A quick glance across southeast Texas towns post-Harvey doesn’t accurately convey the devastation and heartache many families still face nearly four months after the catastrophic flooding.

Many lost everything from everyday household necessities to cherished, sentimental belongings; tears have been wept and now those affected face the arduous task of rebuilding their homes and their lives as one of Christendom’s holiest days approach signaling light and hope and joy.

Lori Jacbson, a Nederland native whose family including a small child lost everything in their Beaumont home, and Barbara Cooper, a single mom with two teenagers at home as well as a disabled child, were rescued from the floodwaters and lost everything— are just two of the many stories to tell.

Cooper was monitoring the weather during the August night that culminated in approximately 60 inches of rainfall. She had packed necessities in her vehicle including medications for her daughter David Emmanuelle Chatman, known lovingly as Cupcake, or Cake, but had unpacked at some point thinking the area and her home in Bellbrook Estates in the Port Acres area of town would be spared. This was not the case.

She awoke to banging on her front door.

“When I opened the door water just rushed in,” Cooper said from the Beaumont home she is now living in. “I had just had surgery and there were people with boats saying come on. I told them I had a baby and they said get your baby. I told then she can’t walk.”

Her neighbors tried to tell the men in boats not to leave but there were other rescues waiting. That’s when a man in a Jeep Wrangler and another man in a truck arrived. One of them men scooped up Cake, 6, and carried her to the waiting vehicle; her teenagers climbed in the second truck.

“All I could think of (while going down Texas 73 and seeing all of the water), if this truck stalls, I can’t swim and my baby can’t move,” she said.

She was worried she would die and not be with her children when it happened and also felt a failure as a mother for not being able to help should the need occur.

Cake was diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome, a rare genetic dysfunction of the brain that is a form of epilepsy. She cannot walk or speak and requires around the clock care.

Cooper and family were first brought to a hotel where Cake began having more seizures than normal, possibly from the traumatic situation that had been through or the mental stimulation and many new faces.

Cooper and family eventually moved around four times before finding a stable place to stay, having spent time at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church, a school in Groves, an Airbnb home and finally the Beaumont home.

And all along the way strangers reached out with open arms offering shelter, food, a wheelchair, diapers and more.

Cooper is part of a Dravet Syndrome support group and the Morgan Amelia Foundation, which held a fundraiser that helped the family get another vehicle, furnishings for her home, beds for the children and aid with rent and for that she’s eternally grateful.

She has seen the good that others can do and even though each day is a struggle, she still has prayer and her faith in God.

Lori Jacobson, husband Aaron and son Travis, 3, have also seen the bad and the good and shed tears along the way.

Lori and her son joined her parents, Debbie and Stanley Champagne, at a lake house at Toledo Bend. Her husband Aaron had to work and by the time he got off work the roads were flooded forcing him to stay home.

The Jacobson’s lost about 95 percent of everything they own and she admits to breaking down and crying several times.

“My son’s baby book, his ultrasound picture was in it. His first words, all of his firsts, was in the bottom drawer,” Champagne said. “That’s when I broke down.”

Aaron Jacobson had begun the task of cleaning out their home, tossing their destroyed personal belongings to a pie in front of their home.

“When I went there for the first time it was very sad. I had my breakdown,” she said. “ou have to look at the good. We had to get everything out as soon as possible so the mold wouldn’t grow. To see all my stuff to the curb right in front of my house. To walk in front of it. To take pictures.”

They also lost sentimental items like Lori’s granny’s secretary desk and jewelry. Her son asked if he could get new Play Doh when he heard that everything was lost, she said.

“He thinks we’re on an adventure,” she said.

Christmas tree ornaments, some from her wedding and others collected through the years, was also lost to mold so they went out and got new ones allowing Travis to pick some superheroes like Spiderman and Captain America.

It’s a challenging time, she said. They have no house and must go back and forth to their flooded home in Beaumont, to Nederland where they stay off-and-on with her parents, and to Port Neches where they stay periodically with a close family friend.

To make it worse, the family had three dogs, a blue heeler, a Chihuahua and a greyhound that was rescued in 2012 named Sophie. The greyhound had to be left behind because she couldn’t fit into the car when the family evacuated. Once the water began rising, Aaron and the dog got to a neighbor’s home that as on piers but Sophie ended up getting an infection from the floodwater and passed away.

“So along with losing everything in our house, we lost one of our dogs and that was pretty hard because she loved our three-year-old,” she said. “We lost all of the material stuff but I’m thankful my family is safe. Thankful for friends and family that gives us what we need, a roof over our heads and we’re happy and healthy.”