Armies of Texas volunteers dig out, clean up, after fatal floods<\/p>\n
COMFORT, Texas (AP) \u2014 It began with a stranger asking \u201cDo you need help?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Paul Welch told the man in a pickup truck, \u201cI desperately need some help.”<\/p>\n
A day later, dozens of people pulled up outside the modest cabin where Welch and his partner lived overlooking the Guadalupe River until Texas’ July 4 floods.<\/p>\n
The devastated property looked like a construction site Saturday after operators started clearing debris with mini-excavators and skid steers. An Army unit from Fort Hood scraped mud out of the cabin while other people tore down drywall. A Bible study group from San Antonio hand-washed tools from Welch\u2019s barn. His niece carefully wiped old negatives, hoping to preserve some of the couple\u2019s memories.<\/p>\n
Texans are leading flood recovery even as more flooding hits and the search for the missing continues. Mass cleanup across Kerr County \u2014 about 1.5 hours northwest of San Antonio \u2014 came Saturday before heavy rain pelted the region again on Sunday.<\/p>\n
For Welch and Elizabeth Hastings, the July 4 floods sent water to their ceiling, wiped out their RV and ruined most of the items in their barn.<\/p>\n
“Up until yesterday, it was pretty bleak,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Then, Welch said the man in the truck \u2014 Huntly Dantzler of Fredericksburg, 20 miles away \u2014 \u201che showed up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought that is just too good to be true,” Welch said. “We have hope now.\u201d<\/p>\n
One ruined home<\/p>\n
In many places, volunteer labor includes debris removal and remediation often done by hired contractors and out of reach for households lacking insurance. Many survivors said it was simply too expensive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s impossible here in the floodplain,\u201d Welch said. \u201cPaying $10,000 a year for flood insurance doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
The survivors who spoke with The Associated Press said they didn’t have insurance but had already applied for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That money is rarely enough to cover all the costs of replacing, remediating and rebuilding and only 116 FEMA applications were approved as of Sunday.<\/p>\n
Meeting post-disaster<\/p>\n
Many of those working together didn\u2019t know each other before the disaster \u2014 they\u2019ve connected over social media, in public spaces or just by driving around looking for places to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s thousands of volunteers out here, more than needed, honestly. It\u2019s wild, and everyone is just lending a hand,\u201d said Dave Isaacs, who came from San Antonio with his wife and daughter to help.<\/p>\n
Three people arrived at Daniel Olivas’ home in Guadalupe Street in Kerrville last week with a skid steer and an excavator to clear debris. Water from the Guadalupe River overtook his house on July 4, leaving fish and crawdads floating in the bedrooms.<\/p>\n
Soon after, “33 angels descended\u201d onto the property, said Olivas, removing furniture, scrubbing floors, and tearing out drywall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just amazing because I didn\u2019t ask for it,\u201d said Olivas. \u201cThey just showed up.\u201d Some even insisted on leaving him cash, stuffing it into his pocket when he resisted.<\/p>\n
The help has come from businesses, too. The RV seller Camping World donated a pre-owned RV for Welch and Hastings to sleep in as long as they need. A plumbing company installed a new water treatment system for their neighbor for free.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all heartbroken, and everyone\u2019s just pitching in,\u201d said Monica Watson, a hopsice worker helping Olivas’ neighbor, an older man who depended on a wheelchair. \u201cHe was just waiting for help,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said she had no connection to her collaborators other than a shared desire to contribute.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne guy just said \u2018I\u2019m Ben, I have a Bobcat (tractor),\u2019 and that was it,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A woman drove by asking if they needed another trailer to haul away trash, and returned with one minutes later.<\/p>\n
Volunteering helps everyone<\/p>\n
Volunteering can help people cope with trauma, said Dr. Adrienne Heinz, a clinical research psychologist at Stanford University and an expert in post-traumatic stress.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen something awful happens, a powerful human response can occur called \u2018purposing,\u2019\u201d said Heinz. \u201cThis is when we rise to meet moments of sorrow and adversity with action that is meaningful and values-aligned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Purposing \u201coffers a buffer against hopelessness and despair and can set the stage for post-traumatic growth and transformational resilience,\u201d said Heinz.<\/p>\n
For those impacted, seeing the care flow in from all over the world is also healing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot express how much I appreciate everything that they have done for us,\u201d said Colleen Lucas of Ingram, as staff with the international charity Operation Blessing helped her husband, Dave, repair one of their cars that had been submerged in water.<\/p>\n
The staff members from Mexico, Honduras and Chile, along with 42 members of Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, hauled out Lucas’ destroyed belongings and packed and stored their salvageable items. She is unsure whether her home will need to be demolished, or how and when they will rebuild.<\/p>\n
But she’s already thinking about how to pay forward the help they got.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost a lot but we\u2019re going to be donating when we\u2019re up and going,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Armies of Texas volunteers dig out, clean up, after fatal floods COMFORT, Texas (AP) \u2014 It began with…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,8090,31080,30565,8072,7337,1558,7202,7203,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,38983],"class_list":{"0":"post-67596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-cleanup","10":"tag-debris","11":"tag-fema","12":"tag-floods","13":"tag-insurance","14":"tag-recovery","15":"tag-san-antonio","16":"tag-sanantonio","17":"tag-texas","18":"tag-tx","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-volunteers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114863851719230557","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}