Hurricane Harvey was a Category 4 storm that hit Texas on August 25, 2017. The storm affected 13 million people from Texas through Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The city of Houston, Texas, and surrounding communities were those hardest hit. In the first 24-hours of the storm, two feet of rain fell. At its peak on September 1, 2017, one-third of Houston was underwater. The storm forced 39,000 people out of their homes and into shelters. Children in the Houston area significantly felt the storm’s impact. Houston Independent School District, which is the largest school district in Texas and the nation’s seventh-largest, reported that 75 of its 275 schools were closed due to flood damage.
A few months after Hurricane Harvey, the Former First Lady Libraries hosted an essay contest, asking students to reflect on the lessons learned from the storm. Entries from seven different elementary schools in the Houston area were received. Below are the top five essays. The winner of the essay contest was Ada, a fourth-grader at Lovett Elementary School.
