Barbara and I worked Disaster Relief just East of Houston. This area was not hit directly by the hurricane but had 52 inches of rain in just a few days. We spent three weeks at one site. We met some good people. Volunteers from Texas, Virginia, Iowa, Wisconsin & North Dakota. Other sites in the area have people from other states. Barbara worked as a cook. I helped with the cooking, but spent most of my time doing laundry, taking care of the shower trailer and keeping the building clean. This site is under Virginia Baptist who supplied the shower trailer and laundry trailer and lots of workers as well as administrative staff. Good people.
Men and women volunteers range in age from the late teens to 76. All are volunteers. Some are retired. Some are taking vacation time. Some just took time off from work. Length of their stay varies from three days to three weeks. Most work a week. A group from Virginia drove straight through. Arrived around noon. Had a quick lunch and headed out on a job. They were ready for bed that night. The phase of work going on at the time we were there is called “Mudout” or Recovery. Volunteers went into recently flooded homes and removed furnishings and belongings. Then removed Sheetrock, insulation, flooring down to the studs. Cleaned it all up and sprayed with a solution to kill the mold. It is hot dirty work. It takes Good people.
Volunteers came from all sorts of backgrounds. A dentist (she brought a crew of 6 ladies), a retired State Trooper, a couple with a Leadership Consulting Company, a retired Federal Prison Warden, a young man who owns a glass company (he brought some of his staff), pastors, nurses, mechanics, carpenters, contractors, you name it. Many I never found out what they did to make a living. They just volunteered. One lady has some children who are handicapped. She and her husband take turns on “Call Outs” as one of them have to stay with the children. He got to go to the West Virginia floods. She came to Texas. Good people.
Lights go out at 10 am and are turned on at 6 am. Breakfast is served at 7 am so the kitchen crew is at work early. Coffee man starts coffee well before 5 am. A typical breakfast was eggs, biscuits and gravy, fruit, muffins, juice, milk and coffee for 33. Crews make their own bag lunches before breakfast. Kitchen crew sets up the assembly line for that.
Laundry will do a load of clothes for most workers each day. The person in charge asks them to wash their clothes daily as the places they work have a lot of mold. An additional reason is that the clothes are usually very smelly—actually, you could say they stink. The temperature was over 90 most days. A worker’s clothes are washed separately, dried, folded and returned the next day.
The church, community and people do all they can to help. A well-dressed man, obviously a Texan from his dress, came in the kitchen, handed us a very expensive large spiral ham and said, “I hope this helps. Thanks for coming”. Two other men came in representing a group of businessmen in the area and asked, “what do you need?”. After hearing the list they wrote a check and said all they wanted was accountability. Someone brought a beef and donated it. Good people.
They are extremely welcoming and appreciative of the volunteers and the work they do. Our few weekend forays to local restaurants often resulted with our meals paid for anonymously. Good people. While on shopping trips we were stopped and thanked. While l was loading 14 cases of Gatorade in a store a man with a Vietnam Marine Veteran hat in a wheelchair called several people to “get over there and give a hand”. Good people.
First Baptist Church allowed us to use their gym for sleeping, cooking and just “living space” as well as the parking lot to park shower and laundry trailers and all the equipment trailers and trucks. They also have to put up with the sound of running generators from 8 am until 9 pm.
They are far more concerned with people than they are over buildings. Seems like a Jesus virtue to me! Good people.
The Pastor is very gracious and caring. He checked on us several times a day and does follow up visits with all the people whose homes have been worked on regardless of their background. Good man.
Each night the different teams report on their days activities. Not so much the work they did but on the peoples lives they have impacted. Stories of people sitting in ruined homes without the resources to do anything about it until our volunteers show up and start work. They often ask, “How much will this cost?”. When told it is all free, they break into tears. They have just seen a glimmer of hope provided by God through Good people.
Some of the rural area that our volunteers worked in were pretty rough. The police advised that our crews be out of some areas by 5 PM. Good people volunteer even in areas like that.
Rebuild crews are to arrive in a week or so. They operate the same way. More often than not they show up with Sheetrock and any other materials needed. The materials are paid for by offerings to SBC Disaster Relief. All is free to the homeowner. People can handle bad circumstances if they have hope. Good people allow God to give hope through them.
More volunteers are needed. They plan to work out of this site into the New Year.
Please excuse all the errors. We just got home last night. Three weeks of Disaster Relief work takes a little of “the edge” off a person physically and mentally.
As I said, you get to meet some Good People.