ST. LOUIS — Residents are still trying to clean up their homes after the historic rainfall and flooding in the St. Louis area.
Team Rubicon, a non-profit organization that responds to disasters, is working to help those affected by flooding in St. Louis.
They’ve been here since Aug. 1 and will be here until Aug. 16. They’ve done a number of efforts including muck-outs, volunteer management, chainsaw operations and debris removal.
"We don't come in with a script on the work we're going to do, we try to personalize it to everyone we work with," incident commander Sean Riggin said.
On Sunday the team went to a home with a flooded basement and a leaking ceiling. Riggin said this homeowner “got it from every direction.”
There’s still work to be done on a number of St. Louis area homes, but Team Rubicon is playing their part one mission at a time.
"We try to sort through item by item with the homeowner to save everything we can,” he said.
A volunteer said their main goal in their St. Louis flood relief efforts is to demolish what’s damaged so that further construction and reconstruction can happen at a lower cost.
But to flood victims, these volunteers are heroes in more ways than one.
“There’s no difficulty to it,” volunteer Phillip Reeves said. “It’s difficult to sit around.”
Team Rubicon is a veteran-inspired organization, but it takes volunteers with all kinds of service backgrounds.
Each person is committed to fighting for the same thing: “the calm after the storm,” as Riggin puts it.
This act of service is something the rain can’t wash away.
"The purpose of humanity is to help others,” Reeves said. "We have no other use except to support one another."
To learn more contact Team Rubicon for disaster responses near you, to volunteer, or to donate, you can visit their website.