Farm Fresh Blog

     Most of you know that I retired from the Houston Police Department and our farm was located south of Houston. And unless you've been living under a rock with no television coverage, you also know that this area was whacked hard by Hurricane Harvey. Because we moved to the ranch in North Texas, we are fine, but our family and friends still living in the south took it on the chin.

     Few people were left untouched as the hurricane raged through most of Southeast Texas before storming off to Louisiana. In the area where the storm made landfall, people lost their homes and businesses to wind damage and the storm surge. Deeper into the state, it was the massive rainfall that got us as this slow-moving storm rolled across Texas, angling back and forth through the state like an indecisive Ouija board. Yes, homes and businesses were destroyed, but not communities. The buildings are damaged but the sense of community is strong, and it extends across the state and the nation.

     Like the forest fires of Montana, this was a slow-rolling disaster. Rather than the 'hurricane makes landfall and fizzles out after it smacks the coast" story, Harvey moved as slowly as a toddler eating greenbeans. This dumped a record-setting amount of rain, resulting in a week-long disaster that still isn't finished. While some can begin the arduous clean-up,  others still watch the floodwaters creep closer to their homes. People who evacuated once must evacuate to another spot because the waters are reaching for them again.

     For many people evacuation isn't as simple as loading the kids and the dogs into the mini-van and heading for higher ground. In these rural areas evacuation means moving livestock. It means cattle drives through flood waters. It means leading swimming horses by boat. It means loading the family pig into a rescue boat.

     And by scores the boats came. Not only were highly trained swiftwater rescue teams from across the nation dispatched to the Houston area, but countless Bubbas in Bass Boats rose to the call. From Jim Bob, your neighbor down the street, to Boudreaux, a highly skilled member of Louisiana's illustrious Cajun Navy, they all motored through floodwaters to rescue a drowning state. Instead of waiting on the government, aided by social media, neighbors banded together to help neighbors. Texas and Lousiana are family, cousins who grew up hunting, fishing, and giving each other wedgies and noogies, but last week Louisiana heard the call of a drowning Texas. Even knowing full well the storm may rape Texas and then march into Lousianana, the Cajuns still came. And Texas will not forget it.

     For this week, the nation forgot about race, riots, statues, police brutality, and bigotry. The nation focused on Texas. They saw no racial divide, only neighbor helping neighbor. It was a brutal storm, and although it did tremendous damage, it also allowed us to see this nation at its finest.

  "Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness."  

Anne Frank