Hurricane Harvey Is Houston’s Unending Nightmare

HOUSTON—It’s a hypermodern skill, the ability to spot a viral moment in the face of strife. As Hurricane Harvey beat down on Houston, there was former mayor Bill White, inching his way through waist-deep water, hiking staff in his right hand and laptop-stuffed briefcase tucked like a football in his left. And there was his neighbor, who, while waiting for White at the water’s edge, couldn’t resist a snapshot.

The photo—a prominent Houstonian weathering the storm, his gated home behind him—came to symbolize the equal-opportunity devastation of Harvey. It was a year ago this weekend that Harvey gutted  hundreds of neighborhoods across the city, from upscale Kellywood to working-class Homestead. The blistering post-2016 news cycle ensured the storm would shrink from headlines after a few weeks. But to visit Houston is to absorb that, for an untold number of residents, the biggest rainstorm in the history of the continental U.S. continues to replay like a nightmare on loop.

For White, Hurricane Harvey began on Friday, August 25, 2017. Houston is no stranger to heavy rains, and neither is White: As mayor from