Rocco Huerta, Junior

After Category 1 Hurricane Beryl made landfall in July, almost all Kingwood residents were affected, including 17-year-old junior Rocco Huerta. 

Born and raised in New Caney, Rocco moved to the Kingwood area around 2020. He had experienced blizzards, freezes, tornadoes and a multitude of heavy storms. None, however, quite compared to the disaster of Beryl.

“I saw power lines hanging down to the road, a bunch of branches and trees all over the place,” Huerta said. “A house I saw destroyed, cut right down the middle when a big tree fell through.” 

Huerta was staying the night at a friend’s house when the hurricane hit. He was awoken from his sleep by the sound of thunder and the air conditioner losing power. 

After the storm hit, Huerta was not able to return home.

“[We had] no power, I had to keep moving from hotel to hotel the first couple of weeks,” Huerta said. “And then [we went] to my aunt’s house before going back.”

Like many of his classmates and fellow residents of Kingwood, Huerta was disappointed with the response to the storm by the power provider CenterPoint Energy.

 “At my house, we lost power for about three weeks, they did a bad job of coming to our place,” Huerta said. “CenterPoint was unprepared for anything. They weren’t even prepared when they knew what was coming.”

During the weeks without power and trekking from shelter to shelter, Huerta turned to the one thing all teenagers can lean on – his phone.

“What helped me the most? The phone,” he laughed. “Yeah, this phone. Couldn’t survive without it.”