Snow no match for Wimberley Texan spirit
Wimberley Strong.
It’s the unofficial town motto born from the ashes of disaster and need. The strength of this town is the people who are willing to help at every turn. Nationally, people have called the resilience they have seen this week the “Texas spirit,” but here being a Texan means a little bit more. We’re Wimberley Texan Strong.
And once again Wimberley, you have shown your strength.
From fires to floods, you can now add snow to the list of nature’s elements Wimberley is prepared to take on. At this point, the acts of kindness are almost expected, but they’ll never be taken for granted.
It is truly incredible to watch the people who opened their homes to strangers in need of a warm bed or the people who drove food and water to those who in some cases hadn’t had either for days. There are the ones who sat with my wife at the hardware store to help come up with a plumbing alternative to get our water working or the people who had the skills necessary to help replace other’s pipes all together – many of whom volunteered their time.
On one trip out into the snow, I saw an ambulance trying to reach a mother with health issues. The driver was frustrated as the ambulance was essentially stuck while trying to drive on a road that you could not see, but with a little help he kept going.
This resilience also hit a little closer to home – or work I should say. Watching the staff of the Wimberley View, and those from the San Marcos Daily Record who are required to help get our paper into your hands, was amazing. Without a few dozen people being truly dedicated to their job, we never would have made it.
On Sunday night, as the temperatures dipped into the single digits, Toy Mendez, who designs our ads, was in the rotating power outages. When her power came up, she jumped on her computer in the middle of the night to send me the files necessary to design last week’s newspaper.
On Tuesday, most of the Wimberley View staff members, Gary Zupancic, Taffy Barker and Susan Sisson, were without some sort of necessity whether it be power, water, heat or even a fallen tree across a driveway. Yet, they reviewed and helped edit the paper from their cell phones. That afternoon, Rigo Vargas, who runs the printer at the San Marcos Daily Record, found a way to print a newspaper with essentially frozen ink.
On Wednesday there was a small window where driving was safer, and we took advantage of those few hours. A skeleton crew at the Daily Record, essentially anyone who felt they could make it to work safely, inserted the papers and bundled them for mailing. Then our delivery driver Matt Van Veit used his 4x4 truck to carefully cruise across town only missing a few of our normal drop offs that were closed.
It truly was a team effort. We got the paper out, generally on time, because there are a lot of people on our staff who are dedicated to their job. I thank every one of them for that dedication, because they too shined during this crisis.
It showed that same spirit that we saw all week of people who are willing to go above and beyond to get the job done, whether that was showing up for essential services, working through the elements or even volunteering to help your neighbor. It was just one more example of what our town has come to stand for.
Wimberley Strong.