The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

Texting is a frustrating exercise for me at best and I don’t do Facebook at all, but I got an up close look at the power of both over the past week or so.We evacuated after partially winning the battle with the rapidly rising water and my daughter’s family joined the exodus with the knowledge that five feet of water was already flowing through their house.They returned to sadly confirm that they had indeed lost everything but their cars.

As soon as the water was shallow enough, we made that heartbreaking wade through a lifetime of memories washed away in a heartbeat.It seems like every soggy item is suddenly priceless and water logged baby pictures leave you short of breath.It was a devastating assessment of far more than wet sheetrock and water soaked insulation.We were finally able to half-heartedly pick away at a few things through the tears before giving it up and returning home.It is difficult to formulate a plan as to where to even start when the piano has floated into another room and freezers are upside down and no longer in the kitchen.Terri, however, knew exactly where her recovery effort would start.

“I have a lot of friends on Facebook,” she said with conviction, “and I am going to let them know I have a little problem.If they can help I know they will be there!”By the time I could get to their house the following morning, cars were lined up on both sides of 1442 and a growing army of friends was already hard at work.

I was truly amazed, but Terri was pleasantly surprised as well.Relatives, friends of the kids, co-workers, church members and folks that she didn’t even know were attacking even the worst of jobs.The men handled the heavy work while the ladies pulled sheetrock and loaded wheelbarrows.It was incredible! I had no idea high school girls would work that long and that hard at such a disgustingly filthy job.They stopped only long enough to text for more help.Even more impressive was the fact that they kept coming back day after day.

The bottom line is that the entire home was gutted and drying out in less than four days.

I could understand friends and co-workers pitching in because I saw the same thing day after day when helping friends in Bridge City after Ike, but when folks you don’t even know volunteer simply because they saw someone needed help on Facebook…….that’s powerful.I don’t know that I will go as far as ever posting anything on Facebook, but I will certainly check it out more often.Someone just might need some help! After driving through the county it was hard in some cases to understand why one house is obscured by a mountain of ruined belongings and the next door neighbor doesn’t have a puddle of water in the yard.If you lived in the wrong place, however, you will never forget Harvey.

We have never seen this much fresh water at one time and it will be a while before area fishermen can put fish catching patterns together again.Obviously the hardest hit will be the saltwater fishing.The rivers are still high and a lot of water is still draining out of flooded woods.Trout don’t do well in fresh water! I would guess that at least fifty percent of area fishermen haven’t even given fishing a second thought over the past two weeks thanks to Harvey.If your boat lives in the driveway, be sure and check out every storage compartment for unwanted water.In the event that you forgot to pull the plug your boat is now a little heavier and harder on trailer tires as well.

If you haven’t renewed your fishing license it is time to take care of that little matter before your next trip!