We’ve all seen, gasped at, shook our heads, prayed and cried at the horrific images coming out of southeast Texas and other areas hard hit by Hurricane Harvey. And a lot of you out there have helped – some of you may even have gone there with your hip boots and your boats and your gloves, and your skills, and others of you have sent money and other donations. And God bless you for it.
And some of you are probably wondering how best you might help. And God bless your hearts for that, too.
I’m supporting this young man’s personal efforts to assist in Texas. And I’m here asking you to please help too.
Travis is the son of a close friend and he’s a good man with a heart as big as the universe. And that big heart led him to go walk his talk from Queens, New York all the way down to Texas and help out, personally, alone and on his own time and his own dime and with the help he could get from family and friends.
A lot of what he is seeing down there are things you and I are not seeing on the news and I haven’t got words to describe it because I can only imagine how overwhelming it must be.
The heat. The humidity. The smell. The destruction. The exhaustion. The bewildered eyes. The suffering. The anguish.
The strength and the caring; the solidarity and the humanity; the love and the miracles.
Now the flood waters are going down, and the indescribable magnitude of it all is being slowly and completely revealed. People trying to sort out all that’s left of a lifetime, pulling out the soggy remains of normalcy and trying to salvage memories and useful items at the same time; thousands of animals stranded or roaming, without food, without fresh water, some having stood in the floods for days (which means for many livestock animals like horses and cows, the skin that was in the water will be subject to river rot and literally die and fall off.)
The shelters are still full of people who can’t go back to what was home – not yet; children running and playing, shouting or crying; harassed parents trying to parent and thinking about what they will find when they can go back – or not. There are lines for food, water and other assistance; heaps of donated goods to sort; volunteers and rescue teams doing their jobs and trying not to feel as worn out as they are; reporters looking for human interest stories; officials actively officiating – and the ones trying to portray some semblance of leadership. And in the animal rescue stations, the lines of crates and the barking and meowing and all the other voices of lost pets wondering what is happening to them and where their people are, the rescue teams struggling to care for them and working to find temporary space in shelters outside the zone and organize transport thereto.
And there will be the dead. The dead chickens and drowned or starved and dehydrated dogs and cats and the horses and cows and pigs and sheep and other animals, wild or domestic, great or small, pets or strays, that didn’t make it. The animals that had to be left behind despite every attempt to find a solution, because there was just nothing to carry them away with and there was just no time, and so they were left with a prayer that they’d be OK and the family could come back soon; and then the floods came.
There will be more dead people, too. Some that stayed to brave out and weather the storm; or who just plain couldn’t get out in time and nobody knew, or nobody could make it to them. Others that were trying to help and perished in their efforts.
There is no safe tap water supply in Beaumont, Texas at the time of this writing. Gasoline has become a priceless and and rarissime commodity. Food is at a premium. For people and for animals. They all need help, and so many will need help for a long, long time.
Travis is seeing a lot of this right now. (Click here for a little look at what he has been helping with.)
And if you want to have another idea, check out these articles:
All these rescue efforts take money, both to help the victims and to keep the volunteer and other efforts running smoothly.
The expenses for Travis’ volunteer effort have far exceeded expectations. His GoFundMe goal is short of reality. So I am asking you, if you want to help too, to please consider chipping in to Travis’ GoFundMe. Any amount will be greatly appreciated. Any donations he doesn’t use while he’s there he will donate to the local assistance teams. You’ll be helping far more than you know.
https://www.gofundme.com/4cjo0z4
Thank you.
Villow
Villow's Pond 