I met her at the Lakeview Townhomes, which is a public housing complex run by the Dallas Housing Authority. I took the chance to come here yesterday to try to get me and my kids some more clothes. Is this the first time you’ve been back since all of it? suzanne mitchellĪll of it. 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. And she had been a home health aide before the pandemic. So Jack, tell me about the second woman that you spent time with in Dallas. jack healyĪnd her home is now damaged, and she doesn’t have the money to make the repairs. So first Covid, and then this unbelievable storm. And it also hurt her financially because that was two weeks that she wasn’t able to work or earn money. She’s OK now, but it really walloped her. And she was laid up in bed for a couple of weeks. Iris and one of her sisters live close to each other. It’s really compounded an incredibly difficult year for Iris, which started when she got sick with coronavirus back in June. Like, you see the - so I’m kind of scared. jack healyĭo you feel safe in the house right now? iris cantu And that’s money that she and a lot of working folks around Texas don’t have just lying around. 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 after the ceiling caved in, she was worried because she had started to notice some coughs and things like that.īut the problem for Iris now is that money was already tight. But Iris is concerned because her daughter Samara has asthma. Is this house you’re walking around feeling inhabitable? It sounds like she’s still living there. And Iris was worried that she was sort of living on borrowed time before another part of the house caved in. 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 sort of walked me around where else the water had started to infiltrate her home. She lives there with her three-year-old daughter Samara. iris cantuĪnd 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. It costs her $82,000 at the time, back in 2003, and it has meant everything to her. 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. jack healyīut you know, like me, working for a lot of families and being in these humongous houses and rich people, but you still want to go to your own spot. So I always think you want to have your own spot. Like I say, there’s nothing like going to your house after a hard work day. 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. And Iris is 45 and has been basically working nonstop. And it was a family tragedy that forced her and her sisters to go to work.
And she was born in Mexico and came to the United States when she was 15. Her name is Iris Cantu, and she lives on the south side of Dallas. So tell me about the first of these women.
And I met three women whose stories really exemplified the hidden hurt lingering across Texas. And so I started talking to people in working class parts of Dallas. And I really wanted to try to understand that damage. That sort of thing.īut the wounds that families had suffered across the state were a lot less visible this time. And often, you see people’s houses that are flooded with water. You know, I’ve covered hurricanes in Texas, and I’ve covered other natural disasters over the years. And as I drove around and talked to people, I was getting the sense that there was this real invisible crisis taking shape. About a third of the city was still without power. 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. Jack, you went to Texas just a few days after this crippling winter storm and these mass power outages began in mid-February.
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. 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. Friday, December 31st, 2021 michael barbaro
#A THOUSAND YEARS PT 2 UPDATE#
Transcript Texas After the Storm: An Update A look at the aftermath of the storm through the eyes of three women.
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