Way up on the overpass, you can see the marks. Silt-laden smudges leaving a permanent tattoo on the concrete.
They’re the marks you might expect to see on the bottom of a Mississippi River barge. Or perhaps on a bayfront causeway.
But this overpass was neither of those things. Instead, it was part of a highway intersection in Houston, Texas.
Now, Houston isn’t exactly the desert. There are plenty of bayous, streams, and lakes around town.
But this intersection wasn’t near any of those. And that made the silt markings even more jarring.
Indeed, those rust-colored imprints are a reminder. A reminder of a time when the water flowed into places normally high and dry.
I’m talking, of course, about Hurricane Harvey — the thousand-year storm that inundated Southeast Texas in 2017.
Houston had dealt with flooding events before, and it had been decked by the occasional hurricane. But it had never seen anything to this magnitude.
Days of heavy rain saturated the area. Roads turned to rivers, and inundated homeowners awaited rescue as the rising waters destroyed their possessions. Power and supplies dwindled as desperation soared.
By the time it was over, Hurricane Harvey had killed more than 100 people and caused $125 billion in damage. As Americans looked on in horror, a question started percolating.
Why would anyone want to live in a place like Houston?
The irony was palpable.
For the Houston metro area — the nation’s fifth largest — had once been lauded for its livability.
There were ample jobs in multiple industries, bountiful entertainment options, and plenty of large homes to choose from. Most of the country was a three-hour flight away. And there was no state income tax.
Sure, the summers could be swampy, and the traffic could be miserable. But idea of setting down roots in Southeast Texas was considered more boon than burden.
Harvey changed that. And now — long after the floodwaters have receded — Houston is viewed by many as Ingrata Terra, or unwelcome land.
To outsiders, those silt marks on the concrete are more than scars of a past trauma. They’re indicators of a cursed destiny.
Dropping anchor in the shadow of such symbols would be foolhardy. Better to choose somewhere safer.
The Ingrata Terra argument is gaining steam these days. And not just in Texas.
A spate of wildfires in California has sparked a backlash against development in the WUI — or Wildland Urban Interface. That’s the spot where human development intrudes upon nature.
In Florida, a deadly condo collapse has left many reconsidering the prospect of living on the beach. Between erosion and storm concerns, the risk certainly seems to outweigh the reward.
And in the Rust Belt, the decline of once-dominant industries has led many to claim some once-prominent cities dead. The supposed demise of Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo is a well-known tale these days — even if it’s being penned by those living several states away.
Yes, the glass house effect is in full force. We throw stones at locations that have weathered these storms, propping up our unblemished locales in comparison.
Such actions are foolish, for multiple reasons.
First, nowhere is truly safe from calamity. Disasters are getting more unpredictable by the year. Places that have been unscathed by them thus far are likely sitting ducks.
Second, Ingrata Terra assumes that cities can’t rebound. It posits that a metro area can’t better prepare itself for the next catastrophe. It presumes that the region’s eulogy is part and parcel with the initial crisis.
This thinking is simply not true. And there’s ample proof as to why.
Back when I was in middle school, I visited New Orleans with my family.
It was February, and the Crescent City was in the Mardi Gras spirit. I was amazed by the atmosphere, I was mesmerized by the food, and I couldn’t get enough of the warm weather. I couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t want to live down the Bayou.
Some years later, New Orleans got pummeled by Hurricane Katrina. The levees failed, the city got flooded, and many residents lost everything.
In the wake of this disaster, a new debate arose. Was the Crescent City worth rebuilding?
Many argued that it wasn’t. After all, New Orleans sat at sea level, surrounded by swamps, lakes, and rivers. With its Gulf Coast location, it would likely be in the path of many other hurricanes. And counting on the levees for salvation seemed like a fool’s errand, given what had just occurred.
Still, the city did rebuild, revitalizing the levee system in the process. The criticism was fast and furious, but New Orleans tuned out the noise and churned ahead.
Many years later, Hurricane Ida took fresh aim at the Louisiana Bayou. Once again, prognosticators called for catastrophe as the storm bore down on the Crescent City.
But the levee system did its job. New Orleans didn’t fill like a bathtub this time. It survived the worst of Ida mostly intact.
More than 1,000 miles away in New York, people weren’t quite as fortunate.
After churning its way through the Deep South and Appalachia, Ida’s remnants buzzed right across the Big Apple. Nearly a foot of rain fell in less than an hour, inundated many streets and homes. Several residents drowned in flooded basements.
The sense of irony was tragic.
Many calls for the abandonment of New Orleans post-Katrina had come from the New York area. The land of a million pundits was supposedly a more stable location for development than the lower Mississippi Delta.
But now, it was New York reeling in the wake of a storm. A storm that had decked Louisiana with all its fury but could not bring the Bayou to its knees.
Ingrata Terra? It’s pure folly.
Some years back, archeologists found the remains of an English king.
Such a discovery normally would not raise eyebrows. This is what archeologists do, after all.
Nevertheless, the discovery led to international news coverage. Mostly on account of where the remains were found.
You see, the dig site wasn’t some remote stretch of land, or the fringes of an old church. No, King Richard III was found beneath a parking lot.
This saga demonstrates a great many traits about humanity — including our knack for adaptability.
At the time of King Richard III’s burial, no commoner would dared have left his horse above his regal remains. But over the centuries, society adapted. Memories faded, areas were rezoned, and a parking lot cropped up on hallowed ground.
Indeed, the world is what we make of it. We’ve built cities in the desert, carved our likenesses into the mountains, and harnessed the energy of the wind and the sun.
Nature might strike back from time to time, but it’s hardly enough to slow our roll.
Ingrata terra might have applied centuries ago. But these days, it’s hardly a factor.
So maybe it’s time to look at those Houston overpasses in a new light. Those rusty marks are not harbingers of doom. They’re a reminder of all that we’ve overcome.
Ingrata terra can’t be found here.