water the next morning when everything drained from the local water tower, but the city got that pump up and running in less than 12 hours. As the water system had been compromised by the storm, we were advised to boil any tap water we used to drink or cook, but the main blessing was being able to flush our commodes. Here's Fr. Bonaventure and I after Mass on Saturday morning. The hurricane is now on it's way out of Houston. You can see the flood waters outside.

The wind had died down by 8:00 am when I left my room to have breakfast and survey the scene outside my room. No glass wall had been breached, not even on the side that got hit the hardest. One skylight blew off, so there were tarps all over the lobby eating area. Meals were served in the ballroom for the rest of our stay. We had a small leak from the roof over our Mass room. As sacristan, I carefully placed the finger bowl to catch those drips. The stream outside had risen above our lobby floor level, but with the floodgates closed, our lobby floor remained dry.

Fr. Bonaventure, our new Provincial Delegate, said Mass for us that morning at 11:00am which was the time the Cardinal was supposed to have said our Congress Mass. I was principal celebrant Sunday and we rotated for the rest of our stay. Bonaventure delivered his conference on the Evangelical Counsels Thursday evening. Our little group gathered in this photo for his talk. Linda Klotz (behind the two men in the first row) and Clarence Landry (front right) both took off for home (New Orleans and Baton Rouge) the next morning to escape Ike. I delivered my keynote address on Friday. The real hero of the Congress was our Provincial Council president Elizabeth Korves, who could have gotten out of Houston Friday, but stayed with us and organized what we called our mini-congress for the twenty-five stranded OCDS, mostly from the California province. She saw to it that we gathered each day for the Divine Office, Mass, and conferences. She gave a conference on the history of the OCDS, and Bonaventure gave a second conference on a poetic translation he had made of John of the Cross’ Spiritual Canticle. We also had lots of discussion sessions on various aspects of our life in Carmel.

Both Houston airports suffered structural damage, and remained closed for the days we were supposed to fly out. The Omni hotel was most gracious to us in extending our congress rates for the extra days and feeding us at no cost for the remainder of our stay. We remain grateful to the Congress Committee, esp. Jeannice Theriot and Chris Wood who took time out from their own family disasters to see to our needs. I got out of Houston Monday morning with the help of Fr. Bonaventure who drove me to Lafayette where I spent the rest of the week with our nuns before returning home (through the re-opened Houston airport). The final photo was taken by Elizabeth Korves who sent the caption: "Here it is. Evidence that Bonaventure wasn't the least worried about the impending storm." But I noticed the picture was taken Sunday morning as he prepared for our last Mass before leaving. We had enough gas to make it to Lake Charles Louisiana where electricity had been restored and we could fill up with gas. The few stations who had generators along Interstate 10 on that journey, had cars lined up for blocks to get gas. The incoming lanes were lined with Electric Company trucks carrying into the city what we call “cherry pickers”, utility poles, hole diggers, and generators. Road crews had pushed debris off the Interstate Sunday. It was somewhat like driving through Dante’s inferno.