GMM 1173: Heroes of Hurricane Harvey

Never underestimate the altruistic power of a monster truck. – Let’s talk about that. (playful theme music) – Good mythical morning. – On August 25th, Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast, and besides all the wind damage that it did, stuck around for a number of days, dropping 51 inches of rain, which flooded thousands of homes, displaced 30,000 people, and resulted in the deaths of many people, the count is still unconfirmed but it’s one of the biggest natural disasters in American history, and the effects are still ongoing. – Right, and when a disaster of this magnitude occurs, in the midst of tragedy, there are often stories that emerge that remind us of how awesome humans can be. This disaster has prompted many rescue missions, I’m talking 13,000 people rescued, all involving other people risking their own lives to help, and some of these stories have a humorous twist. – Right, so today we are going to celebrate some people who have truly demonstrated mythicality in some unconventional ways, because sometimes you gotta laugh just to keep from crying. – Yeah, so let’s get into it. I love this story, so I want to start with this one. We have Karen and J.C. Spencer, a senior citizen couple in the Houston area, who were trapped in their home as a result of flooding. I mean just imagine how scary that can be. They called 911, they couldn’t get through, so they tried calling everyone else they could, couldn’t get in touch with anybody, so they called Chick-Fil-A. Should have called them first, right, what were they thinking 911? No, here’s the deal. Every morning Karen and J.C., creatures of habit, would call in their breakfast order to their local Chick-Fil-A, which was grilled burritos with extra eggs. – They called ahead to a fast food place for an order? – Every morning. – That’s like taking a week off your vacation. – Alright, but here’s the thing. The manager Jeffrey Urban happened to be there, just checking on things, and he noticed, – Gotta check the chicken. – Well just the whole place, you know, he’s managing. Good for him, but he saw on the caller ID their number, recognized it, ’cause they call every morning, he answered the phone, got their address, then he called the store owner, Cindy Smith, whose husband owned a jet-ski. He then went and picked them up on the jet-ski, look, here’s a photo, giving the thumbs up, I love the high angle, he backed the jet-ski right into the front of the house. – [Rhett] She left the husband at home. – Well there must be a fourth person taking the picture, ’cause I see in the lower left there’s another guy getting in there. So he picked ’em up and brought ’em to safety, two days later, J.C. actually called Chick-Fil-A, this time just to order his usual burrito with extra eggs, but he got the jet-ski again. – Okay, well Harvey also generated some unlikely heroes, I’m talking about rednecks in monster trucks. – Now we get to it. – And that is not a new shot on A&E, that is something that happened in the aftermath. Okay, so there’s a National Guard vehicle that is sucking some water, and the best way to explain what happened is just to show you what happened, let’s roll that video. – That’s a big truck. – [Male On Video] Come on baby. – Come on baby. Yeah! – Here we go! That is a– – That is the National Guard being helped by a dude in a monster truck. – Only in Texas. – Little hiccup, and then we got a second monster truck. We got two monster trucks. – I mean that’s like a bona fide military vehicle. (cheering on video) And listen to the cheer, yeah, whoo! – First of all, promise me, if I ever get a monster truck, you will also get a monster truck. You can’t just be one guy with a monster truck in Texas, you gotta be two guys with two monster trucks. – That’s right, we can go saving people all over the place. Or just towing National Guard vehicles just for the heck of it. – Now these guys are members of the Texas group Rednecks with Paychecks, that is the actual name of the group, an organization that helps their local community. They always win the annual softball game against Hillbillies with Cash Advances. – That’s great, though, I mean I could get me a monster truck at this point. – Get you one. – Or a mattress. That was a segue. Because a lot of people were flooded out of their homes, Gallery Furniture owner Jim McIngvale, aka Mattress Mack, had an idea, he went around in his furniture truck and picked up people and brought them back to his store. Now delivery was free, but expert installation was extra. So he brought all these people back, and you know how when you go to a furniture store normally, like not in a catastrophic situation, you just see mattresses and couches everywhere, and you want to just like sit down on ’em and wallow around, or maybe even take a nap. My wife has gotten so committed to shopping for stuff in a place with mattresses, that I’ve wanted to fall asleep on one. But you feel guilty, and you can’t do it. But the great thing that Mattress Mack did is he brought 400 people through his doors to rest, unwind, sit, and sleep on the furniture, and have some food. So he said, hey guys, just chill out here. You can even have food on my mattresses. This guy is a national hero. This is like a dream come true for me. – You seem really into this. Have you been to like a hotel, that’s where you go and there’s like a bed, and you pay, and you can sleep on the bed. There are other ways, there are ways that you can go to other rooms and use furniture. – But there’s no forbidden fruit involved. – Well, you go to to Motel 6 there is. If you look under the mattress. – He went on CNN, he even gave out his personal cell phone number, so I’ve been calling him just to chat recently. – Floodwaters in your house, not a good thing, but sometimes they bring unexpected blessings. This is a video that Vivian Saldana posted to her Facebook on August 27th. – Oh my gosh. – That’s the living room. – The guy’s diving in there. – Oh yeah, for something very specific. – What, he’s belly flopping on a– – He’s not demonstrating belly flops, you’ll see in a second. – Oh what is that? – There is a fish. – A bass? – I think it’s a catfish. – Look at that. The guy belly flopping on a catfish. – Now, first of all, – in his living room. – Yeah, but the power was on to the house, and he’s like jumping around in a flooded living room, like I think that’s not, I don’t think that’s safe. If your living room has a couple feet of water in it, I mean great Facebook video, but that’s dangerous. Not for like the fish, but from the– – Well he wasn’t blow drying his hair Rhett. – No, but like the walls have electricity, you know how it works? There’s electricity in the walls. – What? In those like pluggy things? – She said when she posted this video, why go out looking for food, when the food is coming to our living room. Y’all help me get this to the news, LMAO. – Y’all help me get this to the news, we’re gonna make this go viral, on the news. – This isn’t the news, but it’s a good second option. – Man, that rivals, but doesn’t beat my favorite person so far in the midst of all of this, the plunger man. Now this is a video posted Sunday to Facebook by Houston resident Crystal Monjaras of one of her neighbors. So let’s just watch it. Here he is coming out, with a plunger. Going into the street, on a mission. Look at that plunger posture. Going in for a second. – Did he do it? – A third time. – Did he fix it? – Here we go. – Give it about five minutes. – Give it about five minutes, and the whole flood’s just gonna go right down in there. – Now we didn’t see the rest of the video, though. Did it go away? – Wouldn’t you like to know? – I would. – The video just kind of ends. I don’t think that it did, but hey, you never know with the Crystal Cam. – Now when you hear stories like this, and so many of you from around America and around the world are seeing all this stuff that’s going on in Houston, and you’re thinking to yourself, how can I help? Now many of you, because this happened on August 25th have probably already helped. But the thing is is that the effects of this hurricane, they’re ongoing, and they will continue for months. These people are gonna be cleaning up for months, and they’re gonna have a lot of needs, and a lot of stuff that I’ve read said that a lot of times when there is a tragedy like this, there’s this huge influx of donations like right after the tragedy, and then the money goes away, and people still need help. So if you’ve already given, we want to give you another opportunity to give, and if you haven’t, we want to give you a first opportunity to give. – Well, a number of opportunities. – Yeah, so there’s a few things that we’re gonna do, the first thing we’re gonna do is we’re gonna, there’s a number of ways that you can give, and one of the things that’s happening is a lot of animals are affected by the tragedy, and they’re not thought of a lot of times. And so, we’re gonna take the Rhett & Link & Barbara & Jade t-shirt that we have at mythical.store. – If you don’t know, those are our dogs’ names. – Yeah, that’s not just two random people. – Or our wives’ names. – Barbara’s my dog, Jade is Link’s dog. And so all the profits from the sales of this t-shirt, until they are gone, is gonna go to the Houston Humane Society. So until this t-shirt is gone. – We also have started a GoFundMe page, your donotoin, your donation, – Your donotion. – Your donotion, your donation there will go to the Houston Food Bank, and we are gonna match donations up to $10,000. So go to Mythical.co/Harvey, that’s Mythical.co, which is our website, slash Harvey. We’ll match donations up to $10,000. Also our charity for the wheel this month is Save The Children, that’s a great place for you to donate because their emergency responders are down in Houston, quote, working around the clock to provide family-friendly supplies and services to Hurricane Harvey survivors. And we are also donating the ad revenue generated from this video to Save the Children. – Thank you for liking, commenting, and donating. – You know what time it is. – Hi, I’m Kenneth. – And I’m Van. – And I’m Kerry, and that’s Tropical Storm Harvey back there, ’cause we’re in Houston, Texas. – [Kids] And it’s time to spin the Wheel of Mythicality. – Remember head over to Mythical.co/Harvey to join us in donating to Houston Food Bank. – And click through To Good Mythical More, we are gonna highlight some more helpful Hurricane Harvey stories. Well, the people were helpful. – Look at that. It stopped on Gifticality, what are the chances? – What do you know, hmm? – That means we’re donating $1,000 to Save the Children, and you can join us in donating at SaveTheChildren.net. – Again, thank you for being your mythical best. Thanks for clicking subscribe. – [Rhett] Click on the left to watch our show after the show, Good Mythical More. – [Link] Click the video on the right to watch another episode of Good Mythical Morning. – [Rhett] And be sure to check out our other channel, This Is Mythical, by clicking the video on the bottom. – [Link] Thanks for being your mythical best.

Discover more from Searchicality

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading