CCEvents: Hurricane Ike
How do you begin to describe the extraordinary people and their sacrifice when compelled into action by natural disasters? I am certain this is a dilemma faced by many journalists when covering such events. I'll do my best to simply highlight some of the great acts of kindness witnessed in Coles Crossing over the past few days.
Last Sunday evening, I had a brain spasm (term I use to describe times when I have an idea that would seem to others as abnormal--I use the term a lot). My spasm/idea was that members of the Coles Crossing HOA were not the type of people that would sit around and wait on the government for anything--certainly not an appropriate presentation of their homesite and/or street. The Board agreed and we were right in our assessment of the community we have been given responsibility for.
Photos of the event (click on the link to the left for photos of our cleanup effort)
While I am on the subject of our Board of Directors, allow me to say we may disagree with some of their decisions and don't like having to answer their registered letters when they arrive-letters often generated because we are the independent type of folks common to Texas. HOWEVER, we are truly blessed to be served by a highly committed and intelligent group of people we should all be thankful to call our own. It is my understanding that our HOA had no less than 2 tree companies on retainer Thursday evening before Ike hit. While other folks were beginning to get in line for tree service, we had them on the ground getting things back to normal. Our commercial landscape company, KOMP, worked in the rain on Saturday to clear debris from the storm drains in order to mitigate flooding to our homes. The board also went to great lengths to determine areas of safety concerns and attempted to help homeowners remove trees from roofs as early as Saturday and Sunday. Two of the members rode down every street in Coles Crossing to examine damage and strategize logistics for individual help. Don Richards is our President--he worked tirelessly to help get things moving, making difficult decisions quickly. Jan Rickmers coordinated KOMP and their efforts to get the major trees felled and esplanade cleanup completed and organized. Paul Bland, Carrie Bowman, and David Marlow helped complete our group of leaders known as 'the Board'.
Just to give you an idea what they were going through, here's a brief description: They made many major decisions very rapidly that saved the community weeks of frustration. In order to communicate with each other, they had to go to each other's homes, because some of them were the last ones in Coles to get power. If you've ever been in a group decision making process, you need to think about how many times they had to talk with each other, make unilateral decisions, and bear the consequences of misunderstanding within their ranks. Through it all, they have stayed unified to a common cause--keeping Coles Crossing pre-eminent in Northwest Houston and Cypress.
We thank and congratulate our Board members.
Back to the cleanup story: On Wednesday evening, our board decided to allow the spasmodic brain-child to be born. Not knowing at the time how we would get the debris hauled off, they decided the community would make things work and went with their gut. Paul Bland recruited Lisa Johnson and his wife Laura Bland to coordinate things on Thursday morning at the Lap Pool. Eventually, he was able to get in touch with me (I was still have communications issues until mid-day Thursday). Paul sent an email to the Coles email list (more on that later) and our YaHoo! group. By 9AM Thursday morning the word was out and we had people lining up to deliver debris and volunteer.
I wish I could name all the people that volunteered over the past few days, but they aren't looking for recognition and I would certainly leave some of them out. By my count, we had to have 40 to 50 people in and out of the lap pool area over the last 3 days as volunteers. That does not include the number of people that were cleaning up entire streets with their pickup and a 2-man crew. The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts get extra cuddos--instead of watching MTV, they were serving the greater good.
There is one guy I would like to mention that embodies what I saw happen during our efforts. He drives a diesel FX4 pickup. I never caught his name, but he had 3 young men helping him. He brought his debris to the lap pool on Thursday-was one of our first contributors. After that, he/they began going around and picking other people's debris. At my last count, they cleaned up 3 streets--helping people they would never meet and did not know except as neighbor. Come to think of it, he most likely embodies the city of Houston, Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, and a few others that are simply and affectionately known as Texans.
My insufficient THANKS is all I can give you guys at this point. Overwhelming comes up way short via descriptive analysis of the past week. We have not even discussed Randall's, HEB, the power company guys, CAM, Noah's Ark and other animal shelters, etc.
There are other places where only a few pitch in. These haunts are dreary and full of
gossip. They are messy locales. Places we would just as soon see in
our rear-view mirror--certainly not where Coles Crossing Texans live.
In all, we live in a very special place known as Coles Crossing. Hereafter, it will be known to many of us as the only place we would even think of calling home. I do hope that as time progresses we will not forget what volunteerism accomplishes and how great it is to be involved in a community where many do the work--a place full of smiles, people we know by their first name and greet lovingly in the grocery store. A place where we fight tooth and nail for what we think is the best decision, yet at the end of the day, we back our leaders no matter the decision or the cost.
PS: If for some reason you were not apprised of the pickup/cleanup of the area via email the first evening, then you should go to the Coles Crossing website and sign up.