HUNT, TEXAS – Sometimes, during natural disasters, help trickles in before it slowly fades away.
However, in the Hill Country, volunteers are still lining the Guadalupe River and lending a hand. They said they aren’t leaving until the needs are met.
Volunteers, like a chain of helpers, cleared debris from The Hunt Store in the scorching summer heat.
A few feet away, different types of volunteers from across the country stood ready to feed them.
“We try to show up after any flooding, tornado, hurricane. Within 72 hours,” said Charley Casey with disaster relief organization Eight Days of Hope.
Casey and his wife are full-time missionaries with Eight Days of Hope, but their home is in Oklahoma.
“We have Mississippi here. We have Texas here. We have Indiana here,” Casey said. “Eight Days of Hope has about a 60,000 volunteer base, so we have people all the way from Alaska.”
Across the parking lot was a team in a food truck from California. The sign on their tent read: “serving burritos and prayers.”
“There are many, many organizations here, and they’re all for one purpose,” Casey said. “Just love the people.”
Mike Hoerr believes he came to the Hill Country to do just that but in a different way.
“We’re actually out of New Orleans. We are a catastrophe cleanup company,” Hoerr who works with American Safety. “We do work around natural disaster cleanup, oil and gas cleanup.”
Hoerr got into town and asked Hunt Store owner Haley Lehrmann what she needed most.
“She said we need somewhere we can actually start doing meetings,” Hoerr said. “So this is a command trailer that’s surrounded with whiteboards. If it’s just a phone number or someone needs help, we can make notes. It’s a working mobile office. Theirs was destroyed.”
The trailer also has air conditioning, bathrooms, a kitchen, and most importantly, internet access.
“The Starlink is huge,” Hoerr said. “I mean, just to get emails out or find out what’s going on — (to) be able to check and look at the website for some of the government comp(ensation) programs.”
American Safety has been there for more than two weeks now. Hoerr said they plan to stay as long as they’re needed.
As the groups of volunteers spread out to help, no one appeared to mention their differences in zip codes, political views or cultural backgrounds.
Instead, they exchanged hugs, prayed and laughed through pain together.
“I’m overwhelmed with what the people in this community have went through,” Casey said. “And they’re strong because there’s nothing but hope.”
More recent Hill Country Floods coverage on TheTXLoop:
Copyright 2025 by TheTXLoop – All rights reserved.