This house is still under water as of August 9. Photo: Patsy Lynch, FEMA
More than one week after Hurricane Dolly made landfall in southern Texas, an estimated 1,500 homes remain flooded, and response workers have yet to reach some of the affected residents.
"There are still people we haven't made contact with. There are still flooded homes that we can't get to. We are still responding and, at the same time, we are trying to move into recovery as fast as we can," said Harvey Howell, a national response team member with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA).
The ongoing response efforts come as attention has shifted from impoverished areas hard-hit by Dolly to Tropical Storm Edouard, which came ashore Tuesday morning along the upper Texas Gulf Coast.
"I know what it's like once you're dealing with one (disaster) and another disaster happens, and everybody forgets about the one before," said Randi Fertitta, director of disaster, trauma and loss with Catholic Charities in Beaumont, Texas. "It's a hard battle."
Faith and community-based organizations were working to assist residents in a multi-county area affected by Dolly, which made landfall July 23 as a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 100 mph. The storm caused damages estimated at upwards of $750 million.
Among the hardest hit areas were the colonias — economically depressed communities in the region.
"A lot of these homes are in very impoverished areas, so people have limited resources and will need a lot of additional support, whether through case management or through other organizations," Fertitta said.
Most of the residents are non-English speaking and are reluctant to come forward for government assistance, according to response personnel in the region.
Individual assistance was made available late last week for residents in three counties — Cameron, Hidalgo and Willacy — after President Bush upgraded federal disaster declarations for those areas. Bush had initially declared 15 counties in Texas as disaster areas.
Howell said 9,229 people had applied for federal assistance as of noon Monday.
The storm also wiped out nearly all of the cotton crop in the lower Rio Grande Valley; citrus and corn crops were also heavily damaged.
"Everyone who is down here and is responding to this — including the governor (Texas Gov. Rick Perry) on today's conference call — is applauding the wonderful interfaith, interagency response at all levels," he said. "The spirit of cooperation is truly being felt in many, many places. God is clearly at work but there is a lot of work yet to do."
Exactly how long recovery efforts would take remained a question, as assessments and cleanup continued.
"It will probably be months that we'll be working with families to help them develop a recovery plan and work through what they need," Fertitta predicted. "There's a large population here that will need additional support services for months to come."
In addition to response and recovery, there was also the language barrier with which to contend.
PDA was among the organizations working to address that issue. Among its efforts, Howell reported, PDA was bringing in a bilingual national response team member from Puerto Rico.
Meantime, pastors from 21 Presbyterian churches in affected areas met Monday morning (August 4) to form a task force to complete assessments on churches and congregations and to attend Tuesday's initial interfaith meeting. Two members of the task force speak Spanish, Howell said, adding that there were several Hispanic Presbyterian churches in the region.
Fertitta said the various disasters which have hit the U.S., including flooding across the Midwest, have strained the resources of voluntary organizations.
"There definitely is a need for financial donations, but there's also a need for volunteers as well," she said. |
