JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
And I'm Juana Summers in Kerr County, Texas, at a church that sits between the towns of Kerrville and Ingram. In the days since devastating flooding tore through the region, killing more than a hundred people, this house of worship has been transformed into a pop-up food distribution site.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Hey, buddy.
SUMMERS: Volunteers line each side of folding tables, scooping prepared food into containers before loading those meals into boxes. They're singing as they pack.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Clapping) Here we go, Texas. Double time (ph).
SUMMERS: Some of those meals will stay here at Citywest Church to feed first responders and people who come to a drive-thru, but most will be dispatched out across the community. This massive operation to feed thousands of impacted people and first responders is organized by a Virginia-based nonprofit called Mercy Chefs.
(CROSSTALK)
SUMMERS: CEO Gary LeBlanc said the group started mobilizing on July 4 and had its first meal service the next day. Staff came from outside of Texas, but it relies on local volunteers to fill containers full of hot meals and help them reach the hungry.
GARY LEBLANC: Everybody here in Kerr County lost someone or knows someone that lost someone. So for those 70 or a hundred volunteers that are with us, every day it's therapy for them.
SUMMERS: LeBlanc says they're providing as many as 5,000 hot meals to the community here each day. In one room of the church, a group huddles around a whiteboard. There's a big list of places in need of food and people to contact. A man stands in front of it, organizing volunteers. His phone seems to ring constantly.
TIM THOMASON: We're trying to feed the county. Normally, it would be feeding a community or, you know, a few houses, but this is such a tragedy.
SUMMERS: That's Tim Thomason. He's from Ingram here in central Texas and leads a group called the Blind Faith Foundation.
THOMASON: And we literally are finding other subdivisions that got wiped away that haven't had food in two and three days.
SUMMERS: Thomason says this has been a devastating week, but that there have also been many rewarding moments.
THOMASON: We got a call that there was 200 little girls at a camp upriver, stuck on top of a hilltop. And as we pulled up upon this camp of 200 little girls, they come running out crying and high-fiving and hugging us because they hadn't had a meal in two days. And to know that we had the ability to go do that and to make a difference in those lives and give them a hot meal, there's just no words.
SUMMERS: But how do you feed an entire county? In the aftermath of a disaster like this, where the need is so vast, some damaged areas are still challenging to reach. In moments like these, Texans look to one another.
THOMASON: We keep focus. We encourage each other. We love each other here. And I was telling our group here, I have never been hugged by so much sweaty men in my entire life.
SUMMERS: In this case, people turn to high school sports coaches like Tate DeMasco. He's the athletic director and head football coach at Ingram Tom Moore High School. He offers to let us come along with him as he delivers meals to a hard-hit neighborhood.
TATE DEMASCO: We're going to get right in here. And here, I'll start it while I load these boxes.
SUMMERS: DeMasco and some volunteers hoist cardboard boxes full of hot meals, a cooler with cold drinks, into the back of a white pickup truck.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE STARTING)
SUMMERS: There's a decal of the high school's logo - a white arrowhead with red block letters on the side.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR CLOSING)
DEMASCO: All right, y'all ready to roll?
SUMMERS: Let's do it.
And from there, athletic director Tate DeMasco sets on a winding five-mile drive through a portion of the devastation that ripped through his community.
DEMASCO: My phone started ringing at about 4:45 Friday morning. One of our other coaches actually lives up in Hunt and called me, and he had called me three times. And so I finally answered the third time. He says, you got to get up. It's bad. So I got in my car and headed straight to the fire department to find out what we could do.
SUMMERS: That's incredible. Was it hard to get other coaches to kind of come out and help, or would everybody just kind of know this is where we need to be and how we need to serve?
DEMASCO: They know. I mean, and, you know, when you pour into kids - and parents are big supporters of us. Right now, those are the ones that are affected by all this. So it's easy. I haven't had anybody say no. It's, where do you want me at? How can I help?
SUMMERS: We drive down a state highway that runs parallel to the Guadalupe River. For many in this region, life on the river is a source of joy, but the Guadalupe River flooding was the source of most of the recent destruction and anguish felt here.
DEMASCO: The water got close to getting over that bridge, and it was all throughout this field. Our school's over here on the right. Not much - it's kind of up on a hill, so we had minimal damage there. But if you start looking down this left-hand side, like, this is our Little League complex, and if you start looking over here to the left, I mean, it's gone.
SUMMERS: I mean, there's so much debris and so many...
DEMASCO: Right.
SUMMERS: ...Split trees. Geez.
DEMASCO: For years over here on this practice field, you know, you'd look across. You couldn't see across the river because all the cypress trees on the banks. And you can see all those are gone. So when y'all ask me, you know, about our kids, imagine being a 15-, 16-, 17-year-old kid that's grown up here in this beautiful place, and this is what it looks like right now.
SUMMERS: DeMasco pulls into another neighborhood a few miles beyond the high school.
DEMASCO: So a lot of destruction - some houses are not hurt, but a lot of them had water over the roofs. And just, you know, they're gutting everything and getting everything out. And that's kind of where we're at. And we're pulling in right now.
SUMMERS: The damage is immediately clear.
DEMASCO: So the water just came straight off that bend right there and straight through this neighborhood.
SUMMERS: Waterlogged furniture and belongings are piled up at the curb outside some houses. Big dumpsters are overflowing.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Marcus (ph)?
MARCUS: No food.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: You want a chicken pot pie?
MARCUS: Oh, yeah.
SUMMERS: We stop at one house where a man is power-washing grime away from the exterior. Marta Muramaya (ph) lives here with her husband, Miles. They were home, sleeping when the flooding started.
MARTA MURAMAYA: So the neighbors called and woke us up, and we thought somebody was breaking into the house. So he tried to run out and saw that the water was already - I don't know - about 6 feet high. So he went out the back door, and the water swept him away, and he went over into our outdoor kitchen. And while he was out there, my daughter's car that was here - that blue car - floated by him and ended up in the neighbor's back fence. So...
SUMMERS: God (ph).
MURAMAYA: ...Once our fences went down, then all the water went around. It did tear off our - well, actually, it folded our garage door in half. And so the water was 7 foot high in the garage. But in here, it only seeped in through the door. We could hear it roaring.
SUMMERS: From the outside, their house looks relatively untouched. Inside, though?
MURAMAYA: Everything inside is gone 'cause we had 1-foot bass, we had fish, leeches, everything inside the house.
SUMMERS: Everything - you lost everything inside your home? I'm so sorry.
They consider themselves lucky. Miles was swept away by the water outside their house, but he survived. While they've lost everything, family members gathered at their house to start the arduous process of rebuilding. I talked with Ashley Espinoza, Marta and Miles' daughter, as she grabbed food and drinks from the truck.
How's your mom doing with all of this?
ASHLEY ESPINOZA: She's dealing with it the best that she can. I mean, she's holding it together the best that she can. And, I mean, that's all that she can do. These were the cards that she was dealt, and she's managing.
SUMMERS: Just a few steps away from the house, a group sits in a semicircle, singing hymns, clapping along.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLAPPING)
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Singing) I'm going to sing. I'm going to shout. Oh, praise the Lord. When those gates are opened wide, I'm going to sit by Jesus' side. I'm going to sing. I'm going to shout. Oh, praise the Lord.
SUMMERS: After winding our way along the same road along the Guadalupe River, we arrive back at the church. DeMasco says he's headed to pick up another local coach and head out to another drop in another impacted community. Chris Russ grew up in Kerrville and now coaches football and baseball at Kerrville's Tivy High School. He and his family were on vacation when news of the flooding reached them. They learned that another Tivy High School coach and his whole family were missing. They immediately returned home to central Texas.
CHRIS RUSS: And I just drove straight through to get back home. And, you know, this kind of - coming and doing this kind of keeps me busy and not thinking about some of the other things. So I grew up with the Eastlands.
SUMMERS: Those are the camp directors on Camp Mystic, right?
RUSS: And so - yes - and so, I knew - I met Dick when I was in seventh grade, so I've known that family, know the oldest brother Richard real well.
SUMMERS: The Eastlands, Dick and Tweety, owned Camp Mystic since the 1970s. Dick Eastland was killed in the flooding, along with scores of young campers and counselors who were swept away. One of Dick Eastland's grandsons plays for Chris Russ' football team. Russ visited Camp Mystic earlier in the day.
RUSS: Well, a lot of - you know, when I was at Mystic, there's quite a few guys. George Eastland is one of our football players. And so we have quite a few guys over there helping to clean out houses, clean out cabins. And so, yeah, it's - they're staying busy. We'll push on. And I think kids are resilient, and they'll get through it. And so, yeah, I mean, they're helping when they can and also trying to get back to some normalcy and...
SUMMERS: Normalcy might be hard to reach anytime soon. But at least for today, Chris Russ, Tate DeMasco and a fleet of local coaches have made it possible for people to have the routine experience of sharing a hot dinner.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAM EVIAN'S "CAROLINA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
