Laredo Volunteers Help 248 Homes After Texas Floods

When floodwaters tore through Texas Hill Country communities in July, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Laredo didn't wait for the call to come closer to home.

Two 12-person teams packed their tools and drove north to help complete strangers start over. They joined hundreds of volunteers from across South and Central Texas in the hard, unglamorous work of flood recovery: hauling ruined furniture, ripping out waterlogged drywall, and clearing mountains of mud-soaked debris from damaged homes.

The Laredo volunteers worked alongside Church members from San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and other communities in towns like Uvalde, Crystal City, and Batesville. Church leaders coordinated with the Texas Division of Emergency Management to identify homes where help was needed most, turning a local meetinghouse into a staging center where teams received daily assignments.

The work extended beyond swinging hammers and shovels. Volunteers distributed over 600 meals to affected families and delivered truckloads of water to Carrizo Springs when the town's water supply failed. They partnered with a local Methodist church to create a clothing closet for people who'd lost everything, and supplied shelf-stable food to a local pantry.

The Ripple Effect

The numbers tell part of the story. In the Uvalde and Zavala areas alone, volunteers logged more than 10,500 hours helping at 248 locations. Another 10,400 hours went to assisting 275 locations in Kerr and Kendall counties.

But for the Laredo volunteers, the statistics mattered less than the faces of homeowners who suddenly had help during an overwhelming crisis. Flood recovery doesn't wait. Before any rebuilding begins, someone has to remove everything the water destroyed, a task that can paralyze families already traumatized by loss.

The Laredo response shows something powerful about disaster recovery: communities don't need to be directly affected to make a difference. These volunteers traveled hours from home, took time away from their own families and jobs, and worked alongside people they'd never met simply because fellow Texans needed help.

That spirit isn't unique to one faith community. Churches, civic groups, and neighbors across Texas regularly mobilize when crisis strikes, whether it's in their own backyard or someone else's.

The immediate emergency has passed, but rebuilding continues in the Hill Country, one repaired home and one helping hand at a time.