Texas tricounty fire, You won't see this on the news
09-21-2011, 07:53 PM
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Texas tricounty fire, You won't see this on the news
I have not verified this but it was passed on to me.
You would never see this on the news.......
Here’s some stories you won’t hear about the Tricounty fire in Montgomery, Grimes, and Waller County Memorial week, 2011. Although Kenna promises to write a book.
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.
These are a few stories my neighbor shared poolside with me tonight.
You would never see this on the news.......
Here’s some stories you won’t hear about the Tricounty fire in Montgomery, Grimes, and Waller County Memorial week, 2011. Although Kenna promises to write a book.
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.
These are a few stories my neighbor shared poolside with me tonight.
09-21-2011, 09:03 PM
#4
I wish I was as fine, as those who work the pipeline!
If it is true, and there is no reason to doubt you, that is what America is all about. We don't need no stinkin FEMA. Nor 90% of the Fed Govt.
God Bless TEXAS!!!
God Bless TEXAS!!!
09-22-2011, 12:26 AM
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Great post, it is nice to know some of the old fashioned values still live. I ought to live in Texas, around here everyone would be complaining and wanting to know when someone was going to help them instead of doing something about it. God bless them all
Last edited by chaikwa; 09-22-2011 at 07:58 PM. Reason: Language a bit too colorful for DTR
09-22-2011, 08:10 AM
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AMEN! That is why I am can't wait to leave Florida, and get to Tennessee.
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09-22-2011, 01:18 PM
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I wouldn't doubt a bit of this. For the Bastrop fire, a group immediately set up a donation drive in Smithville and were publishing their needs via FaceBook. Every time they would post something was needed, it was only a short time before they were loaded up on that items from generous people in the community. It was amazing to see how everyone came together.
A friend of mine was at Walmart buying a bunch of bottled water and Gatorade for the firefighters and a woman walked up to her and gave her $1000 donation for the cause. You don't see stuff like that happening everywhere.
That's one of the problems with FEMA. If they spent as much time helping out as they do worrying about offending someone or all the other bureaucratic bull, maybe there would be a better public perception. If HEB wants to donate goods and services and their name is on it, that's fine. Let them get the publicity. If Kroger, Tom Thumb, etc, etc want to do the same, they're more than welcome as well.
A friend of mine was at Walmart buying a bunch of bottled water and Gatorade for the firefighters and a woman walked up to her and gave her $1000 donation for the cause. You don't see stuff like that happening everywhere.
Next FEMA said the HEB supplies and kitchen had to go, that was blatant commercialism
09-22-2011, 05:33 PM
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God bless everyone who gave of their lives during all of the wildfires we have experienced this summer!!!!!!!!!
God Bless Texas!!!!
Gary
09-22-2011, 07:57 PM
#15
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I didn't doubt him either. I hope my post didn't come across that way. HE was the one who brought up the possibility of it needing to be confirmed and I wasn't thinking about wording when I wrote my reply. Sorry if anyone took my intention the wrong way.