Alto
1:30 p.m.
A line of about 20 cars had formed on Highway 69 in Alto, Texas. I stopped to check it out. Volunteers were handing out Chef Minute Meals, water and ice. They had just received them from the Texas Department of Emergency Management and expected that everything except the ice would be handed out today. The 10 or 12 volunteers were all from the city of Alto and were loading up cars pretty quickly. There are about 1600 people in Alto without power and water, and maybe twice that many in the surrounding counties.
I talked to the Alto chief of police, Charles Barron, and he said that he’d requested help from the county coordinator, who then got in contact with the state Department of Emergency Management. I asked Charles if I could take his picture and he said, “Sure, if you want a picture of a very tired man.”
Charles and I walked over to Alto resident Tressie Brooks’ car and he asked, “How are things down in the flats?” And she said, “We ain’t got no power.” Then I asked her how important it was that she had the ice and food, and she said, “Thank God for this.”
