The Daily - Texas After the Storm: An Update

Episode Date: December 31, 2021

This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened in the time since they first ran.With most natural disasters, the devastation is immediately apparent. But when a winter storm hit Texas, some of the damage was a lot less visible.The stories of Iris Cantu, Suzanne Mitchell and Tumaini Criss showed the depth of the destruction.Their lives were upended. The storm in February left their homes barely habitable, with collapsed ceilings and destroyed belongings, and it disrupted their children’s learning.While the state investigated widespread blackouts from the storm, looking for accountability, the three women grappled with a more pressing question: How am I going to move forward with my life?Today, we return to their stories.Guest: Jack Healy, a Colorado-based national correspondent for The New York Times.Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: As the freak winter storm raged, historically marginalized communities were among the first to face power outages.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Hey, it's Michael. This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and hearing what's happened in the time since they first ran. Today, we return to the aftermath of the unusual storm that devastated Texas last winter, leaving thousands of its residents without shelter or power to learn how the lives of the women we spoke to in Dallas have since changed. It's Friday, December 31st. Jack, you went to Texas just a few days after this crippling winter storm and these mass power outages began in mid-February. So tell us about what you saw.

Well, the first thing that I saw was a sort of patchwork quilt of light and darkness as the flight into Dallas broke through the clouds. About a third of the city was still without power. And as I drove around and talked to people, I was getting the sense that there was this real invisible crisis taking shape. You know, I've covered hurricanes in Texas, and I've covered other natural disasters over the years. And often, you see people's houses that are flooded with water. You see houses that are burned down. A tornado destroys homes, that sort of thing. But the wounds that families had suffered across the state were a lot less visible this time. And I really wanted to try to understand that damage. And so I started talking

to people in working class parts of Dallas, and I met three women whose stories really exemplified the hidden hurt lingering across Texas. So tell me about the first of these women. Do you go by Iris or Irasema? My real name, Irasema. But I go by Iris all the time. Iris? Okay, whatever you prefer. Her name is Iris Cantu, and she lives on the south side of Dallas. And she was born in Mexico and came to the United States when she was 15. But when she was 18, her father died.

And it was a family tragedy that forced her and her sisters to go to work. And Iris is 45 and has been basically working nonstop. Right now, she's a nanny, and every day she gets up at 6.30 in the morning and she drives across town to take care of the child of a wealthier couple in a nicer neighborhood. Have you liked living here? Yes. I wanted to have a house.

Like I say, there's nothing like go to your house after a hard work day. Yeah, yeah. So I always think you want to have your own spot. Yeah. But, you know, like me working for a lot of families and being in these humongous houses and rich people, you know, but you still want to go to your own spot. Yeah. own spot. Yeah. So for Iris, buying a little single-story house on the south side of Dallas was the culmination of years of work and a dream. It cost her $82,000 at the time, back in 2003,

and it has meant everything to her. It seems like the floors are okay. No. Oh, no. And right inside the foyer in the living room there was a big hole in the ceiling where the ceiling had collapsed from the burst pipes. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Unbelievable. That's all of the insulation. Everything. Just the roof.

Yeah. So I panic. I mean, I panic because of her. What's her name? Samara. Hi, Samara. Hello. her. What's her name? Samara. Hi, Samara. Hello. She lives there with her three-year-old daughter,

Samara. And Iris sort of walked me around where else the water had started to infiltrate her home. And right above the hot water heater in the garage, the ceiling was turning this kind of nasty sort of swamp sewer brown. And Iris was worried that she was sort of living on borrowed time before, you know, another part of the house caved in. Is this house you're walking around feeling inhabitable? It sounds like she's still living there. She's still living there, and they were making it work. But Iris is concerned because her daughter Samara has asthma.

And after the ceiling caved in, she was worried because she had started to notice some coughs and things like that. But the problem for Iris now is that money was already tight. And this damage, which her homeowner's insurance company says they're not going to cover, is going to probably end up costing between $6,000 and $7,000. And that's money that she and a lot of working folks around Texas don't have just lying around. Do you feel safe in the house right now? Not with that room in there. Like, you see the— Uh-huh.

So I'm kind of scared. I don't know what to do. But we try to stay in that room, you know, try to stay away from here. Yeah. Yeah. It's really compounded an incredibly difficult year for Iris, which started when she got sick

with coronavirus back in June. She also had coronavirus? Yeah, yeah. Iris and one of her sisters live close to each other, and her She also had coronavirus? financially because that was two weeks that she wasn't able to work or earn money. So first COVID and then this unbelievable storm. Yeah. And her home is now damaged and she doesn't have the money to make the repairs. Yeah.

All right. Well, thank you so much. Muchas gracias. Que tenga buen dia. Gracias. Si, a usted. Okay, so Jack, tell me about the second woman that you spend time with in Dallas. Her name is Suzanne Mitchell.

She's 37. She has three kids. And she had been a home health aide before the pandemic. But since COVID got so bad around Texas, she said she had decided to stop working because she was too concerned about potential health consequences. Is this the first time you've been back since the... I took the chance to come here yesterday, try to give me and my kids some more clothes. I met her at the Lakeview Townhomes,

which is a public housing complex run by the Dallas Housing Authority. And when I went there, Suzanne and her mother had gone back to see what remained of their stuff after their kitchen ceiling opened up. The floor is still wet from when the pipes burst a couple days ago. Furniture has gotten wet. There is a TV sitting on the floor that just managed to escape getting totally destroyed by the water.

sitting on the floor that just managed to escape getting totally destroyed by the water. And there is a gigantic gaping hole in the kitchen ceiling from where everything poured out a couple days ago. And as I am sitting down on the couch with Suzanne and her mom to start talking about everything they've been through for the past couple days, the pipes start to gush crazy. Oh, my goodness.

The pipes start to gush again. Oh, my gosh. This house is re-flooding. It's re-flooding. As you were standing there talking to them about the first flood. Yeah. This is crazy.

Do you want to talk upstairs? Do you think that's a little better? Water just starts splashing all over. Susanna and her mom. It's basically turning the place into a gigantic shower. Is there any damage up here? Okay. And so to avoid getting soaked, we headed upstairs to the bedroom of Susanna's daughter, Shantoria,

which luckily had escaped flood damage. And that's where we did the rest of the interview. So what kind of mood are Suzanne and her mother in upstairs in this bedroom, given everything that has happened and is just now happening to them? Exhausted. A little defeated. The family had been living at Suzanne's mom's apartment

for the past couple of days, but they were sleeping on air mattresses and couches, kind of putting kids at right angles with each other to try to make more room. And it was really starting to get stressful. My main concern is my place for me and my kids. Like, the clothes and stuff, they can be replaceable, but my place, you know?

Yeah. And my kids, like, before school, you know, while school happened, you know, one of my daughters would go to school twice a week. And Jack, what were you thinking as you left Suzanne's apartment? I guess I was thinking about how precious home has become during this pandemic. You know, to so many of us, our houses are the places that are kind of our castles.

They're our refuges against this disease that can find us anywhere. against this disease that can find us anywhere. And for these people who had spent so much money saving up to buy their houses or who had spent years on a wait list to get a nice townhome in a public complex to be put out of their homes not only dislocated them, but it also made them all the more vulnerable to this virus that is haunting us at every corner. And I think that just compounded the sense of loss and the sense of dislocation and uncertainty of what comes next.

It's like, at this moment, there is no help. It's like, I'm not getting nowhere. I'm still, like, in a standstill. So it's, like, really frustrating. I'm just ready to be owned. We'll be right back. Is it okay if I record this? Yeah, sure.

So, Jack, tell me about the third woman that you spend time with in Dallas. My name is Tamani, Tamani Chris. Will you spell it, Tamani? Uh-huh. Tango, uniform, mic, alpha, indigo. Well, her name is Tamani Chris. Were you in the military? No. How did you learn the language of that?

I was in ROTC, like, from grade school, middle school, and high school. Oh, okay. And I didn't meet her at a home or flooded-out apartment. I met her in seat 52 of a charter bus that had been parked by a recreation center as an emergency warming shelter for families displaced by the outages and the storm. So she's living on a bus. Yeah. Because remember, Michael, the power was so unreliable at the places we would normally

use as shelters, like churches or rec centers or things like that, that in order to get to people in need in neighborhoods across Dallas, they just sent out buses. And so for a couple nights, as many as 20 people or 30 people had been sleeping on this bus. And it was Tamani and her three boys. You know, they're boys, so they're in the game. They like basketball. They like video games. They are this incredibly close, tight-knit family.

And for Tamani, her boys are everything. They are the reason that she works three jobs. They are the reason that she is saving up every dollar she can to try to get enough money together for a down payment for a home for the four of them. And they were basically driven out of their house by the cold and then by a burst pipe. So that bus had become their home.

So just like Iris and just like Suzanne, she experiences a frozen pipe that bursts and destroys her home. Exactly. What happened was they had been dislocated by the cold like so many Texans. They had been driving around, trying to stay warm in their car. And as they were sitting there in their car, just outside their home, one of Tamani's sons noticed that the Wi-Fi signal from their house was back on. Yeah, like, he was on the computer, and I noticed our home Wi-Fi was on. Oh.

So that made me think that the power was on. We jumped in that car so quick. I was like, come on! It was sort of like, you know, like the skies parted and choirs sang for the family. And so they ran back inside and Tamani made a beeline towards the refrigerator where she had just spent $250 on a load of food. And she just started cooking. Just kind of make whatever we could that would last us until the power came on.

Yeah, yeah. And then maybe 10, 15 minutes into us cooking the food, like, that's when the leak started. And then the ceiling opened up. You know, we were grabbing blankets and buckets. And then I realized, oh, no, it's coming out the light jack. And then I realized, oh, no, it's coming from the little hole. So all of a sudden, it's like water leaking everywhere on everything. And so they just grabbed what few possessions they could to try to salvage from this waterfall that's filling their home. And they left again.

And I met them a couple nights later sitting on the bus. So they were able to take some items from the house and save them, it sounds like. But how much did they end up losing? I mean, a lot. But I bet like the couch is probably gone. Oh yeah, the couch, all of the appliances in the kitchen. As we were talking, she was sort of doing an inventory of what had survived and what hadn't. And most of their kitchen was gone. All my children's belongings, like my washer, my dryer, my deep freezer. Oh my God, my air fryer. A lot of their furniture had been destroyed.

And really, she didn't even know the full extent of the damage because it really was just so bad and so pervasive. Jack, what did she say about insurance or lack of insurance? What kind of financial situation is she now in? Like hundreds of thousands of people across Texas, especially lower income people and renters, she does not have any. She had renter's insurance, but unfortunately, she had let it lapse. And so now she is facing the prospect of having to replace all of this stuff on her own. She has applied for federal disaster aid, but that is the start of a very long process. And it's uncertain when an inspector is going to come out, when a check

might be cut. Recovering from a disaster financially takes years. So how does your time with this family come to an end? Well, so as they were kind of getting ready for another night there, another night of watching movies, and Tamani was getting ready for another night of trying to figure out how to go to sleep without the seat belt digging into her back. A woman who had been helping out came up to the family with a little piece of good news. We actually have secured a room for you guys for tonight. Are you serious? Don't play with my emotions.

For real? That they had found a hotel for them. I am smelling so hard. And I'm smelling it in here too. I I'm smelling, I'm trying not to cry. I feel like I hit the lotto. Oh my God, seriously? Have I lied to you so far? Three days, have I lied to you?

No. It was the first time in days that they would have slept on an actual bed. I am literally so grateful. I am so grateful. So you'll be there tonight. When you guys come back tomorrow, we'll have some hot meals and we'll tackle another day and just kind of figure it out. We'll just keep day by day. We in this together, man. Jack, in conversations with people like Tamani, Iris, and Suzanne, who do they blame for the situation that they are now in?

I mean, their stories are strikingly similar. Infrastructure that failed, pipes that burst, homes that were really badly damaged, if not destroyed. Who do they blame for that? You know, the state right now is going through this process of accountability in terms of asking the power companies and regulators and grid operators what went wrong and what they'll do to fix it.

But these are enormous political questions. And for Iris and Suzanne and Tamani, there are more pressing matters at hand, which is where are my kids going to sleep? How are they going to get to school? How am I going to replace the groceries that got ruined? How am I going to move forward with my life? And that's what they were most focused on.

Jack, what you are describing in Texas is not just a winter storm. It's not just an energy crisis. It is those things. But it's not just those things. It is clearly a story of disparity, right? It's a kind of social x-ray that shows how fragile life is for these women. about how this pandemic has inflicted a disproportionate toll on lower-income people and on communities of color. And the same exact thing happened again when the lights went off across Texas. I was talking to one city councilman who, in describing the West Dallas neighborhood where Tamani was on that bus that night, he said, these neighborhoods, which are predominantly Black and Hispanic, these neighborhoods are the first to lose power and they're the last to get it on. They're the hardest to get hit and the last to recover. really concerned about whether that pattern is going to play out yet again and sort of drag them farther back and push their dreams even farther out across the horizon. Jack, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Michael. Thank you. I don't know. Does it feel kind of like a little bit unfair that some people, you know, get to go home or their power's on or that they get flooded out? Oh, yeah. But life is unfair, so. Yeah. What do you mean? Like, stuff doesn't always go your way. Yeah.

Let's try to do that. When we come back, Jack gets an update from Tumani and Iris. Hi, Tamani, are you there? I'm good. I'm really good. It's great to hear your voice again after such a long time. We spoke, yes. It's great to hear your voice. We spoke a little bit after Dallas, but the last time I actually saw you, it was on that bus where you and your boys had sort of taken refuge

and you guys were about to get moved to a hotel. How did you actually end up going back to your apartment? What happened afterwards? Well, so, funny thing is, we actually didn't go back. So during the storm,

downstairs was flooded. So there was mold growing, like, through the walls in the bathroom. When they poured up the floor, it was on the tiles. It was everywhere. And so we called the manager of our complex, and we had them come out and do a walkthrough. They brought the city out.

And when they walked through the entire complex, the damage was so significant that they just had to relocate everybody. Wow. The damage was so significant that they just had to relocate everybody. Wow. I think they said it may take maybe a year or two to get it back up to cold or to get it habitable. But yeah, we had to go. Was it difficult to find places after the storm? Did you get the sense that a lot of people were looking for housing and that sort of thing?

Oh my gosh, yes. It was virtually impossible. I ended up speaking to my dad and they let me off for two weeks so I could be able to go see properties and, you know, just kind of relocate. So it was really, really, really hard. Like from seven in the morning to like seven at night, I was calling people nonstop. I think I probably went to maybe about 30 different properties. And I know I called at least a hundred different landlords.

So it was really, really bad. And are you in an apartment or a townhouse or what kind of a place is it? No, it's a house. It's about an hour away from where I was living in a little city called Little M. And we love it. You know, obviously, it's far away from anybody we know. But, you know, we're just starting over and it's working out wonderfully for us. You had mentioned that you were applying for some disaster relief money through FEMA.

What happened with that? So FEMA, we did the inspection and then they gave me like $1,100. They said, I guess that's what everything was worth. That made you whole or was that a lot less than the damage that you suffered? I mean, it was a lot less because I literally lost pretty much everything. But I mean, you know, what can you do? It really does sound like in some ways you're kind of starting from scratch, all of you guys. How are the boys doing and how has this year been for them?

So, like, initially when we moved, of course, they were really, really happy about, you know, having a room again and having a bed. But then they were sad because they missed all their friends. But once the summer got here, we have like a pool in our community. And so we would go to the pool and we would go to the park and they would meet other people. So they're adjusting really well. How do you think that this year and everything you've been through, getting basically dislocated from your house and all the changes how do you feel like it's changed you so uh this year it just really made me feel grateful like it just really put into perspective that you don't need a lot of material things like at the end of the day family health and happiness is all that you need. And then, you know, at a blink of a moment, life can change.

You know, sometimes at night, you know, I'll stay up wondering what if or if I could have done anything differently. Of course, now, you know, I have insurance. So if something is happening, I'd be covered that way. And then I know how to plan for the worst now. I'd be covered that way. And then I know how to plan for the worst now. So yeah, at the end of the day, you just have to, I guess, roll with the punches. Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, listen, thank you so much for taking some time today. And I just wish you guys all the best of luck and good things with the new transition. And please tell your boys I say hello. Okay, thank you, Jack.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the follow-up. I hope you guys have a happy holiday. Merry Christmas. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Hello? Hi, Iris? Yes. Iris, soy Jack del New York Times. ¿Cómo estás? Bien, muy bien. Happy holidays. So the last time we talked,

we were sitting in your living room with that enormous hole in the ceiling. And you were wondering about whether the house was safe for your daughter and how long it was going to take for you to fix it. What has happened since? Well, we did not fix the house at the time. We barely fixed it a couple of weeks ago. Oh my goodness. Wow. Yeah.

It got fixed the last week of November. So it finished on December the 5th. Even we had to leave the house for almost three weeks where they were working in the construction. Oh, wow. Where did you go? We went to a hotel close to the house, like were working in the construction. Oh, wow. Where did you go? We went to a hotel close to the house, like five minutes from the house. It was not a good, you know, time for us to stay there while they were working on it. Yeah, that must have been kind of hard.

Yeah. When you were waiting to make the repairs, did you just live in the house with the plastic over the ceiling? Yeah, we stayed there, but we tried to stay in Samara's room or my room and just come to the kitchen and go back over there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We tried not to stay in the living room because all that dust. Do you think that time kind of made her asthma worse or was it stressful for Samara? I was worried about her because I knew all that dust from the attic, it was coming down the living room. I knew it. I couldn't tell. So I was like cleaning every day, sleeping, mopping,

you know, to keep the area clean for her. But yeah, her asthma is not being stable, especially the season. So she's on an inhaler right now. They gave her an inhaler. Yeah. Wow. So like the storm only lasted a couple days, but it sounds like you were just dealing with the aftermath for months.

Yeah, it did. Yeah. When we first talked, you said you thought it was going to end up costing $6,000 or $7,000 or so. How much was the total bill for all the repairs and the rebuilding? It was $12,000. Wow. Wow. Yes. I got help from people. Yeah. A lady that hear my story and she helped me with $5,000.

Oh. Yeah. I used all that money to fix the house. And then I save a little more, you know, because it was needing more money. So that's why I had to wait all this time. So I was ready for it, and we did it. What does the house look like now? Are you feeling good about being back and about the work finally being done?

I'm so excited because it looks different and everything's new like the floor the wall the paint you know all the insulation in the attic got wet so they removed the old insulation we got a new insulated house now yeah how concerned are you about this winter? I mean, do you kind of have a worry that this might happen all over again? I know. I hear the other day, like, kind of a story on the news, like, are we ready for, I was like, oh no, I was so worried about, because everything came to my mind. Yeah what what happened to us I was like oh I'll pray to God this is not gonna happen we're not gonna have a cold storm this year but uh you know I'm I'm putting effort on my life to keep going and being positive

because of my daughter. My daughter is my life. When we had to go to the hotel, I had to explain everything to her that we were going to leave the house for three weeks. And she was like, why, why? You know, she's three and a half, so they asked everything. Why, why? They want to know everything. So I was like, we have to go.

They're going to fix the house. So when we got back in December the 5th and we come in the house, she was so excited. I could see her smile like, Mommy, we got a new house. That's great. That's really great. Well, Iris, I'm so glad you're back in the house. I'm glad that you can feel comfortable again, um, and let Samara play, you know, in the living room and hang out with her toys and feel safe there. Thank you so much, Jack. All right. All right. Thank you and have a great day and have a great Christmas. Have a great Christmas. God bless you, Jack. All right. All right. Thank you, and have a great day,

and have a great Christmas. Have a great Christmas. God bless you, Jack. Bye-bye. You too. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Today's episode was produced by Sydney Harper, Michael Simon-Johnson, and Diana Nguyen, with help from Muj Zaydi. It was edited by Lisa Chow, Anita Bonagio, and Mark George, and engineered by Corey Schreppel. The Daily is made by Thank you. Anita Bonagio, Rob Zipko, Alisha Ba'itu, Chelsea Daniel, Mooch Sadie, Patricia Willans, and Rowan Misto. Special thanks to Sam Dolnik, Paula Schumann, Cliff Levy, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Sophia Milan,

Des Ibequa, Erica Futterman, Wendy Doerr, Elizabeth Davis-Moore, Jeffrey Miranda, and Maddie Macielo. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. Thank you for listening this past year. And Happy New Year. We'll see you on Monday in 2022.