Samaritan’s Purse volunteers completed disaster responses from five locations in Texas. We continue on rebuilds in Pearland and Rockport.
Samaritan's Purse disaster relief units were in Texas for months to equip staff and volunteers as they served residents recovering from Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath. Our disaster responses in Santa Fe, Houston, Pearland, Rockport, and Victoria are now completed; over 10,000 volunteers served nearly 3,000 homeowners. We praise God that more than 540 people repented and placed their faith in Christ for salvation through the witness of our volunteers and Billy Graham Response Team chaplains.
In mid-November 2017, we started long-term rebuild projects in Pearland and Rockport. Our volunteers are doing both restoration work and new construction.
“The flooding was just horrendous in southeast Texas,” Samaritan's Purse President Franklin Graham said shortly after the storm. “People have lost their homes, and some have lost everything. We want to go and we want to be there in their time of need, helping them in the Name of Jesus Christ put their lives back together again.”
Two disaster relief units left North Carolina on the day the storm hit. We had multiple locations in the Lone Star state from which we came alongside hurting homeowners in Jesus’ Name, accompanied by Billy Graham Rapid Response Team chaplains. Our volunteer teams cut trees, tarped roofs, and performed mud-outs.
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The hurricane made landfall around Rockport on Aug. 25 as a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 130 mph. Harvey then spent several days churning as a powerful tropical storm, dumping over four feet of rain in and around Houston. Cedar Bayou, 30 miles to the east of downtown, got 51.88 inches, a record rainfall event for the continental U.S. Far eastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana were also hit by this storm as it made a second landfall on Aug. 30. The devastating storm caused extensive damage and more than 80 deaths. All branches of the U.S. military were called in to help. Catastrophic flooding put much of Houston under water. At the time of landfall, Hurricane Harvey was the strongest storm to hit the U.S. in over a decade. An estimated 200,000 homes were damaged.
Please continue praying for those affected by this terrible storm, and pray for our rebuild teams.
Harvey Relief Stories
