By Paige Lambert

Communities across Central Texas continue to recover after the Oct. 30 rain event brought a second wave of devastating floods. 

In the center of it, in a little yellow building in San Marcos, sits the control center of the Blanco River Regional Recovery Team (BR3).

The BR3 is a nonprofit organization created by groups in Blanco, Caldwell, Hays and Guadalupe counties to help their communities recover from the Memorial Day floods.

At the helm of this massive group is James Gabriel, who is a retired University of Texas police officer with extensive experience in law enforcement and emergency management. 

He said a long-term recovery team such as BR3 is unprecedented in Texas. Typically the state organizes a recovery team for each county. 

“That’s quite a task for the state to raise up all these recovery teams, and eighty-seven of them,” Gabriel said. “Can you imagine that, and that happens after every disaster.”

About 87 of 254 counties called for aid after the Memorial Day floods.

The goal of BR3 is to assess the actual needs of residents and coordinate donations, rebuilding and volunteers to fulfill the unmet needs.

“This is truly long-term recovery,” Gabriel said. “And I know that our communities want help now and they want their houses rebuilt yesterday.”

Relief organizations, such as the Red Cross, partner with BR3 to man and supply the unmet needs, anything from donations to rebuilding a home.

Groups like World Renew will also come in and create assessments of unmet needs.

The assessments go to the volunteer caseworkers who make sure individual needs are met. 

Before the Halloween flood, there were only six caseworkers for 500-600 cases, he said.

A grant around 7 to 8 million dollars, however, was recently awarded to 12 recovering counties for case-management. Gabriel said BR3 could receive paid case workers within a few months.

“Our thought is and the advice I’m getting from FEMA is that Harris and our four counties will see the biggest chunk of that money,” Gabriel said. “So the cavalry is coming.”

He said the primary objective will always be recovery. For now, however, it has switched to response after the Halloween flooding.

BR3 volunteer coordinator Courtney Goss said the biggest issue is understanding damage and getting help from local volunteers.

“Everyone is just tired from the Memorial Day flood,” Goss said. “Everyone who had resources gave it then and now that this has happened those homeowners are exhausted.”

Emotional and spiritual aid is one of the main components of the organization and will be focused on as much as the rebuilding and volunteers.

“We know there are going to be challenges to the citizens to deal with emotional and spiritual over the course of many years,” Gabriel said. “So we want to do that defusing and debriefing upfront and be there in the long-term.”

Texas Recovering Together and the BR3 spiritual committee will be at volunteer resource centers to help residents recover mentally.

As they come to grips with this disaster, the next steps are to reach out for more volunteers locally and nationally said Rob Roark, BR3 publication information committee chair.

“We are going to have to work with our partners and dial it up a little,” Roark said. “And the best way to help a community is to get the community involved.”

Gabriel said most long-term recovery teams dissolve after 3 to 5 years. BR3 plans to become sustainable and always be ready to aid its communities. 

“We really are volunteers of the community to get the long-term recovery process done,” Gabriel said. “And that is what our organization will do.”

Find ways to donate or volunteer at BR3T.org