LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

I struggled watching my parents turn away volunteers. It was the morning after the flood and shock had sent in. A few family members were there, none really having any clue what to do or where to begin. It took me over an hour and a half to get from one side of the river to the other, so in retrospect it was just before lunch time when I finally arrived. I brought bottled water, bread, peanut butter and jelly. They were all relieved that someone had thought to bring food. I had also brought my wheel barrow, shovels and chainsaw. It was there soon after that the first volunteers showed up and were not allowed entry.

Thinking back, it may have been that my parents turned those first volunteers away because it was too soon, that strangers were seen as trying to pry instead of being there to help. They were strangers after all. Having no experience with disasters, in the beginning, you could not give direction because you really did not know what to do. But, thankfully, they kept coming. People with or without VRC bracelets would just show up.

We started salvaging. The exterior wall facing the river had given way when the water level dropped, draining the house of its contents. All of the walls were leaning, sheetrock and insulation caved in and about four inches of mud covered everything. “Flood mud.” The refrigerator was suspended, lodged sideways in the kitchen, many rooms were barricaded from the inside and could not be entered. So we started digging through the mud, seeing what we could find. Once you found something that looked like it was worth saving you took it outside. A makeshift cleaning station was set up with plastic tubs and a hose.

It became apparent, very quickly, that the house would need to come down. That the downed trees would have to be chopped up and somehow removed. That this was no longer a home anymore. The sense of scale is hard to describe, but as many of you are readying this, you might recollect the helplessness of grappling with what to do next.

And that is where the volunteers came in.

I believe the first guy that became a dedicated volunteer didn’t even ask anyone if he could help. A back woods, gruff, wiry old man, he showed up with at least five chainsaws in the back of his beat up truck. That man was a machine. He needed no direction and just worked. When one chainsaw went dull, he threw it in the back of the truck and grabbed a new one.

Two students from Texas State also stuck around for days. They never complained, took on the heaviest, hardest tasks and really, genuinely were there to help. Ending each day covered in mud, exhausted, beat up with cuts and bug bites.

On the second day someone showed up with a tractor, the driveway finally got cleared and the cut up trees could be moved.

By the third day, family and friends had come out of the wood works and a steady stream of wheel barrows made their way from the house to the road during daylight hours. A tremendous pile of debris was starting to take shape at the driveway entrance.

Feeding all of these people was made possible by our local churches, the red cross and complete strangers. When someone would drive up and start bringing bags of hot meals, they were looking out for your wellbeing. When someone would drive by and ask if we needed Gatorade or water or bug spray, it made all the difference.

You see, we would not have made it through the cleanup process if it were not for “Wimberley Strong.” The community would not have fared as well without the organization of the VRC. We would have lost so much more if not for the Wimberley Library lost picture collection or the Lost and Found or Memorial Day Flood facebook pages.

It is because of these memories, I salute you, volunteer. Thank you.

Austin Vaughan