Kristyn Cathey is the media and communications specialist for Port Arthur Independent School District.

On an average day, she might post something on Facebook, write a press release or update the website. Maybe she’ll send a text message out to parents about upcoming testing.

School districts are central in the lives of school employees and to students, parents and to communities, but for they function as well-run machines; so long as nothing goes wrong, most people know what to expect from a school system.

But not this year, not after Tropical Storm Harvey.

School was supposed to start in Port Arthur Aug. 28, right about the time Hurricane Harvey was set to make landfall in South Texas. But it was a hurricane, and Texas is used to those and so even as it approached, there was not a lot of panic.

“In the event we were not going to start on the 28^th in our mind we thought it was going to rain and we though t we could start on the 30^th,”Cathey said.

Meanwhile, Cathey and her husband, who works in Beaumont, figured they could ride the storm out there with their 7-month-old.

But then the storm hit reverse, backed out into the Gulf and headed straight for Port Arthur.

Now Harvey was a tropical storm and so while it wouldn’t bring a lot of wind, it would bring a whole mess of rain. The rain just would not stop and even in Beaumont, the water began to rise.

“Beaumont lost water and then we left Beaumont and went to Louisiana, to Sulfur, Louisiana and my husband’s parents were in Shreveport, so we went there, and then went to Dallas, where my husband is from.”

Like so many hundreds of others, Cathey and her family fled.

But, unlike most people, Cathey never stopped working. She couldn’t stop. Now, things were very wrong in Port Arthur and at the school district.

The district’s main headquarters had flooded and the water drowned the school’s server and with it, their email system.

Now, around 1,500 employees didn’t know if they’d be paid let alone when they would be expected back. Now, 9,000 school children and their parents needed to know when school would start and whether school uniforms would be required.

So, Cathey got busy.

“During that time I talked to my superintendent multiple times, every day, making sure we could get the word out to our parents. The firs thing we wanted to do was make sure everyone was safe and get out information,” she said. “People were asking us about school clothes and school supplies as everything was flooded but our biggest thing was to make sure everyone was safe.”

Cathey said social media saved the day. She created Google documents for district employees and contacted them via social media. The documents provided answers to their questions and in that way she was able to relieve some of their stress.

“We were able toe get out checks even to teachers who had not yet actually worked for the district,” she said.

Cathey said she was an instructor at Lamar University when Rita hit and during that storm, it was hard to get messages out to people who had evacuated.

“I am really really thankful we were able to use social media for this,” Cathey said.

She used the school’s Facebook page to post links to Port Arthur News articles and to other local stories, and in this way she believes the school community was better able to see the whole recovery process.

“We were all working collaboratively to make sure everyone was getting all the information they needed,” she said.

At the same time, she had her own worries.

“Through all of it, I’m trying to figure out what was going on at my home,” Cathey said. “I was away for a week. My neighbor, his son was sending us photos and everything and when we came home we came home to a house with three feet of water in it.”

But, even back at home, she said she kept on fielding questions and she kept busy on communications.

“I had to do my job and depress some of my feelings a little bit and my emotions so I could do the job I was hired to do just so everyone could have enough information to move forward,” she said.

Yet, doing her job allowed her to focus on something besides the sadness of loss, she said.

“I have parents and students saying, ‘Thank you so much for getting the word out,’” she said. “So I 1,000 percent enjoy my job. To me, it’s not a job its something I like to do. And it helped me too because fro that brief amount of time I was not having to think about my home and what was I going to have to go home to.”

Cathey said the experience taught her a few lessons, too. Cathey is a member of the Texas School Public Relations Associations and she said the flood taught her how important it is to be connected to other districts and other professionals.

“I think for me, what really helped was that I went to other school districts,” she said. “You have to make sure you’re communicating with districts different than yours.”

She said her friend is the president of the PSPRA and she got advice from the group.

“Never be afraid to reach out to other school districts because there might be something you can piggy back on,” she said.

Cathey also has some advice for people in her field.

“If you don’t have a great relationship with the local media, that’s a shame,” she said.

Finally, she suggests districts get used to broadcasting on multiple platforms, especially in a time of an emergency.

“We know that not everyone has access to a computer, but most people have access to a cell phone so they can get notifications and texts,” she said.

But mostly, she said it is important to just keep doing the job, even in the worst conditions.

“I am hopeful we were able to help at least one person,” she said.