Between September 17, 2019 and September 21, 2019 Tropical Storm Imelda dumped more than 40 inches of rain across Southeast Texas. Among the hardest hit areas were the communities of Beaumont, Winnie, and Vidor. Thousands of water rescues were conducted across many of the same areas that were significantly impacted by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Along with several fatalities, hundreds of homes were either damaged or destroyed. In the months following Tropical Storm Imelda’s landfall, FEMA approved more than 11,000 assistance applications and $67,933,382.06 in disaster response aid.

Reach Out Worldwide and Sirens Project had been monitoring the area outlined by the National Hurricane Center that would eventually become the Tropical Storm Imelda for several days. Tropical Storm Imelda was a sudden threat, and was not covered extensively by national news. For more than 72 hours, the slow moving system dumped biblical amounts of rain. After the waters receded, ROWW began organizing a response effort. Sirens Project began recruiting volunteers through His Hands Church in order to force multiply the efforts of ROWW.

On October 1st, 2019 deployed five volunteers to assist ROWW during their two week deployment in the community of Beaumont, TX. Over the coarse of five days the efforts of Reach Out Worldwide and Sirens project were able muck and gut three homes, while saving the home owners over $55,000 in home repairs. Many of the homes affected were also heavily damaged by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. In fact, the last house of the deployment we assisted had finally finished their renovations from Hurricane Harvey just five weeks before Imelda made land fall.

Every deployment, you leave a part of yourself with the families and homes you come in contact with. Hope restored was the theme of Beaumont, TX.