Hurricane Harvey Cleanup

This is a picture that Scott took while he was in Houston on Sunday. (That's one of his priests in the corner there.) He spent the whole day working with a crew to muck out one house in a nice west Houston neighborhood. The house had flooded about three feet, so they had to remove about four feet of drywall plus all flooring and personal belongings. (Everything on the street corner there was un-salvagable and will end up in a landfill.) Scott was one of more than 10,000 Mormon Helping Hands volunteers from 53 stakes. Our stake alone sent 503 volunteers last weekend, who donated 5,564 hours to work on 55 homes. And our leadership has sent out the call to do it again this weekend.

Here is a link to an article about it: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865688556/While-Irma-raged-11000-Mormon-volunteers-worked-to-save-Texas-homes.html.

And here's a video from Mormon Newsroom: https://www.facebook.com/MormonNewsroom/videos/1974658886151843/.

I have never observed a major relief effort up close like this before, and it's pretty mind blowing to see how the Church has responded. My good friend Jamie lives in Houston, and she recounted to me how her church building became a temporary rescue command center and refugee camp pretty much overnight. They coordinated rescues of people who were stranded in their flooded homes, fed and clothed refugees, collected and distributed donations, and housed displaced families until they could find more permanent shelter.

The Church's ability to organize and assemble volunteers at such short notice and on such a large scale is testimony building and absolutely incredible to me.

One more pic: the inside of one of the homes.