Note how FEMA helped (NOT).  This is a great commentary on Texas folks vs Big Govt.
Guest Posted by our own Jennifer H.!
Here are some stories about the Tricounty fire in Montgomery , Grimes, and
Waller County, TX, Memorial week, 2011.
My neighbor across the
road has a sister named Kenna. Memorial Day, when she saw the huge column of
smoke over our homes, she left a birthday party at my neighbor’s house to meet
with her friend Tara at the Baseball complex in Magnolia. She called the owner
of the complex and got permission to use the warehouse there as a staging area
for donations for the fire fighting effort.
They put a notice out on facebook that they were going to be taking donations
on their facebook pages. That night as they were setting up tables and
organizing, News 2 Houston came by and saw the activity, investigated and left
with the phone numbers and a list of suggested donations.
The facebook notice propagated faster than the fire. By dawn they had 20
volunteers, bins, forklifts, and donations were pouring in. I stopped by with
my pitiful little bags of nasal wash and eye wash, and was amazed. There must
have been 20 trucks in the lot, offloading cases of water, pallets of Gatorade
, and people lined up out the door with sacks of beef jerky, baby wipes,
underwear, socks, and you name it. School buses and trailers from many counties
around were there offloading supplies, students froming living chains to pass
stuff into the bins for transport to the command center and staging areas. If
the firefighters had requested it, it was there. What do you give the guy out
there fighting the fire that might engulf your home? Anything he or she wants.
Including chewing tobacco and cigarettes.
Kenna moved on to the Unified Command Post at Magnolia West High school . She
looked at what the fire fighters needed, and she made calls and set it up.
Mattress Mac donated 150 beds. Two class rooms turned into barracks kept quiet
and dark for rest. The CEO of HEB donated 2 semi trailers full of supplies, and
sent a mobile commercial kitchen at no charge to feed all the workers, but
especially our firefighters, 3 hot meals a day. An impromptu commissary was set
up, anything the firefighters had requested available at no charge.
As exhausted firefighters (most of them from local VFDs with no training or
experience battling wildfires) and workers came into the school after long
hours of hard labor, dehydrated, hungry, covered with soot and ash, they got
what they needed. They were directed through the commissary, where they got
soap, eye wash and nasal spray, candy, clean socks and underwear, and then were
sent off to the school locker rooms for a shower. HEB then fed them a hot meal
and they got 8 hours sleep in a barracks, then another hot meal, another pass
through the commissary for supplies to carry with them out to lines, including
gloves, safety glasses, dust masks and snacks, and back they went.
One of the imported crew from California came into Unified Command and asked
where the FEMA Powerbars and water were. He was escorted to the commissary and
started through the system. He was flabbergasted. He said FEMA never did it
like this. Kenna replied, ”Well, this is the way we do it in Texas .”
Fire fighting equipment needed repair? The auto shop at the High School ran
24/7 with local mechanics volunteering, students, and the firefighters fixing
the equipment.
Down one side of the school, the water tankers lined up at the fire hydrants
and filled with water. Down the other side there was a steady parade of
gasoline tankers filling trucks, dozers, tankers, cans, chain saws, and
vehicles.
Mind you, all of this was set up by 2 Moms, Kenna and Tara , with a staff of 20
simple volunteers, most of them women who had sons, daughters, husbands, and
friends on the fire lines. Someone always knew someone who could get what they
needed- beds, mechanics, food, space. Local people using local connections to
mobilize local resources made this happen. No government aid. No Trained
Expert.
At one point the fire was less than a mile from the school, and everyone but
hose volunteers were evacuated. The fire was turned.
The Red Cross came in, looked at what they were doing, and quietly went away to
set up a fire victim relief center nearby. They said they couldn’t do it any
better.
FEMA came in and told those volunteers and Kenna that they had to leave, FEMA
was here now. Kenna told them she worked for the firefighters, not them. They
were obnoxious, bossy, got in the way, and criticized everything. The
volunteers refused to back down and kept doing their job, and doing it well.
Next FEMA said the HEB supplies and kitchen had to go, that was blatant
commercialism. Kenna said they stayed. They stayed. FEMA threw a wall eyed fit
about chewing tobacco and cigarettes being available in the commissary area.
Kenna told them the firefighters had requested it, and it was staying. It
stayed. FEMA got very nasty and kept asking what organization these volunteers
belonged to- and all the volunteers told them “Our community”. FEMA didn’t like
that and demanded they make up a name for themselves. One mother remarked “They
got me at my boiling point!” and suddenly the group was “212 Degrees”. FEMA’s
contribution? They came in the next day with red shirts embroidered with “212
Degrees”, insisting the volunteers had to be identified, never realizing it was
a slap in their face. Your tax dollars at work- labeling volunteers with
useless shirts and getting in the way.
The upshot? A fire that the experts from California (for whom we are so
grateful there are no words) said would take 2-3 weeks to get under control was
100% contained in 8 days. There was so much equipment and supplies donated, 3
container trucks are loaded with the excess to go and set up a similar relief
center for the fire fighters in Bastrop . The local relief agencies have asked
people to stop bringing in donations of clothing, food, household items, and
pretty much everything else because they only have 60 displaced households to
care for, and there is enough to supply hundreds. Again, excess is going to be
shipped to Bastrop , where there are 1500 displaced households. Wish we could
send Kenna, too, but she has to go back to her regular job.

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“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and
petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of
God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds
in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:6-7
“I thank my God every
time I remember you.”
Philippians 1:3