By Nate Russell, volunteer contributor, American Red Cross

“I was at work when this happened,” said Dustin Gentry, motioning towards the wreckage behind him. The mobile home belongs to his cousin and her husband, both of whom were severely injured and subsequently hospitalized.

“She was found way over there… and he was found over here. But I was worried for them,” he explained, putting a hand to the shoulder of a younger family member. Thankfully, the homeowner’s two children were not present when their home was blown inside-out. One of the children spots her bed in the tree adjacent to the property. She begins to cry when she realizes she can’t find her backpack amidst the rubble and seeks comfort in her step-mother’s embrace.

“It just doesn’t make any sense…,” Dustin continued, his voice shaken, “That house there, across the street—perfectly fine. Why ours? It makes no sense.”

Red Cross volunteers arrived mere hours after the damage had taken place and immediately took to distributing tarps, gloves, water, coffee, and snacks to the small Granbury mobile home community as they picked up the pieces and went to work putting their lives back together.

“Thank you for what you’re doing out here,” said another survivor as she threw her arms around a Red Cross volunteer. “It means the world to the people you’re doing it for.”