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Houston recovery will take years

Ben Davis, Rabbi Avraham Mintz and Quincy Carpenter pose before Davis and Carpenter take off for Houston in the Junk Trunk.

Ben Davis, Rabbi Avraham Mintz and Quincy Carpenter pose before Davis and Carpenter take off for Houston in the Junk Trunk.

HOUSTON — The Jewish community in Houston has seen “devastating” damage from Hurricane Harvey and could take years to recover, a federation official said.

“Recovery like this — it is a disaster larger than Katrina in terms of the amount of water that fell — we’re going to have short- and long-term recovery plans, but this is probably going to take us years to get back to where we were,” said Taryn Baranowski, the chief marketing officer for the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston.

Seventy-one percent of the city’s Jewish population of 63,700 lives in areas that have experienced high flooding, Baranowski told JTA on Aug. 30. That includes 12,000 Jewish seniors.

Three of the city’s five major synagogues have experienced major flooding, Baranowski said. The federation is communicating with the rest of Houston’s synagogues — the area is home to 42 congregations and communities — but is focusing on helping people impacted by Harvey.

“We still have folks who don’t have electricity, we still have folks who don’t have plumbing,” she said. “It’s a pretty dire situation, so while we’re working to get those numbers, our top priority is getting people safe and to shelter.”

On Aug. 30, the local Jewish Family Service said that dozens of Jewish families were either evacuated or moved to the second floors of their homes due to the flooding caused by Harvey.

Community members have seen up to eight feet of water in their houses, with some houses remaining flooded, Baranowski said.

“The majority of people have had to go to the second floor, and then be rescued from their second floor,” she said.

The Evelyn Rubinstein JCC of Houston, the city’s only JCC, was flooded with 10 feet of water, and Jewish schools remain closed, with some experiencing major flooding.

“I’ll be completely transparent, it’s devastating,” Baranowski said. “This is a flood that no one could have anticipated it getting as bad as it did; it was a worst-case scenario. We live in a community that is densely populated in an area that got severely impacted by the weather.”

Kosher food is another issue.

“We were having an issue getting kosher food into the community grocery stores. We’re working with some volunteer groups to get that into the community,” she said.

Chabad in Houston has been providing kosher food to some community members, although supplies were running short as of Aug. 29, according to Chabad.org. Chabad is organizing food shipments, including through Amazon, for the community. The OU has also started a Help for Houston website.

The Israeli humanitarian group IsrAID is coordinating an aid campaign, including sending volunteers to Houston.

The federation is collecting donations and planned to start distributing them on Aug. 31. It is working in conjunction with the Jewish Family Service and the JCC in the relief efforts.

Baranowski said the priority in donations is cleaning supplies for those returning to houses that were flooded.

Local Jewish camps are housing refugees forced to evacuate their homes.

In the face of disaster, the Jewish community remains unified, Baranowski said.

“We are a resilient community,” she said. “People are already beginning a process, they’re banding together, they’re working with each other to help recovery.

“But we do know that recovery is going to be long, it’s going to be difficult. We can do it, but it’s going to be a process for the entire community and the entire city to get through.”

Locally, donations are being collected by JEWISHcolorado. Supplies were also gathered by Chabad of South Metro Denver, Chabad at CU and Denver JDS and then driven to Houston in a “Junk Trunk.”




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