HOUSTON – During Harvey, water flooded homes and apartments near Fleming Drive and Federal Road in east Houston. Families evacuated on rafts and blow-up mattresses and waded through waist-deep water.
“Somebody was knocking on my door and beating on my window and when I woke up, my air mattress started sliding,” said Damekia Bozeman on Aug. 27.
We met Bozeman, 18, a single mother who is pregnant with twins and working two jobs to provide. She had moved into her apartment two days earlier.
“My clothes floated out of the apartment. It’s just everything. I just lost everything,” she said.
Moments later, a pastor and his wife offered Bozeman a place to stay.
“(She said) ‘When I was lying down and watching the news, God told me to get out of my bed and come get you,’” Bozeman said of the pastor's wife.
She stayed with the family for almost a week.
Then, the managers at Bozeman's apartment complex moved her into a new two-story apartment.
“I had peace of mind and I didn’t have nothing in here but an air mattress and a blanket and some clothes and that baby stuff and I felt good,” she said.
It’s empty, but it’s home. And as days passed, more strangers helped.
One woman packed a closet with baby necessities and clothes. Others filled up her kitchen and restroom cabinets.
Bozeman doesn’t have much, but said it’s enough.
“Now seeing that all these strangers giving stuff out, I want to do that for somebody,” she said.
The pastor’s daughter created a GoFundMe account and it's raised $4,000.
It’s money she's saving for the twins and her 2-year-old daughter, who is staying with Bozeman’s mother for now.
“I lost my apartment, my car and I was probably going to lose my job. I was hurt. I just couldn’t stop thinking about her,” Bozeman said.
Her daughter’s name is Journey and she’s Bozeman’s motivation to keep striving for more.
“I still got to survive like everybody else, so that’s why I’m basing myself on finding a better job, finding a new car and getting my baby back,” she said.
