During Tropical Storm Harvey and in its wet aftermath, neighbors helped neighbors across the region.

However, through it all, Southeast Texas was not alone as volunteers poured into the area from across the state and beyond.

Some volunteers are still arriving.

Two of those volunteers, Rey and Laura Sanchez, got into the area at 2 a.m. Saturday. They drove from McAllen, Texas to help the Jefferson County Habitat for Humanity chapter gut houses Saturday in El Vista. The Sanchezes are members of the Rio Grande Habitat chapter, and Rey said they drove all night long after a full day of work—as opposed to leaving Saturday morning—because they are needed here.

“Every minute counts here,” he said. “Families are desperate to come back home.”

Rey would know. Rey is the Design Building Technology Program Chair at South Texas College, meaning he understands home construction, and some of the houses in El Vista will need a healthy dose of repair.

The houses the Sanchezes are working on are Habitat homes. Miriam Morgan, the executive director of the Jefferson County Habitat chapter, said the homes were populated by some older folks and some folks with disabilities and the flooding was not their first brush with devastating disaster.

“These houses were built for victims of Hurricane Rita,” Morgan said.

Now, again, most of the residents are homeless—scattered across the state and region, living in Red Cross shelters or with friends and family.

The volunteers must work urgently to resettle the residents, but also to save the homes. Morgan said the houses at the end of Texas Avenue were under five feet of water for days on end. The high water mark is etched onto the walls and only now, weeks later, are volunteers getting to the houses. Morgan said the house at the end of Texas Avenue is the third gut job Habitat volunteers have undertaken. They’re facing eight more. It’s slow work, in part because while volunteers want to come to help, lodging is tough. The hotels are already filled.

The Sanchezes have family in the area.

“I was so glad to get the call from these guys,” Morgan said.

Rey said the delays are not ideal.

“We need to clear the sheetrock and the house needs to be vented out,” Rey explained. “If not, everything in there can get moldy. And then we’ll have a serious problem.”

The longer the delay, the deeper the mold gets. If it takes to the wall studs, fixing the house will become much harder.

But first, the house needed to be cleared out.

Saturday morning, a few knick-knacks were left drying on a tarp in the yard, while everything else in the house still lay scattered. The carpet was still soaked. The smell of mold hung dense in the air.

Nevertheless, Rey was optimistic the house could be saved.

Rey’s wife, Laura, also works at South Texas College. She is the Associate Dean of Institutional Research and Effectiveness. Because they both work for the college, the Sanchezes also loaded up donations from colleagues and students from the South Texas College and brought them to the dean of Lamar State College Port Arthur. Rey explained that he asked the dean what he could bring for faculty and staff who had been hurt by the flooding.

Rey explained the dean told him the flood affected more than just the faculty and staff.

So, Rey said, they brought something for everyone.