18 Feb Winter Storm One Year Anniversary

It may be hard to believe, but one year ago this week, Texans, and certainly Austinites, faced one of the deadliest natural disasters in recent memory. When days of sub-zero temperatures, snow and ice all ran together, our power grid subsequently failed, and millions were left without power, many were left without water, and countless people’s homes and apartments experienced catastrophic loss due to bursting water pipes.

As this happened and the severity of the situation began to dawn on us, Mosaic Church responded by creating a call center, whereby our members who needed to be evacuated could call or email in and request it, or those stuck without food could have food delivered to them by other members with four-wheel drive vehicles who were being coordinated to respond.

This call center not only quickly expanded to be available for non-members, but when weather reports of yet another round of icing came in, at the request of the city, Mosaic’s facility turned into a 24-7 shelter, ready to receive anyone who showed up or was dropped off.

So, a few of our staff drove in the dark, through the icy streets, and moved into our offices to live for much of the week and serve those who would come.

At the literal first moment that the first person walked through the door looking for shelter, the church’s water got shut off, compounding our challenges. For the next few days, people from homes and apartments who had nowhere else to go and nothing else to eat would be coming to us to survive. But what would they drink? How would they (and we) use the restroom? Down to one workable, flushing toilet, we scraped ice off the pavement in the parking lot nearly around the clock and melted it on our stove to have water to use for the toilet. We scavenged gas stations and grocery stores to buy every bottle of water we could find to drink. Each trip took hours of precious time while people waited for the water.

On our second day into this, we were asked if we could also receive the homeless and the mentally ill for the foreseeable future, as they had been turned out in the streets when the hotels and institutions in which they had been staying lost power and water. We said, “yes,” as we knew they would die if we did not, and we opened both buildings to accommodate all who were coming.

This created a fluid, sometimes dangerous, situation, and as we prayed, the city of Austin sent us their last on-duty police officer to be on-site and help us navigate the anxiety-filled moments.

It was unforgettable.

So many of you jumped into action, braved the streets, cooked and brought food, gave money, hunted for groceries and medications, melted snow on the stove (one member brought buckets of his own swimming pool water when our own supply got low!), counseled and prayed with the distraught, all in the middle of a health pandemic.

We were alerted to the needs in nursing homes, brought food and water there, and cleaned up what had become extremely unsanitary housing.

When the snow melted, we paid for housing in hotels for weeks for those who had lost everything, bought furniture and groceries for them, and, as you may know, gave away $10,000 to Deer Park Middle School to help their teachers purchase school supplies when an explosion and burst pipes inside their facility led to catastrophic damage. For this, we were featured on KXAN news.

And for all of this, and to remember those around the city who sacrificed to serve their neighbors, as well as to commemorate the 230 plus Texans (around 20 in Austin) who lost their lives, we were invited to the Mayor’s office this past Tuesday for a moment of observance and silence.

Pastor Rosalynn and I attended, where we were thanked by our councilwoman and the Mayor of Austin for our service to the city (again, along with everyone else who had been invited).

I tell you this so that not only we will remember what God has brought us through, but of course, as the lead pastor, to thank you for helping to create what, in many ways, was our finest hour as a church.

It can be a cliche, but we really were “the hands and feet of Jesus” that week in a unique way.

I know I haven’t forgotten, our staff hasn’t forgotten, you likely haven’t forgotten, and most of all, our God has not forgotten.

It’s been a year.

This week, we remember.

Thank you.

Morgan