As we approach the 8-year anniversary of Hurricane Harvey’s devasting toll on Houston and its surrounding communities, I wanted to take an opportunity to reflect on my own personal journey, as well as share some lessons learned the hard way. Our home was one of the many thousands that flooded during Harvey, and when we were just two weeks away from moving back after a year of rebuilding, our home caught fire in the middle of the night. A very unfortunate accident caused additional tremendous loss and emotional distress – and delayed our return home by another year.

We were fortunate to find a temporary place to live after our home flooded, and before we evacuated to my sister’s house (safely with our sweet cat, Oliver, thank goodness), we had time to take many of our belongings upstairs to save them from the rising flood waters. However, this left us with a false sense of security, as we brought only our basic necessities and valuables to our temporary space. The clothes and personal possessions we moved upstairs later ended up melted, burned or smoke-damaged from the fire.

Our journey back home was a long one, but my husband and I learned so many things that have continued to shape our lives:

First, less really is more. In our temporary space, we lived with a lot less – and that was OK. It’s amazing what you don’t miss or even think about when you’re in a different environment. But we worked hard to recreate our “home” in little ways, so that it would at least feel familiar, especially as the seasons changed…and changed and changed. My husband appreciated that we still had a comforting vanilla candle on the warmer and the same scented soaps in the kitchen and bathroom. These small things can go a long way to help you stay sane when so many other things are uncertain. And most importantly, we made it a priority to get back into our pre-flood and pre-fire routines as quickly as possible.

Second, we learned what it means to not “sweat the small stuff.” The things we were worried about in the days leading up to Harvey and even the night before the fire were quite insignificant in hindsight – things like minor imperfections in our new kitchen grout and inconveniences of a TV service outage and various websites down for maintenance. We were so focused on chasing our “to-do” list that we didn’t realize how much time we had wasted. These disasters have most definitely helped us focus on the people in our lives and not so much on the possessions and conveniences that we often take for granted.

Third, we learned to enjoy what we have while we have it. As we were going through our water-soaked and smoke-damaged possessions, we discovered many clothing items with the tags still on and shoes still in the boxes. Perfume unopened. Many items we were saving “just in case” or for the exact “right moment.” Or clothes we didn’t want to wear because we “liked them too much to wear” – the style or color was no longer available, or this was the “last one.” But in the end, we missed out on enjoying these things in the moment when we had them, since the disasters rendered them useless and they ultimately wound up in the trash.

Even though we all respond differently when faced with disaster – and it’s not possible to be fully prepared for the unthinkable – here are some tips to consider:

• Compile a list of personal possessions and a video recording of the contents of your home for insurance purposes.
  
  
• When valuing the contents and structure of your home for insurance purposes, be sure to account for the heavy cleaning and smoke, water and fire remediation that must take place following a disaster. Those costs will be substantial and count against your policy limits.
  
  
• Back up personal data on your computer regularly and ensure that it can be taken quickly and accessed remotely (through the Cloud, on a flash drive, etc.) in case of disaster.
  
  
• Utilize off-site storage when your home is being remodeled.
  
  
• Ensure that your smoke detectors are still being monitored if you are not living in your home during a remodel – even if painters take them down, make sure that at least one per floor is always being monitored (even if you must place it a table or the floor temporarily).
  
  
• If you utilize a vendor to remove, clean and/or store your personal items following a disaster, take your own photographs to show what was taken from your home (and the condition things were in) and be sure to research the company extensively before any work begins. There are many things we would have done differently to prevent even further loss, but we also realize that we were operating from a state of shock as this nightmare began to unfold.
  
  
• If you have fire sprinklers in your home, remember to get them inspected regularly.
  

The most important lesson we learned through both disasters is that life must – and does – go on. We found strength and comfort in knowing that we had the love and support of our family and friends – even strangers – and that we weren’t alone (or the first people to have ever gone through these challenges). We were pleasantly surprised at how quickly we made new friendships with others who had also lived through these or similar disasters, and we’re always there now to provide help and advice for others going through similar crises.

Despite our losses, we have tried very hard to maintain our perspective on what is most important in life – the people who support us and the memories we make.