This article was originally published in The Examiner on Nov. 23, 2017.
By Eleanor Skelton
Staff Writer
Corey Nelson’s house got 6 and a half feet of water in it during Harvey’s floods, a fate
shared by most other homes in Bevil Oaks.
Hanging lights on his roof was not a top priority this year, he said, although his family is known for being festive.
“I said, I guess I’m just putting three star lights out this year in the yard and shining
everything up,” he said. “We usually have lights, Christmas trees, everything is lit up.”
But they were the first house on their street with Christmas lights this past weekend, thanks to an anonymous donor.
The donor asked Jason Choate, who installs holiday lights as a side gig, to decorate the Nelsons’ gutted house and the camper on the driveway that they’re living in temporarily.
Choate is offering a discount for other homeowners affected by Harvey or Southeast Texans wanting to help their neighbors have a brighter Christmas, he said while installing lights Saturday, Nov. 18.
The Nelsons’ next door neighbor asked him to put up Christmas lights for them as
well. The Choate home in Nederland wasn’t damaged during Tropical Storm Harvey, but he said they want to help those who were.
“You give a little, they give a little,” Choate said. “Paying it forward, it’s awesome.”
Nelson said he bought the camper after his family had been living out of the Holiday
Inn for several weeks.
“I couldn’t stay in a hotel,” he said. “I was going crazy. One bedroom with four people — it don’t work.”
“The important thing was to get back here and re-situated as fast as we can to get [the kids] back to some kind of normalcy,” Nelson added. “I don’t care, it don’t bother me, I could live in a trailer, I could live in a tent, but them, they’re not used to any kind of [roughing it].”
Although the floodwaters came just below the ceiling fans in the Nelson’s house, most of their furniture was loaded in a U-Haul, parked outside a friend’s business in north Beaumont.
“We evacuated the Monday before,” he said. His wife had called to increase their insurance coverage when they discovered their flood insurance accidentally lapsed. “We came in here with a U-Haul and got out what we could.”
He and his wife took their children’s brand new bedroom furnishings, their bedroom furniture and all their TVs and electronics along with some sentimental items.
“The rest is history,” he said, chuckling. “Ain’t nothing good about it.”
Nelson mudded out the house by himself up to the ceilings, and a contractor friend helped with the rest. Their homeowner’s insurance offered them a dollar less than their deductible, he said, but they did get FEMA benefits after being denied the first time.
“The rest of it come out of my 401K,” he added.
The person they hired to spray foam insulation in the home is scheduled for next week, Nelson said.
“We live here now and just work on it a little at a time,” he said. “Our church got all our sheetrock and mud tape and everything. It’s all in the house right now, stacked up and ready.”
Nelson said his employer, Motiva, has helped his family “way beyond expectations,” including giving him time off to meet with contractors at his house.
“Now with the time change, it’s not so bad,” he said, explaining that he doesn’t have to see the destruction in his neighborhood going to and from work. “It’s just dark when I leave and now it’s dark when I get home so I don’t get to see anything until the weekend.”
But Nelson doesn’t want to be pitied by passersby, he said.
“I’m kind of leery about watching who comes through,” he said. “You get a lot of people just come through [and say] ‘Oh my goodness, look how bad they got it’ and then they
drive back to their homes.”
U.S. Census field representative Doris Hayes, who lives in Port Arthur, walked up to talk to the Nelsons while Choate and his kids hung lights.
“It’s beautiful to see this,” she said. “When I drove up and I saw the Santa and the reindeers up there, I said, ‘Thank God somebody is not gloom.’ “Everywhere I go, people are so angry, upset, hurt, crying and I see this and it makes me feel good.”
“Harvey is the Scrooge this year,” Hayes said. “But this family is not allowing Harvey to take the joy out of their Christmas.”
Anyone interested in hiring Choate to hang their lights can call him at (409) 225-3252.
Eleanor Skelton 