HOUSTON — The deafening hum of a generator was a welcome sound Thursday night at an independent living center in Houston, where dozens of seniors were without power. aftermath of hurricane Beryl.
Joe and Terri Hackl, who arrived on the scene with emergency power after delivering hundreds of meals all day, estimate they’ve been working at least 18 hours a day this week to fill service gaps in the wind-swept city.
The couple are part of a volunteer network called CrowdSource Rescue, which was founded in 2017. Hurricane Harvey to connect emergency services with people in need.
Like-minded community efforts have brought relief in the form of fresh food and cool air to some of the millions who were without electricity this week. Beryl knocked out power to one of the nation’s largest cities, putting pressure on electric utility CenterPoint Energy as the outages continued for days after the Category 1 storm has passed.
While nonprofits and mutual aid groups have stepped up their disaster services in a city often ravaged by extreme weather, some are now becoming exhausted by repeated deadly events. May storm Food and energy supplies were already strained by hurricane-force winds, which also caused electricity shortages.
According to Executive Director Matthew Marchetti, CrowdSource Rescue’s challenge is finding generators in such high demand.
The organization has only 30 left, compared to the 300 it bought after money poured in during the war. Record winter freeze in Texas in 2021. Many storms since then have depleted resources and it has become harder to get donations, he said.
“The banner’s slogan is ‘Houston Strong,’” he said. “I want to be ‘Houston Normal’ for a while.”
It’s hard to make people whole again when the shocks come often, says Ben Hirsch, co-director of West Street Recovery, an environmental justice organization that repairs homes and navigates federal aid for families in some of the most vulnerable parts of northeast Houston.
Government money to repair damage from the May storm has only just come in, and people haven’t had time to recover. Mutual aid can only do so much to alleviate systemic barriers to resilience, Hirsch said.
“Mutual aid is very good at providing hot meals and cleaning out houses,” he said. “But we have to bury our power lines and build massive flood infrastructure.”
Experts predict that the unprecedented heat of the ocean will make this one of the most extreme conditions on record. busiest Atlantic hurricane seasons ever recorded and climate change is causing the most severe hurricanes to intensify.
Sally Ray, director of domestic funding at the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, is concerned that hurricanes are approaching so early and said donors need to be more strategic “in supporting these communities over the long term to better prepare them for what’s coming.”
In times of crisis, pre-built community connections are especially important for nonprofits because they often have the deepest ties to the communities that have been hit hardest, Ray said.
That includes groups like Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston. About six dozen drivers deliver 2,000 hot meals a day through the Meals on Wheels program, keeping an eye on homebound residents, said Matthew Wright, director of operations.
The nonprofit also provides people with five nonperishable meals per person in June, ahead of hurricane season. Beryl struck so early that Meals on Wheels plans to deliver another round soon.
Annie Jones, 62, received an emergency kit over the weekend. She has been out of work since breaking her hip, but the lifelong Houston resident said she had just repaired wind damage to her roof in May.
“I know it’s coming,” she said of the frequent storms. “But you don’t get used to it. It’s still devastating.”
The back-to-back extreme weather events are worrying even the most established nonprofits. Houston Food Bank, which serves 18 counties in southeast Texas through more than 1,600 community partners, is trying to gather more than 40 truckloads of emergency supplies before hurricane season begins in June, said Brian Greene, the organization’s president.
But the May storm hit while they were still building, forcing them to pick up boxes from other food banks as far away as Minnesota and Tennessee. That’s doable if just one extreme weather event hits the country. But he said the nationwide Feeding America network is concerned about the increased prevalence and severity of these scenarios.
A “disaster volume” of supplies — more than 400,000 pounds (181,400 kilograms) — was moved Wednesday, Greene said, and he doesn’t want to disappoint Houstonians who have come to rely on that production.
“I worry that if this keeps happening, it’s going to be very difficult to meet those expectations,” Greene said.
The Hackls hadn’t even stopped to clean up the trash in their yard when they returned with food, drinks, ice cream and cleaning supplies on Friday.
Before Terri Hackl left the independent living center the day before, she gave some advice about what to do with the extra supplies the staff had purchased.
“Keep it,” she said. “I can almost guarantee there will be more storms this year.”
___
Glenn Gamboa contributed reporting.
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through AP’s partnership with The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.