HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Throughout Shanae Nelson’s journey evacuating from flooding in Houston, she had not cried.

Then on Tuesday she watched a video her neighbors sent her in which the mother of her daughter’s playmate was swept into floodwater in their apartment complex and drowned.

Nelson, along with thousands of others, fled the deadly flooding left in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, now a tropical storm, but estimated to be the costliest disaster in U.S. history. With much of Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast under water, many evacuees fled 70 miles north on Highway 45 to the city of Huntsville, where they wait for news it’s safe to return home.  

From a shelter in Huntsville, Nelson had to tell her kids, who were still in Houston with their father, that all of their things were gone.

And when she found out that a bridge near her kids collapsed, trapping them in the chaos, that was the last straw. She broke down.

“It’s hard when you are like 83 miles away from them,” Nelson, 33, said Wednesday. “It’s hard when you are not there for them.”

Each of the 70 evacuees staying at the shelter set up at Huntsville High School on Wednesday faced their own unique struggles. Yet, among the worry and uncertainty, there are moments of levity.

It takes grit

With the Trinity River Northeast of Huntsville rising fast, Cyndi Ellis, 45, of Riverside, decided Monday she needed to go back to the home she lived in with her parents to check on her “babies”: a white chihuahua named Sarah, her two puppies, Poncho and Baby, and her chicken named Chicken Little.

“She doesn’t know she’s a chicken,” Ellis said. “She thinks she’s a dog.”

The fact that the only thing protecting Ellis’ intestines from the outdoors was a plastic covering wasn’t going to deter her. She was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer, she said, and doctors had cut her stomach to relieve the pressure on her herniated intestine. She’s scheduled for her next surgery on Sept. 14.

When the rains came last weekend, the worried Ellis took off with a friend toward her house near a creek. The water was swirling rapidly, but she thought she could handle it.

“I’m strong! I can do this!” she said she told her friend.

She took one step. Two. And into the water, she was swept.

The current pushed her under but she battled her way to the top and floated until she could hold on to a nearby tree. She held it for hours, trying to fend off exhaustion to make her feet move, she said.

Finally, she let go and made her way to a neighbor’s porch. They let her use their phone to call a rescue boat. By that time, her intestines had swollen up from the fall. The boat sped off to her house, where she found her parents and all of their animals sitting on a higher level of the house. None evacuated, but Ellis needed to go to the hospital. There, they gave her more clear bags to protect and drain her intestine, but she was discharged to speak with her surgeon, who Ellis later found out was on vacation in India.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Ellis said. “I just don’t know.”

In the meantime, Ellis said staying in the shelter has given her the resources she needs to regroup. She said she’s dreaded finding out what shape her house is in. 

It takes a village

When the trailer park in Alvin was beginning to flood with nearby lake water, the Peñalozas and Gonzalezes decided to evacuate together to Conroe. They thought they would only be away from home for a few days.

They packed up four cars with 17 people, clothes and all of their important documents. Nicole Gonzalez, 12, brought her makeup. Leonor Tado, 18, brought the only copy of her 2-month-old daughter’s ultrasound.

A short stay turned into a much longer one as Hurricane Harvey continually circled Southeast Texas. When they heard some of Conroe was being evacuated, they decided to head to Huntsville, Gonzalez said.

Their biggest challenge is keeping all seven of the kids under the age of 8 in the group occupied and happy.

“She thinks it’s a vacation, like a big road trip,” Nicole Gonzalez, said, gesturing to her 2-year-old sister, Alison.

Her other sister Ayleen, 8, secured a balloon crown for her mother from the balloon artist visiting the shelter.

“She’s not a princess, she’s a queen,” Ayleen crowed proudly.

Junior and Yael Peñaloza, ages 4 and 2, battled each other with their balloon swords.

Along with being worried about registering for FEMA assistance, Tado fretted for her baby, Maria, who was used to sleeping on a bed between Tado and her husband instead of on a FEMA folding cot.

“She slept through the night last night,” Tado said. “We’ll see about tonight.”

It takes hustle

The game of Monopoly being played at the Huntsville shelter Wednesday wasn’t for suckers.

When in doubt, rules were looked up online and followed strictly. The colorful cash flowed freely.

For Thomas Gibson, the paper money in his hand was all he had to his name.

Even before Harvey hit, the 20-year-old evacuee from La Porte was thrown out of his house at age 16 and learned how to tough out homelessness. Then, a car crashed into him and left him in a ditch to die, he said. After having eight screws put into his head, he retaught himself how to talk and move his neck.

He was rooming with his brother and working at a print shop when water started filling their apartment. They decided to leave as fast as they could and drive to Huntsville, where they had some family.

Gibson said he was sure if he went back to La Porte, he was returning to nothing. The manager at the storage unit where he kept a lot of his possessions called to say it had been flooded.

For him, Harvey meant a time to rebuild one more time.

He put in applications at businesses around town, hoping to make money.

“I’m just glad I own something,” Gibson joked, of buying Park Place on the board.