Christians Organize Emergency Food And Supplies After Texas Flooding
KERRVILLE, Texas — Christians in this central Texas community are working to help after catastrophic flooding claimed at least 89 lives and left an unknown number of others still missing over the holiday weekend.
A tractor-trailer rig from the Churches of Christ Disaster Relief Effort in Nashville, Tennessee — nearly 1,000 miles away — arrived at the Riverside Church of Christ in Kerrville on Sunday afternoon.
As search-and-rescue and recovery efforts continued, church members unloaded boxes of food, paper goods, baby supplies, cleaning equipment, wheelbarrows and more into the classrooms and fellowship spaces of Riverside’s limestone building, which is perched on a hill.
READ: Texas Flood Washes Away Dozens Of Young Girls From Christian Camp
Then they waited.
A dozen or so people, all church members, remained after the truck was unloaded in case anyone arrived seeking help.
Other relief organizations, including Disaster Assistance CoC, based in Lake Jackson, Texas, and the Churches of Christ Disaster Response Team from Tipp City, Ohio, are also supplying resources through the Riverside church.
In a Facebook post, the church noted that there is currently an “overabundance of supplies.”
“Please continue to pray for the lost, that they may be found, for the search and rescue units, and all those who are coordinating the rescues,” the post said.
At the Kerrville Church of Christ, members responded to a Red Cross request to set up cots for linemen. No linemen came. So the Hill Country Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Centers asked to set up the facility for counseling services for first responders.
Texas Christians work to unload a tractor-trailer rig full of food and supplies from the Churches of Christ Disaster Relief Effort in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Jennifer England Allen)
Vicki Coley answered the phone Monday morning at the congregation, which draws about 400 on Sundays.
“Everybody wants to help,” the office administrator said.
But for now, the search activities are overwhelming, with first responders, game wardens and volunteers from across the state and Mexico surging into the area.
The dead include 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic, a century-old all-girls camp along the edge of the Guadalupe River, according to a statement posted by camp leaders.
The camp in the unincorporated town of Hunt is about 15 miles west of Kerrville, the county seat with a population of about 25,000.
Chris Carrillo, the Riverside church’s pulpit minister, woke up Friday morning — Independence Day — unaware of what had happened in his county overnight.
“We live on a hill and had no idea of what was happening,” Carrillo said. “The storms didn’t wake us up.”
But text messages, voicemails and Facebook messages informed him of the news, and he quickly began calling church members who lived in the areas most likely affected by the storm. The deluge dumped 10 to 12 inches of rain in just a few hours, causing the river to surge.
The floodwaters careened through the inky darkness, enveloping campgrounds and homes west of Kerrville, felling giant cypress and cedar trees and juggling recreational vehicles, automobiles and homes.
Numerous youth camps overlook the Guadalupe River that meanders from that point southeastward to the Gulf of Mexico (renamed the Gulf of America by President Donald Trump), drawing tourists in RVs and to riverside cabins, especially on holiday weekends.
Carrillo reached out to the congregation’s three elders and — with members of the 150-plus congregation — mobilized to help. Within about five hours, he’d received calls from all the disaster relief organizations associated with Churches of Christ, offering help and asking for information.
On Sunday, helicopters from the U.S. Army’s Fort Hood circled above the city and traversed the river bends. Emergency vehicles filled every parking lot in Kerrville. At the Y.O. Ranch Hotel, a local landmark named after the famed Texas ranch of the same name, two-thirds of the trucks in the parking lot bore Texas Game Warden indicia.
Wayne and Carol Ann Donaghe, members of the Kerrville Church of Christ, had about 5 feet of water in their home, and Carol Ann suffered a broken shoulder in the process of escaping.
While she was in surgery Monday morning, men from the church gathered to clean out the muck.
On Sunday, Polly Plant, a local woman who said she’s attended Riverside off and on but usually goes to the Cowboy Church, came to collect food and supplies for her niece. Floodwaters caught the relative’s mobile home, shifting it off its footing and into a tree — mangled and uninhabitable.
“We ain’t stopping,” a Riverside member told her. ”We’re here with anything she needs — food, cleaning supplies, we can get her a washer, dryer or refrigerator if she needs it.”
Plant was appreciative but said all that would have to wait.
This piece is republished with permission from The Christian Chronicle.
Cheryl Mann Bacon is a Christian Chronicle contributing editor who served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University. Contact cheryl@christianchronicle.org.