Magic guard Jonathon Simmons described what it was like wading through muddy water and riding a dumpster truck as he tried to escape Tropical Storm Harvey.
Simmons, who played two seasons with the Spurs before joining the Magic, is a Houston native. While he has been shocked by the damage Harvey has caused to his hometown, the helping hands of others have inspired Simmons.
“It’s devastating,” Simmons told NBA.com. “Luckily, none of my family was seriously affected, but I see a lot of my friends suffering and that’s difficult. But I’m also proud of how the city of Houston has come together to help one another. On the upside and brighter side, there’s that seeing how people have been there to help one another.”
According to the website, Simmons left his condo in downtown Houston and traveled to a friend’s house in Richmond, Texas, on Saturday afternoon, mere hours before Harvey slammed through the city. Simmons had brought food, water and other necessities for what he thought might be a three-day ordeal.
But as the rain began to fall around 8 p.m., more people in need of shelter joined Simmons’ group.
“I had bought all of these air mattresses and covers and blankets and food and water for everybody,” the 27-year-old said. “We were good for three days, but my other friend’s house had started getting flooded early, so he came there to the house, too. So that gave us another 11 extra people and most of them were kids. We had to let the kids eat first, so most of the last two days it was kind of rough [without food].
“There was at least 20 people in the house and probably eight of them were kids. When I was little, my mom always kept the fridge full of stuff [during hurricanes]. This time, I ate a pack of ramen noodles and that’s all for like a day and a half.”
The flooding reportedly never reached the house Simmons was sheltered in, due to its location on a hill, though videos Simmons posted on Twitter indicate his street transformed into a river. While the house never lost power, their food supplies ran out. That was when rapper Trae the Truth came to the rescue.
“Trae the Truth, the rapper, is from Houston and we know a mutual friend from San Antonio. They brought a boat to Houston because [Trae] had to evacuate as well,” Simmons said. “They came and got [Trae] and then he came and got us right away. Luckily, I had a friend in the area who could help us out.”
Nevertheless, Simmons and his group still had a long way to go to reach safety.
“We still had to ride a boat, walk through muddy water, and ride on the back of a dumpster truck for like 5 miles. It was crazy,” Simmons recounted. “I had to hold up my people and I had some kids with me. Most of the kids were old enough to walk, but one of them I had to carry with me.”
Simmons told the site he has not been able to return to his condo in Houston due to the flooding still in the area. But now that he is out of harm’s way, he wants to return the favor to other Harvey victims by doing “whatever I can to help out anyway that I can when that’s possible.”