Woman stranded 3 days on 610 overpass during Harvey

In a saturated city where Harvey stories easily number in the millions, the survival tale told by Christine Gibson will be tough to beat.

"I can't swim. I'm afraid of water and the water was already up to my waist in my house," said Gibson, a 60-year-old grandmother.

Still under reconstruction nine months after the storm, her home sits a stone's throw from Loop 610 near Lockwood - a geographical fact that may well have proven Gibson's salvation.

"No one could get here because McCarty was under and Kirkpatrick and Homestead and Lockwood there was nobody who could get through," said Gibson.

With a severely disabled roommate to protect, Christine sought the only higher ground in sight, a freeway overpass.

"That's where we stayed, up there on the freeway for three days."

Stranded without rescue within the nation's 4th largest city for 72 excruciating hours.

In need of medicine, Christine waded back to her home only to find it being looted by a man she had led to safety.

"The guy that I helped get out of the truck he was in here robbing me. And I asked him 'what are you doing in here?' And he said, 'Ah this is not my house.' I said, I know it's not, its mine," recalled Gibson.

Christine Gibson says her sister barraged emergency dispatchers with pleas for rescue.

"My sister said she called a hundred and something times and she finally got through and they said they were going to call somebody. She called me two hours later - 'Somebody come? Somebody call?" No, nobody come, nobody called," said Gibson.

Three days after flood waters laid waste to her house, a city truck finally reached the overpass.

"They told me there was no room for me and all I could do was just sit there and cry, because I still had night clothes on and I was out there with night clothes and no shoes, no nothing.," said Gibson.

Turns out, on the city's northeast side, folks in crisis like Christine had plenty of company.

"Our communities have not exhaled. We were under stress to begin with. Now we are under more stress. Now we are in hurricane season again," said Keith Downey, President of Kashmere Gardens Super Neighborhood.

Downey fears far too little has been done to either prepare or protect his rattled residents when the bayous fill with the next wave of heavy weather.

"If a storm comes next week - What's the plan? What's the plan? Are we going to go through this all over again?" asked Downey.

Meantime, back at Christine Gibson's house she's praying for reprieve.

She'll be able to move back in soon and says there's been far more restored than just walls and flooring

"I just started crying. I got a door! People who go in and out of doors, they don't realize. And when they started bringing in a box and my grandbabies played with that box and it was Christmas, I go it's going to be better for us. It's going to be better," said Gibson.

A belated yet welcome blessing on Herschell Street.