Flooded with memories, AgriLife Extension reopens Harris County office

Writer: Kathleen Phillips, 979-845-2872, [email protected]

Contact: Allen Malone, 281-855-5600, [email protected]

Fralonda Aubrey, 281-855-5600, [email protected]

HOUSTON — Tax Day 2016. The day most income earners know as the deadline for filing federal returns became taxing in another way for more than 20 employees at the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service Harris County office.

“More than 15 inches of rain fell during April 18-19,” said Dr. Allen Malone, AgriLife Extension county director. “It was a 500-year flood. The most this area had seen in awhile.”

Now, some nine months after the unprecedented flood that washed up to 3-feet deep throughout the county office on Bear Creek Road, the faculty and staff are realizing some positive outcomes in returning to the newly renovated 22,000-square-foot building and gardens.

“Our agents and staff have actually had a chance to come into a new environment, a new setting,” Malone said. “We’ve been in this building for 30 years, so the flood gave us an opportunity for an update and a facelift.”

The ultimate joy was not immediately apparent on the morning of April 18 when Malone got a call from a county official about the massive rainfall.

“I was getting ready to go to Austin to meet with state officials to do our Extension in the City event,” Malone recalled. “But that morning, my telephone started ringing and a call from the county commissioner told me I needed to get to my office to check it out. By the time I got near the office, the facility had been blocked off because the waters were rising.”

So, Malone and his assistant notified all employees not to come to the area that Monday morning. In the 30 years of AgriLife Extension being in the building, which is located on a rise in a reservoir, flood waters had never gotten higher than the first step at the base of the property, not even in a hurricane. But authorities soon realized the massive rainfall in April 2016 was going to be different.

Water had not yet entered the building, however, so authorities arranged for airboats to carry employees to the building in an attempt to secure valuable items and to retrieve lightweight items such as laptops.  

“We were only able to get in two days. The first day we were able to put things up high and gathered up any information that we needed for our educational programs,” said Fralonda Aubrey, AgriLife Extension agent for urban youth development. “The next time, we went after the water had receded, and we found as much as 3-feet had risen in the building. The outside, with all of our educational gardens, had stood under 4.5 feet of water.”

The aftermath left all of the demonstration gardens destroyed along with all the office supplies and resources, she said. Filthy water had soaked the floors and seeped up the walls. Supplies and educational materials were strewn around the interior as if a swirling drain had sucked them into the receding waters. Outside, beyond the gardens, the personal vehicles of two employees and at least one county trailer used for agricultural programs would remain submerged for months in the county’s secured parking facility.

Because numerous educational events were already scheduled in the county, the 25 employee staff quickly moved to the first available county facility — a 200-square-foot office, Malone said. Initially, it was hard to imagine how an agency that works largely through educational demonstrations and meetings requiring space for the public would be able to function in such a small space with few supplies.

About a month later, a larger county office — some 6,800-square-feet — was provided, and it included some public meeting space.

“But the flood didn’t stop us,” Aubrey remembers. “People pretty much just worked out of their own vehicles, and we found other places to hold public meetings.”  

In time, the staff realized silver linings in the flood. Because the agency had settled into the building over the past 30 years, a lot of outdated materials had accumulated in the closets.

“It turned into a sort of cleansing process,” Aubrey said. “We were able to get rid of things that we didn’t need.”

Malone joked at a recent open house that God has a sense of humor because the month prior to the flood, the staff  had begun planning to do a spring cleaning to rid the facility of unnecessary items.

More than 40 rolloff dumpsters — each holding some 30 cubic yards of trash and debris — carted off ruined materials as the interior was stripped to the steel studs, he noted. The nine-month renovation now provides even better space for the AgriLife Extension programs in the county.

Plus, through the experience, the employees bonded in ways that Malone and Aubrey feel will help them better serve the citizens of  Harris County.

“When you’re cooped up in an office with four of your co-workers, you have the  opportunity to share what’s going on in each other’s lives,” Malone said. “It actually was a good time for us. We were able to feel comfortable with each other and just work together in a pretty unique circumstance. I think that will help with our camaraderie and our ability to work with each other in our educational programming to serve the public.

“This is a phoenix rising from its ashes, and we are all excited,” Malone said.

Aubrey agreed.

“We were destroyed at that time, but we are very happy and very grateful to Harris County for helping us get back up and rolling,” Aubrey said. “We’re excited. Everything is new,  plus we got rid of some stuff that we really didn’t need in the first place.”