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Galveston |
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Ed's 1986 Honda VFR700 Interceptor Kim's '86 Honda VF500F Interceptor Saving
Galveston! |
Saving Galveston! by Kim VanderVeen, Irving Police Dispatcher - Our adventure begins... Hurricane Ike hit Galveston early morning Saturday, September 13, 2008. The island took a direct hit and most of our favorite places disappeared in a matter of minutes. This place we love (Ed and I were married there and we visit Galveston every chance we get) was devastated. And that hurt our hearts. And it hurt our hearts to think of the police officers and their families that were affected. Various police agencies were sending relief teams, and everyone was pitching in to help. We put up the bat signal too. And the wives of Irving police officers and other police employees came through in a pinch. The Friday following the storm, we got word out about the trip we were planning for Tuesday, the 23rd. We contacted James Hallum and John Mitchell with the IPA and there was no hesitation on their part. "Absolutely! The IPA Hall is open to you." Michele Tononi immediately offered to sit there all day Saturday and collect donations, and she brought her guy Matt Roth along for the ride. Kara Smith joined them for a while. People dropped in all day long, including Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd. Contributions continued coming in through Monday evening. We got permission to use the IPD riot gear trailer and packed it full to the top with all the donations. Mitchell also put us in contact with Jimmy De Los Santos with Galveston PD who helped us get onto the island, that was still closed to residents. Around 4:30 am, Matt Drumm showed up at our house and we set out for Galveston around 5:30am. The trip was rather uneventful until we got to Conroe about 9am. Wow... the truck sounds a little heavy, and it's pulling to the right. Ka-tink, tink, tink. That can't be good. We were in a construction area though, and got off at the first exit we could and pulled into a gas station. We'd lost power steering by then, so it was not a simple task to pull that truck and trailer in. Matt and Ed popped the hood, and there was just smoke... That's really not good. Now what? Another truck pulls up to a gas tank next to us. The driver came over, took one look, said "your water pump is toast... bye." Alrighty then, thanks dude. Despite out initial dismay, we were in luck. We couldn't have broken down in a better spot. Sgt. Holt with the Conroe PD, and a crime scene officer both pulled up beside us at the same time. Less than 10 minutes later, there was someone there to pull the trailer away, and a wrecker to tow the truck. We expected to spend some time there waiting for the truck to get fixed, so Sgt. Holt invited us to take a tour of the PD, where we met some of the communications staff, several other officers and their chief, Charlie Ray. We also got a tour of their maintenance facility, where there was parked a beautiful truck marked with the Conroe PD stripe and "this truck was seized from a drug dealer with 526 pounds of marijuana." Awesome! Then, Sgt. Holt gets a call on his cell. "Why don't you hook up their trailer to the range truck and take them down to the island? They can pick up their truck on the way back." Even more awesome! This was incredible. We did just that, and arrived on the island in style, overheads turning, around 3pm. We expected some resistance at the causeway, but there was none. Perhaps that had something to do with being in a marked unit. The damage was incredible. The water line was marked on the slopes by browning vegetation and trash. Boats, large boats, were laying discarded along the roadside, where they'd been swept by bulldozers. There was debris from houses and piers everywhere. We went straight to the San Luis Hotel where the officers were based out of for the time being. De Los Santos showed us the room they were using, a small conference room. It had 2 tables and racks of dry cleaning and some half-eaten brownies in it. Ed and Matt started unloading. We started unpacking what was donated and we filled that room with bags and bags of clean clothes, towels and linens, boxes of food and water, and covered the table and the floor around it with personal items (shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, soap, diapers, toilet paper, over the counter medications and more) and with other things like batteries and smoke detectors, a fire extinguisher, rubber gloves and cleaning products. They broke into the chips right away. We only met a few Galveston officers in the few minutes we were there. They were grateful and just couldn't believe the trouble we'd gone through to get them these things. One of the sergeants there was already working out a system to pass out the items, starting with the officers that lost everything. I was personally impressed by how tired they looked, and of course they would. But they were in good spirits and more than willing to pose for my pictures. My favorite is of the Conroe PD truck pulling the Irving PD trailer, sitting next to a Galveston PD squad. We made arrangements for payment of the truck repairs before we left Conroe. Sgt. Holt arranged to have our truck picked up from the shop and it was waiting for us at the PD when we got there. The wrecker service towed it as a courtesy, so we were only charged for the actual repair, which turned out to be much less than we anticipated. There's something to be said about being part of the police family. Membership has its privileges. Along the way, we passed out IPA t-shirts and items donated from IPD personnel, and we made many new friends. We couldn't have done any of this without the help of everyone who donated in any way, and without the help of Conroe PD. We're proud to have been a part of it, and can't wait to get back down there. Ya'll did good! CLICK ON AN IMAGE BELOW TO VIEW THE FULL SIZE PICTURE
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