Just about every standing building in the small, coastal town of Refugio, TX, suffered some sort of damage, if not total destruction, from Hurricane Harvey in August 2017.

Stan Sherwood, who has deployed to multiple different sites as a Minuteman Disaster Response volunteer, said the damage in Refugio was comparable to the damage left by a tornado, except tornadoes generally leave a path of destruction.  Harvey destroyed the entire town.

“We got a list of the first responders,” Sherwood said.  “We always want to help them first because they need to be out helping others.  We worked to get their homes stabilized, so they didn't have to worry as much about their family.  We let them use our trailer so they could shower or got trees out of their driveway so they could get their cars out.  Just whatever we could do to help them.”

Many first responders didn't have a place to stay, so they slept in their cars at night and used the showers and restroom facilities that Minuteman provided.