One Year Later: Remembering Harvey

One year ago, the Texas gulf coast braced for impact as Hurricane Harvey barreled through the Gulf of Mexico.  Two days before Harvey made landfall, few were concerned.  It was only a tropical depression—nothing close to the category 4 hurricane it would become.  But by noon on August 24th, Harvey had developed into a category 1 hurricane with meteorologists predicting a category 3 or higher by landfall.  Many decided to evacuate—especially those residing in towns where mandatory evacuations were issued—but many chose to stay.  On Friday morning, Coastal Bend residents woke up to news that Harvey was now a category 2 only to learn just a few hours later that the storm had progressed to a category 3.  By early evening, Harvey was a raging category 4 hurricane charging right for our vulnerable coast.  

As the evening wore on, residents in Corpus Christi breathed a sigh of relief as Harvey’s track shifted more north.  But people in Portland and further up the coast held their breath as Harvey wobbled in its course.  Wind howled and beat against structures, tearing shingles from roofs, picking fence posts out of the ground as if they were toothpicks, and throwing debris for miles.  Harvey made landfall in Port Aransas bringing with it a 12-feet storm surge and winds of up to 130 mph.  The storm roared along the coast, obliterating towns in its path—Port Aransas and Rockport taking the major hits.  

It’s hard to find someone on the gulf coast of Texas who hasn’t, in some way, been affected by Hurricane Harvey.  While some of us dodged a major bullet and only sustained minimal damage to our homes, others lost everything.  Our team members at Howdy Ranch RV faced loss of their own as did many of our neighbors and small businesses here in Mathis.  We witnessed the aftermath—entire buildings reduced to heaps of rubble, tents and sleeping bags in the yards of crumbling homes, capsized boats, cars flattened by fallen trees, and whole towns without water or electricity.  We saw it firsthand, and we did what we could to help. 

In the weeks and months following the storm, we opened an RV Park to evacuees and first responders.  We donated food, water, and non-perishables; and we assisted contractors in acquiring utility, dump, and debris trailers to aid in the work of clearing rubble.  When we met Miss Lou, a lady who’d been displaced by hurricane Harvey, we decided to partner with AARP Texas and Community Action Corporation of South Texas to get her into a new travel trailer free of charge.  But it isn’t just a few acts of kindness that has helped people back onto their feet in the months following the storm.  It is the collective action of thousands of individuals who saw the need and decided to meet it. 

At Howdy Ranch RV, we want to tip our hats to all of you who lent a hand to help those devastated by Harvey.  We’re so proud to be part of a community full of people who genuinely care about each other.  After all, that’s what it means to be a Texan.  We may not all agree on everything, but when it comes right down to it, we are willing to get down in the mud to help each other.  In the case of Harvey, so many of you literally trudged through mud—and swarms of mosquitoes!—to help folks you didn’t even know.  God bless y’all!