In Texas, and especially in Houston, a quiet dread has been settling into everyday life, not with the sudden shock of a single catastrophe, but with the slow accumulation of unanswered questions. Each time another body is pulled from a bayou, creek, or drainage channel, the city absorbs the news like a bruise that never fully fades before the next one appears. Officials speak carefully, emphasizing calm and caution, but for residents who live near the water or have lost someone they love, reassurance feels thin. Grief does not respond to press conferences, and fear does not dissolve simply because it is labeled premature. What lingers is a sense that something is wrong in a way that statistics cannot soothe. People want to know who these individuals were, how they ended up in the water, and why their deaths seem to blur together into a pattern that no one is willing to name. Even those who accept official explanations admit to feeling uneasy walking past bayous at night or letting loved ones travel alone near isolated stretches of water. The fear is not just of a hidden threat, but of neglect, of invisibility, of a system that notices people only after they have vanished beneath the surface. Continue reading…
