Hurricane Harvey has been one of the costliest hurricanes on record since it hit the mainland of the US last week. Roughly 47,000 homes were razed to the ground. Among the hardest cities hit were Rockport, Houston, Port Aransas, and Beaumont, which till today is without a source of clean running water.
Silver Lake Love was able to raise efforts in the Los Angeles area to help those in need in the Rockport area. On August 28th, a van full of supplies departed from from California, through Tuscon, Las Cruces and made it to Rockport on Friday. We decided to go to Rockport because our hypothesis was that the larger population and influence of Houston in the public spehere would mean that ample resources would be diverted there. Along the way to Rockport, European Auto Tech of Tuscon, Arizona, donated their time and service of an oil change of the Silver Lake Love van, as well as a monetary donation to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey.
Rockport was directly in the path of Harvey and was the first and hardest hit. The entire town looked to be devastated. On our journey into the city, trailer parks that once contained homes looked like a game of dominos, with every single trailer either blown down or completely blown away.
In Rockport, there were temporary support centers that were points of aid to those who needed it. We made our stop one by one to the main center that had been set up in the downtown district, heading
into the boardwalk. The flow of supplies were flowing in as quickly as residents came to pick it up. Much of the entire city had been destroyed and we saw very little that was still standing. We dropped off the supplies and helped with the clearing of debris.
