Houstonians still recovering 1 year after derecho slammed city: 'It's been challenging'

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- It was a day Houstonians will never forget.

A rare derecho, with winds up to 100 miles per hour, ripped through our city, killing eight people and destroying homes and businesses exactly one year ago on Friday.

"I've lived through a few one-in-a-hundred, one-in-thousand-year storms. I guess I'm getting old," Chris Laflin laughed.

"It was an absolute disaster. Trees and debris everywhere. I hope to not hear the word 'derecho' for a long time," Mike Sullivan said. "Even coming to the one-year mark, I see light at the end of the tunnel, but it's been a very long road to that full back-to-normal recovery."

On this day last year, Sullivan was on a plane. He came home to major damage.

Sullivan still hasn't replaced the shed that was destroyed in the storm.

"It's been challenging from cleanup, demolition, the paperwork, the back-and-forth with insurance. It's been quite something to navigate for sure," he said.

Sunset Heights was hit hard in May, and then again in July during Hurricane Beryl.

"People were just speechless because they were like, 'What happened?' It was like a tornado, but they said it wasn't a tornado," Laflin said.

"Some are pulling the ripcord and getting out of town, but I'm from the camp that you know it's not quite time, but it's becoming a concern in recent years," Sullivan said.

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