BRIDGE CITY, Texas – Today we helped a very precious family in need. Richard and his wife, Angie, have two children: Cameron, 11, and a teenage daughter, Kelsey. They evacuated for Hurricane Ike and returned to find their home flooded with over 2 feet of water.

The couple’s son, Cameron, was born with only half a brain, but fortunately is still able to live a productive life. He will celebrate his 12th birthday next month.

Richard was very overwhelmed with all that needed to be done to cleanup his home and came to the Operation Blessing Office early in the week to turn in a work request. He was so relieved when we told him we could begin work in just a few days. On Saturday, I drove to the site to check on the volunteers and was greeted by Richard and his delightful daughter, Kelsey.

They walked through the home in amazement at how much work the OB volunteers had already done. This particular group of volunteers was headed up by Shane who had previously led teams in our Katrina cleanup efforts during our 2.5 year deployment.

I had the opportunity to talk one-on-one with Richard and he kept telling me, “thank you” and how much it meant to him that we were there to help.

One of the greatest challenges for Texas residents like Richard who are trying to cleanup their flood-damaged homes is that there are really no temporary housing options available. Unlike Hurricane Katrina, where families were given FEMA trailers that allowed them to live on their properties, most families here have no where to stay locally. Instead, many are living with friends and family out-of-town and must travel back and forth on a daily basis to work on cleaning up their homes.

Such is the case with Richard. Their family has bounced around from home to home, living with various friends. But Richard desperately wants to get home so his son can be closer to his doctors. One of their friends told them today that they could use their trailer. The news was a welcome relief – especially for Cameron.

Last night, for the first time since the storm hit, the family spent the night alone and told me that Cameron began laughing with delight and saying, “alone, alone, alone!”

Thank you to those volunteers and OB donors who are helping families like these be able to return home quickly and start to pick up the pieces of their lives again!

Tags: Bridge City, Disaster Relief, Hurricane Relief, Jody Herrington, North America, OBI, Operation Blessing, Rebuild, Texas, Volunteers

This entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Disaster, Hurricane Relief, Jody Herrington, North America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.