‘Controlled chaos’ | How experience, teamwork and passion kept Houston Airports afloat during Harvey
Five years after Hurricane Harvey ravaged Houston, employees at all three Houston airports remember what it was like to work through the historic storm.
A look at the flooded airfield at Ellington Airport on Aug. 27, 2017 as Harvey stalled over Houston.
A look at the flooded airfield at William P. Hobby Airport on Aug. 27, 2017. Harvey dumped more than 4 feet of rain in some parts of the Houston area.
Another angle of the flooded airfield at Hobby Airport on Aug. 27, 2017 as Harvey slowly moved across Houston.
A look at Hobby from the flooded airfield. The blue glow of a light along the taxiway is barely visible under flood water.
Federal, state and local law enforcement helicopters aided in search and rescue operations across Houston. Photo taken at George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
A look at the flooded airfield at Bush which forced the first-ever temporary closure of the airport.
Air ambulances from across Texas, other parts of the U.S. responded to the natural disaster in Houston. Photo taken at Bush Airport.
A U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft landed at Bush Airport and delivered supplies to people affected by Harvey.
President Donald Trump arrived at Ellington Airport on Sept. 2, 2017 to visit with community leaders, first responders.
On August 27, 2017, Houston woke up to a city under water. Water that rose with every passing hour of rainfall. Water that filled Houston’s horizon, no matter the direction. “We had so much water on the airfield,” remembered Ross Williamson, “it was absolutely horrible.” Horrible, because Williamson, the Division Manager for Operations at William P. Hobby Airport, remembers some passengers and Houston Airports employees became stranded at the airport when high water flooded the airfield and the roads surrounding the southeast Houston property. “I lived here for six days,” said Williamson. “Didn’t leave.”
Pete Fress didn't leave Ellington Airport either. When Fress, the Division Manager of Operations for Ellington Airport, arrived to the airfield around 6:30 that morning, the first thing the veteran aviation worker did was, “go around and inspect the airport.”
Ten miles south of Hobby, along I-45, Ellington’s south end was under water too.
“We had a nice-sized bass fish inside one of the hangars," said Pete Fress. "Obviously plenty of turtles on the ramp and we had our fair share of snakes."
“The air traffic control tower had evacuated,” said Fress, because weather conditions were so dangerous.
Harvey, a Category 4 hurricane, had made landfall just north of Corpus Christi two days earlier. Instead of moving inland and farther from the coast, the historic storm stalled over Southeast Texas for days. More than 4 feet of rain would suffocate the city. More than 100 deaths are now linked to the catastrophic flooding.
As the torrential rain fell, Fress and his team hustled to clear debris from the section runway that wasn’t underwater. “Ellington is designated as the main airport in the Houston area to support incoming aircraft that’s going to provide support,” Fress said of the search and rescue teams, supplies and materials that would be desperately needed.
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A lifeline
Cellphone video recorded by Fress captured a moment that would repeat over the next few days. A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter touched down at Ellington Airport long enough for six people to jump off the aircraft and run toward dry shelter.
“It was a controlled chaos,” said Fress of the search and rescue mission carried out by military personnel working out of Ellington and George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
“It was a different way to operate,” said David “Hoss” Robertson, Operations Training Manager at Bush Airport. “We set up a large operations center for the Air Force to be able to set up, basically, emergency medical triage hospital units over in east cargo.”
For the first time ever, Bush Airport, the largest commercial airport in Houston, was shut down to passenger flights. “Intercontinental had not looked anything like this since unfortunately the events of 9/11,” said Robertson.
Photo of FEMA mobile command center, medical tents set up at Bush Airport in the days after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in southeast Texas.
Forty miles north of the Coast Guard choppers working out of Ellington, Robertson helped to organize operations among the Army National Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and a nationwide network of medical emergency helicopters. FEMA stood up a series of beige tents that doctors then used to treat people impacted by Harvey.
The impact was personal. “Some employees actually had complete, total loss due to flooding,” said Robertson. “Which literally took them months, close to a year,” to navigate.
Flood waters forced their way into the League City home of Williamson’s father. Five years later, Williamson said, “there are some things that I will always look back on.” The Marine Corps. veteran can’t help but feel, “so damn grateful,” knowing his family was not physically hurt during the storm. But he said, “it still makes you think about everybody else who lost family, lost belongings, lost treasured items.”
Preparing for the worst
In the 5 years since, Ellington Airport has replaced and elevated its south-end generator and Fress routinely leads disaster drills with military partners housed at the airport. “Hopefully it won’t happen again,” said Fress. With years of experience from prior hurricanes, Williamson rewrote Hobby Airport's hurricane plan in 2008. He said the plan and the passion for the job is what helped Hobby restore passenger service in the days after August 27th. “The teamwork that happened, to get this airport back open, was just second to none. Absolutely amazing,” said Williamson.
The photo Hoss Robertson keeps in his office of some of the Tier 1 staff who responded to Bush Airport during Hurricane Harvey.
The collaboration during Harvey is forever preserved in a photograph Robertson keeps handy. Days after the rain stopped and the ground dried, the team at Bush gathered for a snapshot. Five years later, the Operations Training Manager for IAH revels in what was accomplished. “It was a new learning curve for not just us,” said Robertson, but for Houstonians and Texans who weathered Harvey together. “Different kind of world. But we adapted to it,” he continued.
With adapting comes resilience, and within that ability to quickly overcome lives #HoustonStrong. The social media hashtag and phrase became synonymous with the spirit of Houston and its airports. “We are like a family here,” said Williamson.
Five years later, if you look out at the airfield at Bush, Hobby or Ellington Airports, “there’s nothing out there that would indicate that 5 years ago we had a major hurricane,” said Fress. But if you listen to the stories of airport employees who worked through a relentless downpour and in emergency conditions, what you’ll hear is experience, teamwork and passion make all the difference when things matter most. “I knew that I had a job to do,” said Fress, “so that we could support the bigger picture in and around the Houston area.”
