SA woman grateful for 'amazing' support in Hurricane Harvey aftermath
A South African woman living in the US says it could take months before her family’s able to return to their Texas home.
Mia Janse van Rensburg and her family are among thousands of people who have been affected, after Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc a week ago.
"We live in a two storey house. The most damage is actually the foundation and the structure of the house to the walls because the US has dry walls, they do not build the walls with bricks. We had to cut out a big portion of that," she said.
Janse van Rensburg, who lives in Katy outside Houston, says her father and brother were also forced to flee their home.
"We got lucky. We did not experience any flash flooding. With us it was more slow flooding we had time to prepare and carry a lot of our furniture upstairs. The water slowly rose and after our electricity and plumbing shut down, we were issued a mandatory evacuation and we had to get out. We used canoes and we put our dogs on this big golden swan that I had that as a pool toy."
Van Rensburg says the support from the South African community there has been phenomenal.
"We are just happy everyone is safe. We are staying with South African friends of ours and the South African community has really been absolutely amazing. There is a big group of 20 people overall that are helping us set everything up and it has absolutely been so helpful," she added.
Harvey blasted into Texas and Louisiana a week ago, dumping torrents of rain in both states.
It's left 47 people dead.
"We got lucky. We did not experience any flash flooding. With us it was more slow flooding we had time to prepare and carry a lot of our furniture upstairs. The water slowly rose and after our electricity and plumbing shut down, we were issued a mandatory evacuation and we had to get out. We used canoes and we put our dogs on this big golden swan that I had that as a pool toy."
Van Rensburg says the support from the South African community there has been phenomenal.
"We are just happy everyone is safe. We are staying with South African friends of ours and the South African community has really been absolutely amazing. There is a big group of 20 people overall that are helping us set everything up and it has absolutely been so helpful," she added.
Harvey blasted into Texas and Louisiana a week ago, dumping torrents of rain in both states.
It's left 47 people dead.
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