From the Latino Reporter newsletter: Hurricane Beryl’s impact felt around the U.S. as travel delays continue
From Latino Reporter: Hurricane Beryl’s impact felt around the U.S. as travel delays continue
As I lay on the floor of my parents’ bedroom Tuesday night, sweating, I tried desperately to fall asleep. It was only 10:30 p.m. but my entire Houston neighborhood was pitch black and had been without power and cell service for nearly two days after Hurricane Beryl, a category 1 storm, made landfall in South Texas.
I wasn’t even supposed to be there.
I’m Kathleen Ortiz, a journalist with the Latino Reporter, and I will be your news guide today as part of a special partnership between NBC Latino and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists this week. I was supposed to arrive in Hollywood on Monday morning to join my colleagues at NAHJ’s annual conference.
Instead, I spent that day watching wind tear trees and fences out of the ground. My flight had been canceled and pushed to Tuesday. But when my family and I ventured hopefully to the airport, we found out that I was delayed again. Still, we stayed inside the air conditioning for two more hours just to cool off and charge our devices before returning to our powerless home.
As I write this, I can’t help but feel a pang of guilt. My parents and my sisters couldn’t just fly away from Houston’s 100-degree heat and the wreckage left by Beryl.
I can’t help but think about all 1.1 million people who still don’t have power in the city I call home. I’m not the only Houstonian in the Latino Reporter newsroom, let alone at NAHJ’s annual conference, the largest gathering of Hispanic and Latino journalists in the United States. Travel delays, damages and other storm-related challenges are becoming increasingly common for many Latino families in the U.S.
Climate change has a disproportionate impact on communities of color, which often live in more environmentally challenged areas and may struggle to access help and resources in the aftermath of a disaster. It’s something I reflected on while I tried to rebook my flight for a second time. Nearby, an airport employee berated a Spanish-speaking couple as the woman attempted to rebook her husband’s flight. The husband had struggled to communicate their needs in English, and the employee, instead of helping or offering to find a Spanish-speaking colleague, insisted that they speak English: “This is the United States,” she said.
Today, my colleagues and I will bring you the news in both Spanish and English, because that’s how we do things at the Latino Reporter.
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We’ll be back tomorrow with more news from Hollywood and the Latino Reporter. You can also sign up for more news from NBC Latino here.
Kathleen Ortiz is a junior at Rice University studying both Social Policy Analysis and Sport Management with a concentration in Sport Law. Ortiz serves as the sports editor for Rice’s paper The Rice Thresher and works as a law intern at Rusty Hardin & Associates in Houston, Texas. Reach her via email (kathleenortiz13@gmail.com) or LinkedIn @Kathleen Ortiz.
