By Ken Jarvis, Area Media Specialist
When the local fire department received this call, units were immediately dispatched. The resident who called it in could not see any flame or smoke but could smell it. Fire fighters went through all the rooms of that and adjacent apartments and finally discovered the fire burning inside a wall.
In the meantime, other firefighters started hooking up hose to the hydrants. Unfortunately, the hydrants were dry. No water. Tenders were called in to haul water from distant hydrants that were working. But even with trucks from 15 departments and 75 firefighters there just wasn’t enough water and the building was lost. Thirty-two apartments gone. Thirty-two families left homeless.
The Red Cross transported the residents to nearby Johnson High School for food and a place to rest. Fortunately for the residents and firefighters, no lives were lost nor was anyone injured.
That’s what most of us remember seeing on the television newscasts. It is easy to think that the story ends there.
But for the residents the hardship was just beginning. All their possessions were gone. They were without food, clothing, toys, cherished personal items, medicine, the list goes on. Fortunately for the residents that was also the beginning of the story for the army of volunteers that moved in to donate, sort and distribute the many items desperately needed by these families.
The apartment building was located within the boundaries of the Cibolo Hills Ward of the Hill Country Stake. According to Stake Relief Society President, Cindy Beattie, “The next day members of our stake were asked to help with organizing and distributing donations.”
“By Saturday morning close to 100 volunteers including 30 Elders and Sister missionaries from the Texas San Antonio Mission, came ready to help,” said Sister Beattie. “Donations were so abundant, we soon realized this was going to be no small task.”
“For the missionaries it was a weeklong effort,” said Sister Cathy Merris, a senior missionary in San Antonio. “They worked in teams to deliver food, water, beds, couches, kitchen essentials, and personal hygiene products. Because of the generosity of so many people in San Antonio, a secondary distribution point had to be established at a nearby vacant retail store.”
Besides collecting and sorting the massive amounts of donations that came in from all over the city, the missionaries also did a lot of heavy lifting. They helped move couches and beds and set them up in apartments within the complex as families were relocated. Elder Van Valkenburgh said: “We had opportunities to help and talk to a lot of people who lost everything. It was a really cool feeling to be a part of helping people get back on their feet.”
When asked about her response to the emergency Sister Dayna Scott, Cibolo Hills Ward Relief Society President, deflected any praise directed at her and gave credit to the support from the Stake. “How does the Stake Relief Society eat an elephant? You pray, then devour that elephant one bag of clothes at a time. Then, when that 100 bags of clothes and other donations multiply to 300 overnight you pray again.”
She went on to comment on how it felt to be overwhelmed by the time and labor required to accomplish the task. “When you see that this will require more than a day or two, you pray, then you put out calls for more missionaries, more high school friends and parents, teachers, and principals. You accept help from and enlist other community churches, and you put out a call for items that are in short supply.”
As a few days stretched into more than a week Sister Scott and the other leaders realized that new, vacant rooms were finally becoming homes. She summed it all up with this reflection, “What a blessing it was to watch this community, who, for an entire week, made time to be available. One bite at a time.”
