Aggregates Manager Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/908212
8 AGGREGATES MANAGER / December 2017 AGGMAN OF THE YEAR When fl ooding began in his neigh- borhood, Van Til was at home with his family. "We were sitting in our house, and the water was moving up about one inch every 10 minutes," he says. "It never got to our house. We were very lucky." In the following days, Van Til volunteered with clean-up efforts. Area churches, relief organizations, and the city itself sponsored volunteer efforts to clean up the thousands and thousands of homes damaged by water. One home belonged to a young family who quickly understood that everything, including the furniture, had to go. That project was a pretty straightforward job of tearing the house down to the studs. The second home proved to be a more diffi cult project. "There was still 6 inches of water in the house," Van Til says. "It was a retired cou- ple, and they still had the power on. They didn't know where to begin, and this was four days later." Helping others return to everyday life was the focus of Van Til's family, which pitched in to help by transporting those who needed it, making meals for others, and working with the demolition crews. The biggest challenge, he says, was dealing with the "intricacies of life." For example, dozens of local high schools were damaged as well. For these schools, simple matters such as locating jerseys for the football team became another hurdle in a return to normalcy. Getting back to business With $150 billion to $180 billion in damage estimated by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Hurricane Harvey didn't just impact the city of Houston. It also af- fected many aggregates operations and, more importantly, their employees. "Our Beaumont operation was hit pretty hard," Leftwich says. "We had roughly 15 of our employees' homes ruined." Van Til adds that a number of River Aggregates em- ployees' homes had water damage, but only one was displaced from his home. While many of the operations them- selves were fl ooded, planning efforts minimized damage as much as possi- ble. "We're pretty good at anticipating fl oods," Lindsey says. "We've learned James Tre' Oquin (back row, green shirt) worked with Texas State Troopers from West Texas during his four-day volunteer effort. Rob Van Til and his son, Jack, helped gut water damaged homes in the aftermath of the hurricane. Josh Leftwich; his brother-in-law, James Garner (shown at left); and friends used their fishing boats to help transport Houston residents out of water-filled neighborhoods.