Dear Westview Forest Resident:
The staff at Westview Forest Apartments hopes that you and your family and friends are OK after Thursday night’s (May 16, 2024) devastating storm in which seven Houstonians tragically died. Fortunately, to the best of our knowledge, nobody living at Westview Forest was hurt by the storm, and only one apartment had any water enter it–when a huge tree hit building 29 and damaged the corner of an upstairs apartment in that building. We relocated that tenant that same night to a studio apartment that already had all utilities (including electric once the power came back on the following day).
Amazingly, although the 100-miles-per-hour winds caused five trees to hit our buildings, only Building 29 was damaged. This is due to the fact that when the buildings were re-roofed a few years ago, the buildings (and especially the roofs) were built to FAR HIGHER strength standards than those required by the Building Code. For example, extra wood members were nailed all around the buildings to support the super-strong commercial gutters that were installed. In addition, the roofs were decked with 5/8″ plywood that is TWICE as strong as the 7/16″ plywood that is routinely used for roof decking.
In addition to our super-strong buildings, our staff performed incredibly, FAR BETTER than any apartment complex that I know of. There was a HUGE tree that completely blocked the 50-foot-wide north drive behind building 18. Even before the storm ended, our staff (and even some residents helped!) were cutting that tree and by nightfall on the same night of the storm, that north driveway was COMPLETELY open.
As we know, the following day (Friday), the property was still without power in the morning (power came on in the afternoon)–but our office was open regular hours and FULLY operational that morning, running on generator. Our residents were amazed to find out we were open, and many residents came by to charge their electronics and take care of whatever business they had with the office.
Of course, due to the repaving that we did some years back, the tremendous amount of rain that fell Thursday night didn’t cause any flooding–all that water flowed down our specially-designed driveways to Westview and Conrad Sauer roads.
Also on Friday, our staff worked extremely hard and cleared EVERY tree that hit a building and cleaned up the tree branches that were strewn all over the property. Incredibly, by Friday night–within 24 hours of the storm ending at about 7PM on Thurs–Westview Forest was essentially 100% back to normal–as if the storm never happened.
I want to thank our excellent staff for their incredible efforts under tough conditions and I will bet that NO OTHER property in Houston that sustained significant damage was able to recover fully from the storm within 24 hours of the storm ending. The reason we could recover so quickly is because we have far more staff than any other apartment community, and our staff is superb, plus we have an extensive inventory of heavy equipment available to us (such as our backhoe, high-reach forklift, Bobcats, huge dually truck with 32′ trailer, etc) and other equipment (generator, chainsaws, etc) that no other property has.
Despite our incredible service–demonstrated under the difficult conditions of the Thursday storm–our rents are far BELOW the average rents in Houston, even though we offer amenities that NOBODY else has–such as our guardhouse which is staffed 24/7/365, no dog weight or breed limits , half-price electric, etc.
If you know of someone who wants to live at a property that provides the BEST service around, have them call 713-467-1719. Amanda, Andrea and Christina will be happy to assist you in any way that they can!
