The water started to rise on August 28th fence.
Our home was completely flooded by August 29th, 2017.
Two years later it happened again.
Richie Devillier and his family have been farming their land in
Winnie, Texas for nearly 100 years.
They grow rice, have an olive orchard, and raise cattle, at least they used to.
My great-grandfather came and settled this property almost a hundred years ago.
He raised my grandfather here.
My grandfather raised my father here.
My father raised me here, and I raised my son.
This land means everything to my family.
Sometime when my father was growing up, they built the freeway on our property.
When they improved the highway, expanded it to three lanes on each side.
They raised the road bed on average my understanding of around 18 inches.
And then they put 32 inches of barrier poured cast in place.
And it, it functions exactly like a dam.
Richie's grandfather chose this land to homestead specifically
because of its elevation.
When it rains, the water has got to go somewhere.
For as long as anyone can remember, the water flowed south away from
his land and towards the gulf.
But in the early two thousands, Texas decided to elevate a nearby highway and
build a concrete median down the middle.
Now, whenever a major storm hits Richie's land is flooded days.
Hurricane Harvey and its Torturously slow.
March along the Gulf coast of Texas tonight along the Texas Gulf Coast.
Utter devastation.
The eye of the massive hurricane moved.
We went and got my parents brought them to our house to stay because we thought
we would be safe from the flood here.
And, uh, overnight the water started coming in the house.
And when we got up the next morning, we.
Almost knee deep.
We had 900 acres here, completely submerged.
Also, our neighbors, the neighborhood down the street, everyone.
It was in the same lake at that point in time.
My house was flooded, our multiple vehicles were flooded,
my equipment was flooded.
The animals that weren't already dead, drowned and floating had been
standing in deep water for several days.
And when that happens, their hair will start to slip and then
they will just lose all energy.
And we tried to move cattle that were standing in the floodwaters to higher
ground and just, they wouldn't go.
You just could not herd them.
They were spent, done.
The highway median, turned into a dam and blocked floodwaters
from draining away for days.
Their farm was a lake.
The flood destroyed his family's crops and orchard.
It killed their livestock and horses and damaged their homes and farming equipment.
Just two years later, hurricane Irma came through and flooded the
Devillier property all over again.
So after the second flood, I really felt convicted.
I knew what my task was, we had to get this problem solved.
We had been wronged by the state twice now.
We struggled to find an attorney that would help us, but we couldn't afford
anything because we had basically lost everything at that point in time.
Now, the Institute for Justice is working with Richie to hold Texas
accountable for the damage it caused to his and his neighbor's land.
My father was born and raised on this land.
He farmed this land all his life, raised his children, saw his grandchildren
grow up here, and was displaced by this flood that was caused by the
government, and he died in Oregon, never being able to come back home.
The flood that the government caused took so many things
from us that can't be replaced.
We just want 'em to replace the things that can be.