When floodwaters inundated residents and campers along the Guadalupe River on July 4, the rest of the state and nation was watching.
Fort Worth was no exception. On Monday, five trucks rolled into the Hill Country Daily Bread Ministries parking lot carrying tons of supplies donated by Fort Worth residents and gathered by the Fort Worth Police Department.
Both the Fort Worth police and fire departments gathered donations in their north Texas city and formed caravans to Boerne, bringing shovels and rakes, diapers and wipes, canned and frozen food, paper towels and trash bags, to the area nonprofit with the largest warehouse — and to the agency most familiar with handling large amounts of donated supplies.
Fort Worth Police Sgt. Joshua “Red” Johnson said the call for donations went out about midweek following the flood.
“We provided our residents with the opportunity to help citizens down here. All we did was put out that request to donate,” Johnson said.
After launching the request, it was included in Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker’s July 14 candlelight vigil for the Hill Country flood victims.
The weeklong appeal brought in massive amounts of donations, enough to fill two box trucks, two enclosed 25-foot trailers, and an F-350 that brought more than 4,000 pounds of bottled water.
“This is above and beyond. I’ve never seen or done anything like this,” Johnson said.
The Police Department caravan included the five trucks and about a dozen other vehicles, bringing 26 volunteers from patrol divisions, members of a Spanish-speaking Citizens Police Academy, and police cadets. All leaped right into action, unloading the trucks once they backed up to the HCDBM loading docks and opened their doors.
In Fort Worth, Johnson said, donations initially were loaded into trucks as residents dropped them off. That alone was enough to fill two trucks.
“Then we realized, we still hadn’t picked up from any of our police stations,” he said. “We started the process of going to each division to pick up donations. I had to put in a request with animal control and public events for help,” each division lending a trailer for more goods.
“We cannot thank our residents enough for the blessings and the contributions they’ve provided to this community,” he said. “But that’s what Texas does; Texas takes care of Texas.”
For Fort Worth Police Officer Bobbie Sanchez, Monday’s trip to Boerne was like coming home.
“Before we lived in Fort Worth, my husband and kids and I lived in Kerrville for years,” said Sanchez, who has been on the Fort Worth force for three years.
Upon hearing of the damaging flood, her family and friends who still live in the Kerrville area became her only concern.
“I wasn’t exactly sure what to think,” Sanchez said. “We’ve been through floods before, being from the Hill Country. But this was unlike any that my husband or I had ever seen.”
Using social media, she was able to track her relatives and check on their safety. The family home on Highway 27 is high enough on a hill that it escaped any flooding damage, she said.
“My direct family and friends, everybody was OK,” she said. One of her brothers, however, “lost a really good friend. Coach (Reece) Zunker from Tivy High School, was a good friend of one of my brother’s.”
This flood brough enough death and destruction, she said, that “almost everybody knows somebody who had a loss.”
She thanked the people of Fort Worth for turning out with donations, helping strangers in a town far away that they’ve never met before.
“The community in Fort Worth really showed up in such a big way. We had to finally cut off donation time, because there was so much stuff coming in,” she added.
Fort Worth Fire Department representatives arrived later in the afternoon with cks even more trucks stuffed with more supplies, as flood victims begin the struggle to get back on their feet.
Watson Debi Watson, HCDBM communications director, was on hand when the police and fire teams arrived arrived.
“We are grateful to Fort Worth and for their emergency gency response fire and police departments, for taking the time from their busy days and lives to deliver these products,” Watson said.
HCDBM will be dolling out the items as individuals, first responders, churches “and anyone who’s working in those areas that need them,” she said. “We will be here for the long haul.”
Initially, Boerne area businesses, churches, fire stations and other agencies that began collecting flood relief goods became overwhelmed with the amount of items being donated.
Not so with Watson and her group. Their 40,000 square-foot warehouse is plenty large to handle any items intended for flood relief.
“We’re posting regularly what the urgent needs are,” Watson said, urging Boerne residents to follow Hill Country Daily Bread Ministries on its website to know what is needed.
Fort Worth Police officers grab goods from one of four box trucks carrying flood relief supplies and place them in bins at Hill Country Daily Bread Ministries.
Star photo by Jeff B. Flinn
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