ROCKPORT, Tx — Sunday, August 25, marks the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Harvey making landfall in Aransas County, leaving a path of destruction that cities like Rockport are still recovering from.
“I will never forget watching the news channel show your town on the news," said Maythy Camacho, describing how she spent her second day of senior year. Camacho, a 24-year resident of Rockport, witnessed Harvey's destruction firsthand. "Receiving text messages saying, 'Oh my gosh, that's my house on the news, it's gone.'"
"My parents built my childhood home, and evacuating it made me feel sad not knowing if all my parents' hard work was just going to be gone in a matter of five seconds," Camacho explained.
Hurricane Harvey was the first Category 4 storm to hit the Texas coast since Hurricane Celia in 1970 and displaced more than 30,000 people, according to the
“The force of that hurricane just suddenly built up and came through here, and just about everything that was down here was gone," Marshall Woodward recalled of the aftermath in 2017. Woodward had moved to Rockport two years prior and was evacuated with his family ahead of Harvey’s landfall. “Everybody had to rebuild. Boats were scattered everywhere. It was just devastation.”
For some residents, Harvey remains a difficult subject to discuss. KRIS 6 attempted to speak with several volunteers from the First Baptist Church of Rockport; however, none wished to comment on the "sore subject."
For many in the Coastal Bend, Harvey was the first major hurricane of their lifetime. “It was crazy to come in and see the devastation and just what was left behind," Nick Indridson, a pastor at Church Unlimited Rockport-Fulton, told KRIS 6. Indridson is a Corpus Christi resident, but his work with the church placed him on the front lines of Rockport's recovery.
"It’s been truly remarkable. I think the community has bounced back in a major way. I think the one thing people learned here in Rockport is that the community has come together in a lot of ways," Indridson said, reflecting on Rockport's seven-year journey.
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