When the floodwaters started rising in the Splendora, Texas neighborhood where Anthony Courtney was living, his first thought was to help his neighbors. He went around to where people had already been flooded and helped them get to higher ground – then, thinking he had more time before the water reached him, he tried to catch a little sleep. 

Unfortunately for Anthony, the water racing down the East Fork San Jacinto River was moving much more quickly than he could have ever anticipated. He recounted his story recently while staying with the Red Cross at an emergency shelter set up in Cleveland, Texas: 

“I knew the water was going to come, but thought it was going to take at least three or four hours for it to get there because it was so far north,” said Anthony “I woke up an hour, hour and a half later, and there’s waist-deep water in my house.” 

He continued, “I had to jump over the refrigerator because it was blocking the door, run through the water and grab what I could. I got outside, got my boat, the oars had floated away. The water was coming hard. I floated up next to a telephone pole and tied off to it, and while I was tying off – it tipped over. I grabbed hold of the telephone pole until I noticed the boat was still floating, so I sat on it. I was in the water for about four hours.” 

An emergency responder from Montgomery County rescued Anthony and his neighbor, who had been flooded out of his car on the road near where Anthony was stranded, just in time as Anthony was bleeding and turning blue from the water. He got some dry clothes and went to help a church in Conroe, Texas clean up after the flood. They let him stay there for a couple days, and he went back to his home to get some clothes from his now-destroyed home. 

 Eventually, he found his way to the Red Cross – thanks to a timely arrival of a shower truck operated by the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, which was in route to the shelter itself and gave him a ride. 

“The people like Bonnie and Manuel and others are here to help,” said Anthony. “I like what they do, because helping people is what I do. And that’s in their hearts, they want to help and to do the right thing at the right time.” 

Story By: Frederic Klein