I was 7 years old when my family had to evacuate our house.

We were living in a community in Southern California that was right against the mountainside. Besides our community, the area was completely undeveloped land, covered in all types of common plant life, with the added Californian touch of being bone dry. In other words, the area surrounding our community was the ideal tinderbox for a wildfire.

I remember my dad juggling his work responsibilities with finding a place for us to stay to wait out the fire. I remember packing everything that seemed important to 7 year old me, which meant video games and Legos. I then remember my grandma packing my clothes for me because of how silly my own packing priorities were. I remember my grandparents bringing nearly all of the possessions in our house to the front door, yet not having nearly enough room to take even a quarter of it with us. I remember being slightly annoyed, not understanding why we should have to move all of our stuff; when we come back home it'll be there just like always.

This memory, one that I haven’t even thought about since the first grade when it happened, suddenly came flooding back to my mind this week in light of Hurricane Harvey. Of course, my situation was drastically different — I was lucky. My family was completely safe; we were able to return to our house after a few weeks. Besides layers upon layers of ash covering our property, there was nothing to deal with. My family and I did not have to go through losing our entire home with the majority of our possessions to flooding, nor did we have to be concerned with the mass panic of thousands of people rushing to get supplies just to survive; we simply stayed at a hotel about an hour away.

Even though my experience with simply having to evacuate for a wildfire will never come close to the experience thousands of Texans dealt with in the past week and will continue to deal with in the coming months, I have at least an inkling of how disruptive and difficult dealing with a natural disaster can be. Imagining my experience amplified a hundredfold is simply and utterly terrifying. This entire past week I’ve been constantly concerned about a friend of mine who lives just east of Houston, continually wondering if the next text I send him won’t garner a response.

What is happening there is horrifying and saddening. Hurricane Harvey is no good event in any way, shape or form. From it has come examples of the very worst of mankind, but also the very best. It is a watery hell what Texans are experiencing, but one aspect of my own experience that will be shared with them is the fact that this disaster will one day become a memory. Time moves forward, and they will rebuild. They will look back on this one day, remember that they lived through it, recall what they felt through it and be encouraged by the fact that they are now past it.