Local Red Cross volunteer returns from Harvey relief

LayLa Johnson, an American Red Cross volunteer, recently returned from a two week trip to Dallas where she worked in shelters.

“Do I have a home to go back to? Is there anything left?”

Johnson said these are questions people in shelters were wondering. Displaced by Hurricane Harvey, many ended up hundreds of miles from home in Dallas. Some were not even sure they would make it out of the hurricane alive.

Johnson said, “I didn’t really expect to have a conversation with somebody that said, ‘I just thought that was it, it was over. And it was gonna be okay. It was just, I was going to fall asleep and the water was going to consume me, and that was going to be it.”

But, thanks to the work from volunteers and the shelters, this man’s hopes were revived.

“Here he is in a shelter, doing the best he can,” Johnson said. “He was a really cheerful guy, he was really funny. You could tell he was just trying to make hte most of things despite his horrific story and where he had come from.”

Johnson said even thought the hurricane has passed, relief is needed for a long time.

“Don’t foreget Houston and Beaumont and what happened in Texas,” Johnson said. “If you don’t hear about it for a few weeks, it’s just as bad a few weeks from now as it is today, as it was a few weeks ago.”

If you would like to hurricane relief efforts, you can visit the American Red Cross website here.