On Friday, at a senior living center owned by the city a mile from the downtown convention center, residents described being trapped inside the building as the storm hit. Water had poured into the glass-walled first floor — home to the dining area, the gym and the mail room, but no resident apartments — filling it like a fishbowl and blocking all exits. Then the freshwater cut out. Ms. Szydlik, one of the residents, said her blood pressure spiked and she spent the next few days in her third-floor apartment eating canned tuna and being very careful not to flood the now unflushable toilets. Once the floodwaters subsided, an army of volunteers, as well as building management staff, came to help residents, carrying water and food up 14 flights of stairs in buckets. On Friday, Monique Ritter, 80, a Holocaust survivor, described how she had made it through Harvey. As water gushed into her dining room and kitchen, friends came over and lifted her on to the kitchen island, where she waited — and fell, becoming soaked — until a rescue team came and pulled her onto a boat. Her granddaughter found a hotel room for her and her husband. When the storm had finally passed, she returned home to find drawers full of water and photographs that belonged to her grandmother, now destroyed. “We’re tired,” she said, speaking on the telephone from a hotel. “We’re exhausted, mentally and physically. I cannot tell you how I feel. I am really numb. We just got here and we need to rest. My husband is sleeping in his chair. We really need a break.”
Harvey was terrifying for millions of people along the East Coast . But it was particularly difficult for the region ’s elderly and disabled , many of whom tried to escape as the temperature rose .