The question had to go through a lot of minds in Blanco County last Thursday night: "How much higher is this water going to get?"

When water gets loose in a house, it goes everywhere and destroys wherever it goes, and what it doesn't destroy it ruins or damages. Even a small flood cleanup is awful...it's sweaty, nasty labor...disheartening and discouraging as you keep finding more and more hidden damage.

One way to make that easier is the gift of cleaning supplies.

Blanco County's volunteers do that. They fill buckets with cleaning supplies specifically for flood damage, then store them in a warehouse until the next need. Then the buckets come off the shelf and into the truck for quick delivery even as the water level still is going down.

They were there when Hurricane Isaac went through Louisiana, then dumped heavy rains as it went north. That quick response cleared the stock of flood buckets off the warehouse shelves, though, and now the supply needs to be replenished.

That will happen at 9 Saturday morning at the First United Methodist Church in Johnson City, when the volunteers work assembly-line style to fill buckets to go into the warehouse. Before then, they need to raise money to buy the supplies and shopping to be done to round up what's needed.

It's Blanco County's gift to people all over the country, wherever and whenever the waters rise. In the midst of misery, a helping hand from people the survivors don't know and probably never will meet.

And it's times like we had last week that remind us the next flood bucket delivery could be right here at home.

To help with funding, shopping or bucket-filling, call Angie at 830-868-7414.