By Ken Stickney

ken.stickney@panews.com

Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey ran Clarence Sinegal’s family out of their Port Arthur home. On Tuesday, they took one step closer to reuniting.

Sinegal was the beneficiary of a delivery of furniture from High Socks for Hope, David and Erin Robertson’s foundation that provides relief to victims of natural disaster.

Robertson, who pitched at The University of Alabama and continues to play Major League Baseball, and his wife established the foundation in 2011 to help tornado victims in his native Tuscaloosa, Alabama. With that seed planted, the foundation has grown and continued to benefit victims of hurricanes, tornados and floods as well as homeless veterans.

Judy Holland, High Socks’ managing director, was on the road this week, delivering furniture in Galveston. She sent deliveries to three Port Arthur homes around 13^th Street on Tuesday. The furniture was purchased through a High Socks grant and distributed through Episcopal Relief and Development.

Kecia Mallette of The Episcopal Diocese of Texas was there to help with the delivery Tuesday, which included furniture for the bedrooms, kitchen, living area and more. So was Donna Broussard, volunteer coordinator for Disaster Ministries of Texas Annual Conference, United Methodist Church.

Their efforts were part of EPIC — Ecumenical Partners In Communities — which involves many churches. Mennonite volunteers were on hand to assemble furniture.

Sinegal, 62, worked with contractors at refineries before he retired on disability; he has survived three heart attacks. He said as a boy, 8 years old, he threw newspapers at that 13^th Street address where he lives today. His father purchased the same home when he was 10, and he has lived there while growing up or visited his father there until his father’s death about a decade ago. Now Sinegal is the homeowner.

But after the August 2017 flooding, he wasn’t sure about the home’s future. Some four months ago, he said, Disaster Ministries began rebuilding the home, replacing sheetrock, flooring, cabinets, countertops and appliances. Now comes the furniture, Broussard said; the furniture comes last because you can’t put furniture into a home until mold and sawdust are removed.

She said funding has come from a variety of sources, including social service agencies, churches and local industries.

“A lot of the refineries have given us money,” she said, and they ask that the money be spent in neighborhoods like Sinegal’s.

Sinegal recounted the storm’s fury and the cold realization that the damage would be profound. He and his fiancé put the three children on furniture as the floodwaters rose in the home and neighborhood. In the morning, a boat rescued his fiancé and the children but, because there were not enough seats in the boat, he waded out of the neighborhood on his own. Three times he fell under water, he said, and he feared the worst.

He later returned to the home to keep watch over it and to repair what he could. Eventually, he said, church people arrived. He said the family may reunite by Christmas, once a plumbing issue is addressed. On Tuesday night, he hoped to encourage the children — they have been living with their grandmother since 2017 — by showing them the new furniture.

“Everything you see here is through the grace of God, through them,” he said, referring to the volunteers who are helping him recover his home.