Harvey victim's Halloween display shows dark humor after floods

HOUSTON – Five weeks after Harvey, debris still sits outside a number of homes in the Meadow Glen subdivision of Cinco Ranch. 

But amid the damaged furniture, belongings, and Sheetrock you'll find a Halloween display with a particular theme in honor of FEMA.

A Harvey victim in Katy is showing her dark humor about the hurricane through her Halloween display this year.

PHOTOS: Halloween display shows dark humor after Harvey

Tessie Rose Bailey posted several photos of her Meadow Glen yard on social media. It's filled with debris -- as so many Houston area yards are -- but her yard has skeletons posed to look as if they’re waiting.

"We still had 2 feet of water in the street and they said they'd call back in 10 days and they never called back," Bailey said. "And so, just sort of a running joke was, 'OK, well, we're waiting, and we're waiting."

But waiting on what? 

The sign accompanying the skeletons says it all: “Waiting on FEMA.”

“It was just for fun,” Bailey told KPRC 2. “I do a really big Halloween display each year, so I thought I'd start early.”

Bailey is waiting on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but she said she doesn't’t expect anything from them regardless. 

The Baileys have flood insurance and don't need FEMA assistance, but their neighbors weren't so lucky and have grown frustrated.

“We had flood insurance, although most people in the area didn't,” she said. 

"We had a neighbor today waiting for their FEMA adjuster who didn't show," Bailey said. "We have folks who have a FEMA adjuster come, spend multiple hours, and say they're not eligible for anything even though they've lost pretty much their entire first floor."

The effort appears to be a way for Bailey to uplift her community.

The Baileys said people work on their homes during the day and return to temporary housing in the evening. They hope the Halloween display can help lift their spirits.

“I try to make little changes to it every day,” Bailey said. “Gives (my neighbors) something other than trash to look at.”

The Baileys said they planned on making the Halloween display bigger when they had a 9-foot wall of debris in front of their home but most of that debris was taken away in the past few days.

Read the report on our sister station Click2Houston's website.


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