Now we made a trip to the west side of Galveston Bay. This trip lead us to a small fishing community called San Leon. The bulk of the people there fish for a living. Living on a bay their primary catch are shrimp, crab or mussels. Their livelihood is based on the boats that they own and the creatures in the sea. When one storm comes in, it changes everything.
We met a wonderful Vietnamese women name Thuy (pronounced Twee), who showed us some families in the area that could benefit from Recapture. She shared story after story from what she, and others experianced in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. At one point we found ourselves at this canal that juts in from the bay that the fishermen would bring their boats in from the sea to refuel and restock. Thuy was telling us that they many of the fishermen thought that this spot would be the safest place to leave their boats. The canel is now a place where boats rest. They rest on top of each other and partially underwater. Some abandoned by their owners, others just their because the owners have no way of getting them out yet. Some boats look as if they were just carefully stacked in a pile from the water leading back up to the land. As Thuy and I walked around the canal and talked about her experience she started to tell me that “Others try to put this behind them and the emotions come rushing back after pushing so much.” Then she told me that she just hopes it does not happen again, with tears coming down her face.
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