Scientology Volunteer Ministers: On the Ground in Rockport, Texas

A veteran Scientology Volunteer Minister talks about what it is like on the ground in Rockford, Texas. So much more help is needed.

Arriving in Rockport at 4 in the morning August 29, a team of Scientology Volunteer Ministers and Los Topos (the Moles), the famous Mexican search and rescue team, caught a few hours sleep and immediately got to work.

“There was a homeowner who had stayed at another place for the storm and came back to a broken house,” said Chad, one of the Volunteer Ministers (VMs). “He was overwhelmed with the amount of work needing to be done. So we took all the debris and trees from his yard and repaired his roof. His wife was very emotional—crying with joy about how much work we did in just three short hours,” The destruction included a hole where a piece of wood was thrust horizontally through the outside wall by 130 mph winds.

While they were taking care of that house, the person directing Texas Scientology Volunteer Ministers actions met with the Rockport Fire Department to let them know the team was there and to find out what needed to be done.

“She handed us an address of a fire department volunteer who’d been living and helping at the fire station since the storm began,” he said. The man, who had not yet returned home, was afraid of what he would find there. “We did an extremely thorough job of cleaning up everything we could, as he completely deserved our help.” That meant hours of chainsawing—there were fallen trees and wood everywhere.

Several houses later with a quick trip to Corpus Christi in between for supplies, it was too dark to carry on. By then it was 9 p.m. There was a trailer for the Topos to stay in. “I got the key, unloaded our luggage and we were finally able to unpack and shower.”

Hurricane Harvey dumped an estimated 27 trillion gallons of water on Texas and Louisiana. That’s enough to fill the Houston Astrodome 85,000 times or San Francisco Bay 10.6 times at high tide. The storm may be the most expensive in U.S. history at an estimated cost of over $190 billion.

If you can help, contact the International Scientology Volunteer Ministers’ Headquarters in Los Angeles at (800) HELP-4-YU or (323) 960-1949 or email disasterresponse@volunteerministers.org.