It began with a stranger asking “Do you need help?” “Yes,” Paul Welch told the man in a pickup truck, “I desperately need some help." A day later, dozens of people pulled up outside the modest cabin where Welch and his partner lived overlooking the Guadalupe River until Texas' July 4 floods.

In many places devasted by the July 4 flooding in Kerr County, volunteers are removing debris and helping with remediation often done by hired contractors