I grew up in Houston, but I was born in Vietnam.
And when I was two, I went with my mom on a boat
and we were drifting at sea for 21 days before we were finally
saved by a U.S. Naval ship.
You know, my parents came over with nothing so during
the hurricane that's what I leaned on. You know, we're all in this together and
so if we can help, we should help.
We knew that the hurricane was bearing down toward Houston, but I don't
think anyone really understood the magnitude of what was gonna happen.
Sunday morning at 5:00 a.m. I got a text from our neighbor, Aleta.
I frantically texted Judy because the water had crept
up our yard so quickly and said, 'Can we come to your home?'
So we woke the kids up, got the cat in the kennel and found
safe harbor here at her home.
The whole street was filled up with water.
We opened the door and the water was already really high.
There's my neighbor.
She's getting her stuff so she can stay with us.
Aleta and her husband were
carrying their kids on their back and so we kind of checked on all of the other
neighbors and between 5:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. we just had kind of a
constant stream of people coming to the house.
Judy saved our lives and she took in my nine dogs.
Don't tell anyone I have nine dogs.
And then our new family member, Harvey, who we adopted right before the
hurricane hit.
All of this was just completely flooded and while we were out
here we saw a boat go by.
We watched the National Guard do these rooftop rescues and
they were just doing laps as they were pulling people out.
Judy said she went into refugee mode, you know, she helped her neighborhood
really just be a completely resilient family.
Our house was a refugee camp and
we were watching everybody's house just completely get destroyed.
Alita is one of the strongest women I know. She lost everything.
It was kind of scary.
We had lots of people around so it was very busy.
Mom felt bad about all these people losing homes.
And so I think my mom is like a superhero because she
saved everybody from the flood.
We had a total of 23 people, 11 dogs, 2 cats
and three tadpoles.
My kids, we talk a lot about kindness and how it doesn't
have to be big and they wanted to celebrate that and so we're having a
dinner and inviting people who had shown kindness during the hurricane.
We wanted to support a local business and so we're having food ordered from La Baguette.
They opened their kitchen after the hurricane so that Richard Knight could
cook and serve food to all of the people who needed it.
What is going to happen to this food?
I mean, the restaurant's not gonna be open for a week or two,
let's try and do something that's trying to feed some people.
It fed thousands of people.
Coming over to dinner tonight we have Amy and Carla, who set up a giving hub.
The giving hub was a distribution center for the things that people urgently needed —
food, water.
There was so much kindness and hope
and appreciation for what we were doing.
Robert took out his duck hunting boat and saved 50 or more people,
a lot of them from a nursing home.
And I was fortunate in that I wasn't flooded
and that my family wasn't in any danger, so because of that I had the
opportunity to be helpful.
Maybe being a hero is just contributing
what you can to the effort.
Alexander saves a little boy, Ethan, on his paddle board.
A man came to me and said, 'Well, there's this family that needs to
evacuate and can you help?' So I said, 'Well, okay let's go and help these people.'
Heroes become that way by doing the little things all along
the way and they don't do it because they get something in return they do it
because they can.
Jesus is a paramedic and he was saving all of these
people at the same time learning that the Dreamers Act was getting shut down
and fearing that he would get deported.
I just do my job and that's to be a paramedic
and I'm not like an outstanding paramedic.
I disagree.
I was gonna say the same thing!
I was just honored to be that voice.
I thought it'd be cool if all the
neighbors and I would get together and
take a cake to surprise Judy for her efforts.
All the kids would like to say thank you Judy and Don
for everything that you did for us after Harvey.
I'm completely surprised. I'm overwhelmed. It's amazing.
And I recognized that, I recognize the board over there, right?
My hope for my kids is that they see that people are good and we can't make
it on our own.
Helping people makes me feel happy and proud of myself.
Helping people makes me feel warm and there's all fuzzy feeling inside.
I think we have a choice.
We can turn inward from fear. I think the other choice is connection and
being able to offer what you can because you're all in it together
and that's what I saw during Hurricane Harvey.