Jack of Harts

Hurricane Harvey is no more. He is a few scattered storms generating merely six inches of rain or so in the Ohio River Valley. He’s a little bit of local flooding now, but his legacy lives on.

Overloaded river systems throughout the gulf coast are trying to drain themselves, but all they find is more overloaded systems downstream. Dams are forced to relieve pressure by releasing millions of gallons of water and new neighborhoods drown under sunny skies. It has been a week since Harvey first hit Texas, and his winds are all but gone, but the water he sucked out of the gulf and dropped all over our lands is widely hailed as the greatest natural disaster in the history of America.

I doubt we will ever truly know how much damage was done in the last week. We’ll state numbers of lives lost, and the cost in billions, maybe trillions, of dollars. But those numbers will never quantify all the damage we’ve been dealt. They’ll also never be able to quantify the hundreds of thousands of Americans who had to leave their homes, or the tens of thousands who piloted boats and other rescue vehicles through the rising waters to save thousands of people who discovered too late that it was too late to evacuate.

We will never be able to accurately quantify the true costs of Harvey. The best we will ever have is estimates. But the best of humanity met Harvey even as he raged all over the coast, and continues to stand now. National Guard, Peacekeepers, and Cajun Navy personnel stand side by side in defense of their fellow man today, and continue to bring people to dryer land as we watch. They are the greatest legacy of Harvey.

But the recovery will take years. People need our help now, next week, next month, and next year. When most of us have forgotten about them, they will still need help.

Here are some links to non-profit aid organizations that will do that help, and will not forget about those in need.

Samaritan’s Purse

Salvation Army

Red Cross

All Hands

If you can’t help directly, please consider giving money to these or other non-profits you know of so they can help the victims of Hurricane Harvey.

Thank you.