Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The night of the deadly Houston derecho, Nancy Guevara’s lights went out, the air-conditioning shut off and a 45-foot tree – which she believed to be firmly rooted in her front yard – toppled over, smashed her car and blocked her driveway. 

The sound shook the house. Neither Guevara, 42, nor her husband had any power tools to cut up the thick tree trunk. They didn’t have enough money to pay a crew to come out and clean it up. And they weren’t the only ones. Guevara’s street in Greater Fifth Ward was now lined with ripped-up trees, branches and storm debris – and few resources to remove it all. 

That changed, however, for the better when a crew of about 10 volunteers showed up at her place Saturday morning to finally chop up her fallen tree.

They were plumbers, insulators, ironworkers, stagehands – all local union members who signed up to clean up damaged properties. All week, the 10 to 20 members have been out in Greater Fifth Ward, Denver Harbor, Kashmere Gardens, Spring Branch, Acres Homes and other neighborhoods to meet the demand.

The volunteer effort was organized by the Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation – a union organization representing 95 unions along the Texas Gulf Coast. Many of the volunteers include skilled trade union apprentices, with Harris County and other community organizations donating equipment – all in response to the storm.

“A lot of these communities out here are struggling to clear these trees themselves,” said Julia Popowych, communications and marketing coordinator for TGCALF. “Union members and apprentices are coming out to help, so people can just get back to their lives.”

The high price of storm recovery

Thousands were left without power after a severe derecho, or windstorm, tore through the Houston area a little more than a week ago. The fierce winds ripped trees from the ground, toppled power lines and smashed windows in under an hour, reaching gusts of up to 100 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

For days after the storm, Houston residents sat in sweltering in 90 degree heat or relocated to places with electricity as CenterPoint Energy worked to restore power to nearly a million customers.

More than a week later, most Houstonians have power again, but the damage from the storm left a mark across the city. Splintered and upended trees littered properties across the region, and residents like Guevara don’t have enough money to clean it up.

Some of the properties need only brush removal; others need chainsaws. Lacy Wolf, an insulator with 41 years of experience, helped cut Guevara’s tree into smaller pieces and rolled them to the curb. His truck is blaring music. As president of TGCALF, he’s been working on storm recovery all week.

“It’s not just about our regular brothers and sisters who are in the union, it’s about the entire community,” said Wolf, 61. “It’s everybody, especially the ones who are most in need.” 

$3,000 to remove a tree

At a property just south of Guevara’s, three union stagehands, an apprentice plumber and an organizer with the nonprofit, Houston Justice are sorting through the wreckage. Their first spot for the morning, the team is just pulling tree scrapes from the back of the property to the street. The owner is at work, but allowed the union members to stop by while he’s out.

Brandon Lamoreaux, 35, is on his way to become a stagehand apprentice – meaning working backstage at shows throughout Houston. His power went out for five days and his fridge blew out, so he understood the stress of the storm. Still, he joked with his other stagehands.

“Aren’t props supposed to handling all these trees,” said stagehand Josue DeLeon, 32. They all laugh at the inside joke – the joke being on the stagehand prop department.

The three of them belong to the IATSE Union, Local 51 – or the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. They had heard about the volunteering a couple of days ago and decided to join in to help. The cost to fix properties, they understood, wasn’t feasible for everyone. 

When Guevara started calling around for quotes on removing her tree from her yard, it was around $3,000 – nearly triple the price she was quoted for removing a different tree last year.

She and her husband were able to borrow a saw from their neighbor to remove some of the smaller pieces of the tree and get some of it off her driveway, but that wouldn’t work for a heftier trunk. Guevara started to think she’d have to rent a chainsaw at another cost, until her neighbor told her about the volunteer union work. She signed up.

“Honestly, I’m just glad it wasn’t my house that got destroyed,” she said. “That tree was just yards from our front door. I can’t imagine how we would have handled that.”

Her family didn’t have power for a full week after the storm. They tried to make it work, but the heat got too intense. They moved into her daughter’s apartment.

The high price of tree removal is all over the city, too. Wolf said he had a 75-foot tree cut down in the Garden Villas neighborhood recently that came to $3,200. Expensive, but trying to cut down a tree untrained and without the property equipment is dangerous.

“I mean, people can’t afford $3,000 in groceries, let alone a tree,” Wolf said. 

The Union members had a total of about 15 to 20 properties to work from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday. If they had more time at a house before the next address, the group could walk around the neighborhood and see who else might need help.

With the tree finally going and power back, Guevara feels things could go back to normal. She’s still a little concerned, however. Hurricane season was coming in hot, and after the derecho, she’s not sure how the city will handle it.

“How do we even prepare for that?” she asked.

Republish This Story

Republish our articles for free, online or in print.