Houstonians get their feet wet and hands dirty to help each other out

Churches open up to shelter people, neighbors start to clean out each other’s houses in wake of Harvey.

Texans and sympathetic Americans continued to help survivors of Hurricane Harvey Wednesday, as the diminished but still very wet storm made its way eastward, inundating Port Arthur and threatening Louisiana.

Officials were keeping a wary eye on the Barker and Addicks reservoir dams as the Army Corps of Engineers continued a controlled release of water into Houston’s central Buffalo Bayou.

The bayou was now a “huge river, that thousands of homes are now flooded. In fact our neighborhood is extremely anxious at the rise,” said Bob Sumicek, one of the coordinators of a statewide Knights of Columbus emergency response team.

“Water from the Buffalo Bayou overflow is slowly backing up into our streets through the storm sewers,” said West Houston resident Sara Frear. “I’m keeping an eye on the situation and will head out if it continues to rise.”

Tito Edwards, a resident of Pearland, south of Houston, said that every day, he and his wife “put on our boots and ponchos and walk around the neighborhood, and everybody seems to be doing well.” Edwards, who blogs at the National Catholic Register, said he is very impressed with the atmosphere of neighbors helping one another and the numbers of people from places like West Texas, Kentucky, and Louisiana “coming in with their little dinghies and boats, helping people get rescued and take them to shelters. That’s something I didn’t see coming.”

Read more at Aleteia – https://aleteia.org/2017/08/31/houstonians-get-their-feet-wet-and-hands-dirty-to-help-each-other-out/