A former Center Grove baseball player is watching his new community take on massive amounts of water from Hurricane Harvey as residents lose their homes and belongings.
Jacob Cantleberry, who graduated from Center Grove in 2016, now lives in Houston and attends San Jacinto College-North in Houston. He is watching the city flood from his third floor apartment that he shares with two baseball teammates.
“Right now there’s probably 40 inches of standing water. It’s like I’m living on a lake,” Cantleberry said. “You can look down to the main highway (Interstate 10) and see cars floating and people driving boats around. It’s definitely been an experience.”
On Monday, he said he is grateful that he is safe after Hurricane Harvey — the most powerful storm to hit Texas in 50 years — began battering the state’s eastern shores late Friday.
“We were pretty much told it would be OK to stay, but now it’s flooded here,” said Cantleberry, twice the Daily Journal’s All-County Baseball Team Player of the Year while pitching for the Trojans. “We’re luckily on the third floor and still have power, so everything is all right.”
His car, a 2014 Cadillac ATS, is inside a detached garage at the apartment complex where the sophomore and many of his teammates reside.
Water pressure from the flooding in the parking lot broke the garage door. Only when water levels diminish will he be able to raise the door and get to his automobile to examine the damage.
Members of the San Jacinto-North baseball coaching staff stopped by Cantleberry’s apartment Saturday to deliver enough food and water to make it through this crisis. Heavy rains early Sunday didn’t prevent Cantleberry and his roommates from making the short drive to campus to work out. But by evening, his parking lot was beginning to flood.
Classes at the school were canceled this week and are expected to be canceled through next week, as well.
