MILWAUKEE -- Help from Wisconsin is on the way to Texas.
“My own concern is helping people," Tom Poe, a local Red Cross responder, said. "And if you're not there to help them nobody else will."
Helping others is exactly why 78-year-old Tom Poe's bags are packed and his flight is booked to travel south. He’s headed to Houston to help with Hurricane Harvey relief efforts, even though he and folks in his home town of Burlington recently experienced damaging flooding of their own, and Poe did what he does best, help others.
“I just got through working my own floods," Poe said. "I worked shelters in Burlington and then they transferred me over to Somers."
Poe said he was in Houston last year when there was flooding, and he was also there 9 years ago during Hurricane Ike, but the impact of Hurricane Harvey is in a class of its own. It’s considered the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade. Yet, Poe still navigated his way through the airport Sunday afternoon on a mission to get to Texas, and he said he’s completely undeterred.
His plan is to join dozens of other Red Cross responders from the state in Houston. 34 have deployed so far, but the Red Cross confirmed once the storm passes, and the airports are running smoothly, it anticipates more volunteers flying south to help where they can.
