a bottle of water saves the 911 calls

Today my new friend from Wisconsin, Diane, and I drove to Galv to give out bottled water. (cold)  This weekend is the first weekend many have come home to see the damage, and everywhere we saw families hauling things out to the front yard.  We sat and talked with many older folk, especially those who didnt have the help needed.  We were able to get many names and addresses of folks who need the teams to gut their homes. After awhile we stopped taking names.....just too many.  The smell is now getting very bad....sewerage, fridges and freezers etc.  Its hard to sit and have a polite conversation with strangers giving them hope, all the time holding your breath and nodding.  I need to practice this technique.  

telephone poles, railway sleepers and who knows what washed into this neighborhood.  Impossible to move without machines.  The city will move anything that is put on the front curb.  These people will need to be creative with their new landscaping.  The lady who owns this house is going through cancer treatment at the same time as dealing with this.  Grown men broke down and cried with us (2 ladies) today.... 
Galveston families need to drive 15 miles to get their mail.  The PO line is always long and we had been given the heads up about this, so were made very welcome when we parked outside the PO this afternoon to hand out cold water.  One of the workers thanked us over and over telling us about how many times they had had to call 911 because of collapses.  The PO wait in the heat was up to 2 hours.