posted on June 12, 2013 10:04
One of 18 twisters in North Texas hit Granbury, Texas in Hood County the evening of May 15. Over 120 houses were damaged or destroyed and six people lost their lives. The hardest hit area was the Rancho Brazos neighborhood, which included 61 Habitat for Humanity homes. Power lines were down and the area’s water system was down for weeks. And as one can imagine, there is a huge mess to clean up before people can begin to think about rebuilding.
Many people stepped up to help including the former owners of Vista Sand, a HOLT CAT customer, Justin and Ryan Thomas. They started helping by joining volunteers with Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief organization. As soon as Samaritan’s Purse heard about the damage in Granbury, they dispatched a team of volunteers, staff and equipment to help out. They are based out of Boone, North Carolina, but also have offices on several other continents. Their practice is to work with a local church as a base of operation. In the case of Granbury, it was StoneWater Church.
Additional equipment was needed for the Granbury cleanup, so Justin Thomas contacted his HOLT sales rep, Joe Anselmi to see if we could help. HOLT loaned them a Cat 242 SSL with grapple bucket to assist with the cleanup. Soon, Samaritan’s Purse loaded their equipment and moved to Moore, Oklahoma to help with the much larger disaster in that city. They expect to be there for weeks.
Justin Thomas’ brother Ryan assumed leadership of the cleanup effort when Samaritan’s Purse left for Oklahoma. Using StoneWater Church as the base, he organizes a group of around 275 volunteers to work each Friday and Saturday on cleanup projects in the damaged area. The work is not all cleanup. Last weekend, June 1, they had over 400 volunteers and one of their projects was completely replacing the roofs on four damaged homes.
Samaritan’s purse also helped clean up the damage from the Bastrop fire in 2011 and HOLT let them use a Cat BHL with an impact hammer to remove concrete foundations.