Our Hurricane Harvey experience

As you all know, we don't live in South East Texas anymore. We are now 2.5 hours north back in the area we grew up in, East Texas. Two days after Harvey ripped though SETX, we loaded up a few of our 150 Qt igloo coolers, 75 gallons of boat gas, diapers, baby wipes, hand sanitizer, all kinds of snacks, bread, lunchmeat, milk, soft drinks, ramen noodles, and many other things and headed south into the chaos to go help. 

We made it to Kountze TX when we hit our first road block. The water was too high for us to make it through in an F250. We had our buddy Mike launch his boat from the Lumberton side to come across Cypress creek and come get us and all of our supplies. 



Here's the same crossing in Kountze, only a week later... What a difference right?



We got into Lumberton via boat and went and dropped off much needed supplies to our friends there who were doing boat rescues. Lumberton was an island on all sides. There were no groceries or gas since everyone bought everything up before the storm. It was much needed relief to our friends.





This was 69S out of Lumberton looking toward Beaumont. We lived down there through 2 hurricanes, and never saw the water that high. Nobody alive has ever seen it that high. This was biblical shit here folks. 

We launched Mike's boat on the southside of Lumberton to try and get into Beaumont to get our God Daughter out and my wife's dad and stepmother. It was pretty much island hopping into Beaumont. The problem was that we only made it about a mile south of Lumberton before we hit another high spot and had to park the boat in the ditch by the road. We could not get any other boats to take us across into Beaumont as it was getting dark and they suspend rescue ops and boat traffic because it's too dark and dangerous. We had to pack it up for the night and come back home. 



Here's my SHLBGS working the Zello App dispatching with the Texas Navy and other Texas SAR teams to help coordinate rescue location and whatnot. She was on that damn radio for 4 days straight helping. She's amazing. We worked off and on dispatching and helping for the next several days since we could not physically be there due to work and family needing us back home. 



Here's my Marine brother Mike who helped us get in down there. He came running without hesitation to help us help others. You're the man Mike!! Semper Fi my dude. 

I have several go pro vids that are on my personal Facebook that I still need to upload to Youtube so y'all can get a good look at it. These pics really don't it justice. I'll get that done for y'all soon. It's mind blowing. 

Check that blue mark out. That was the water line on the sign. Like I said, it was like nothing anyone has ever seen before. 

Am I glad we don't have to deal with Hurricanes anymore? You're damn right. It's going to take a long time to get things back to normal down there. If you need a job and can travel, I'd get online and google work crews in the houston and gulf coast area. There's plenty to go around for a while.