Friend,

 

It has been three years since Hurricane Harvey arrived in Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast, bringing with it more than 50 inches of rain and more than $125 billion in damages.

 

That was not lost on me as I spent today on the phone with federal, state, and local officials about preparations for Hurricane Laura, a major hurricane in the Gulf with potential life-threatening impacts.

 

I remember so well the uncertainty, the anticipation as we listened to the rain fall, watched the street fill with water, and refreshed the news.  Filling up the tub with water.  Stocking up food.  Locating the weather radio.  When tornado warnings put our house in its path, I put water and flashlights in our safest area.  When water started coming through our roof, we were just grateful it was not coming in through our front door.

 

When a friend texted me about volunteering to help, Scott and I didn’t hesitate to say yes.  In the next hours and days we did what we could to help.  But many of us wondered how to be helpful — what could we do — how could we find where we were needed.

 

Early on, I saw one great piece of advice — widely circulating on Facebook posts — about what to do in scary, uncertain times, times like these: just show up.  Of all the things we learned in Harvey, that little bit of advice made a big impact.  We went from delivering diapers, to relocating elderly evacuees, to delivering food, to mucking out houses, to sorting donations, to making up shelter beds.  We didn’t always know what we would do when we arrived, but we knew we could help somehow, and we showed up.

 

The outpouring of help and support during Harvey remains its definition for many Houstonians — from airboats to dump trucks to canoes, neighbors helping neighbors get to safety.  And once there, neighbors arrived with dry clothes, warm meals, and spare bedrooms for those in need.

 

And to me Harvey’s enduring lesson is this: When there are problems to solve, when there are people in need, when there is work to do, you don’t need to wait to be asked to help, and you don’t need to know exactly what to do, you just need to be there to do what you can.

 

Even when the task at hand is overwhelming, we can accomplish so much when we work together.  I saw that during Harvey.  And I have seen it every day since.  Because we have real problems to solve in our community and in our country.  And people are showing up to help.

 

That is what #TeamLizzie has been doing for more than three years now.  And I am so grateful to all who are showing up.  While we had planned a “Working Together Week of Action” starting tomorrow as we marked the anniversary of Harvey, we are now putting that action on pause as Hurricane Laura heads our way.  The action we ask you to take now is to be prepared, to be informed, and to be safe.  

 

We have a lot of work to do together in the days and months ahead. Thank you for showing up.