Some of Ya'll know I'm from Moulton. Well bout 10 miles west of there. I'm from a little community called Mount Hope. I have seen some things that would amaze anyone. The damage that these storms did was devastating. The people around here are very close. The folks around here haven't been screaming I need a hand-out, they have been rolling up their sleeves and doing what needs to be done. I'll share one story with Ya'll.
I had been clearing debris during the day and working my normal second shift job as a maintenance electrician at night. One night I was going home and stopped for some fuel about one o'clock in the morning. I saw a truck pulling a trailer with tools on it for clearing damage from this storm. The tag on the truck was from Maryland. I spoke with them and they said they were going back home after spending a week down here working. They were fixing to fill up and I pulled out my debit card and said "here let me get it, and thanks for helping out". The guy paused and said you don't understand. 2 weeks ago I would have accepted your offer and not thought anything about it. We have been here for a couple of weeks and I have saw acts of kindness I never thought were possible. We have been taken into homes and fed by complete strangers. We have had people stop and give us drinks, we have been hugged by ladies that have lost everything. We have been offered places to stay every night. We have seen a class of people that we didn't even know existed. We are getting paid to come down here and work by Fema. I just can't allow you to pay for our gas, not after seeing how the people around here really are.
Our little community is no different from most rural areas around the country. We have had folks from other places come in to help as well. There are a lot of good people in the world. We have had a couple of looters as well. A guy was shot a week or so ago steeling from a family that was living under a tarp. This is what you read about in the local news. You see a lot of coverage about the bad things. You hear very little about the way things really are.
BAMA