Yeah we've had two disastrous floods in the last twenty years here. People came from all around to help out. Ours were both twenty-some inches of rain. This one is fifty.
I have never been one for this kind of thing, but I may have to get a group together and go down for a few days. This is just a whole new level of disaster. Supplies are being gathered here already because we know what they need (having been through it last year).
If you donate stuff (supplies) keep the oddball things you would never think of in mind.
Toiletries and feminine products always get overlooked. Baby products. Clean, dry socks and shoes. Of course, canned foods and sealed foods will help. Water (ironically enough).
The hardest part is yet to come. The rivers are swollen but haven't run off yet. Our worst flooding both times here was days out when the sun was shining brightly. The water just kept coming and kept coming from higher ground. The crest was nearly a WEEK AFTER the rain stopped. You think the pictures and stories are bad near the coast now? Just wait. It will get worse. A lot worse.
Please don't forget these people a couple weeks from now when we're back to arguing over dumb stuff in the daily news cycle. Their recovery will take MONTHS to get back to "normal" and YEARS to be done. This will affect families for generations. I have seen it locally. Family histories wiped out by water. Heirlooms by the ton ruined. Pictures and family bibles. Hand-built houses. Families relocating from places they have occupied for more than a hundred years.
We're almost a year from our last one and the details are still being worked out.
To give you an example of how bad this can be.... Literally one year before this flood we had last year there was a news story showing the last family to move out of temporary housing from the previous flood......in 1999. That family had lived in a temporary trailer in a field for almost two decades. One year after they finally moved out, another one hit. And, again, neither of ours even came close to what Texas is dealing with.
*sigh*
