The Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country hosted a grantee gathering Monday, Dec. 8, to update each other on how recovery efforts are going and what the future looks like.
CEO Austin Dickson welcomed everyone and introduced Angela Blanchard, who has decades of experience with disaster recovery all around the world. She told the packed room that the Hill Country’s path forward after the recent floods will require patience, clarity and conviction.
Her message: Recovery is a long, uneven, deeply human process, and the Hill Country’s resilience will depend on its ability to connect, collaborate and tell its own story.
Blanchard walked attendees through the seven stages survivors and volunteers experience — a cycle she has observed globally.
STAGE 1: SURVIVAL AND SANCTUARY
The immediate aftermath brings chaos, urgency and the “terror of abandonment, the relief of rescue,” Blanchard said.
There is an abundance of volunteers, cameras roll in, and the community scrambles to protect those in danger.
“The biggest challenge you faced, which is similar to one we faced in Harvey, was the number of volunteers and people showing out to help was entirely unmanageable, because everybody looking at the screen felt for you and said, ‘There must be something I can do,’ and they poured into the community,” Blanchard said.
It was the time for the community to do everything to get those who lost their homes into a warm place for a while, to help them get their necessities that were washed away. It was a time for community and togetherness.
“And I will say to you, if you forget to be together, this is going to be much more painful than it needs to be. Be together,” she said.
STAGE 2: CHAOS AND COLLISION OF EXPECTATIONS
In this stage, aid, resources and outside opinions pour in with equal intensity. Conflicts often arise between what people expect help to look like and what help can realistically provide.
“Reality is on the ground, not in the headline,” Blanchard said, urging locals to not let national headlines dictate how their lives go and to rewrite their own narrative.
The chaos is also the time to allow for something other than pain to start seeping back in.
“In the meantime, allow everything that is not destructive, and I do mean everything,” Blanchard said. “All have the power to remind us of who we are when words do not suffice.
STAGE 3: Sort of a limbo
This phase leaves both survivors and volunteers feeling disoriented — “like fish out of water,” she said.
People navigate unfamiliar systems, wait on bureaucracy and feel their sense of identity eroding. The work becomes internal: making sense of what happened and where they now fit.
“And there’s a minimal and spiritual exhaustion that sets in, and it’s not useless. If it goes on indefinitely, yes, we know people need help, but even therapists need to understand that hibernation is also a reconciliation with reality as it is now,” Blanchard said.
She gave an example of some people she met after Hurricane Katrina who felt like they slept for three months and only mowed their lawn because that was the only thing they felt like they could do.
But this stage is important, because it helps those heavily affected by the disaster properly face and process their feelings and new reality.
“You’re going to feel angry, you’re going to feel sad, you’re going to feel scared. Let it be. Let it be,” she said. “There’s nothing about recovery I’ve ever seen that requires you to not feel.”
STAGE 4: Resignation and acceptance
A fork in the road, there is a decision to be made on whether to stew in misery or to start to move on.
“It’s a kind of moment in which you have to make a decision. And it’s not a one you get to make once. You have to make it over and over,” Blanchard said.
This stage is where grief and gratitude coexist. Survivors often find that milestones bring unexpected sadness.
“Gratitude and grief, go together at every milestone, at every milestone,” she said. “And this is true for everyone. That’s just part of the cycle.”
Rituals, celebrations and acknowledgments, including saying goodbye, can help communities move through this stage.
STAGE 5: Reckoning
Here, communities begin taking a clear, unflinching inventory of their assets, strengths and relationships.
“All that thinking, this is all going to be solved by somebody bigger, better and smarter. You know it’s you. You realize it’s not going to be done quickly, that it’s a long road,” Blanchard said.
She called this the time to build coalitions of the willing and form “weight-bearing structures” that can support long-term recovery.
The grantees at the event are the perfect example of building a strong foundation to build off of in the future.
“We survive individually, but we thrive collectively,” she said.
STAGE 6: BUILDING ANEW
Blanchard encouraged the Hill Country to decide what must be restored and what could be created anew. All sectors — public, private and philanthropic — must be aligned.
“This building anew requires an imagination, but it’s crafted out of what’s here,” she said. “It’s not the idea that someone brings for this grand scheme, the people that have shown up in Houston saying, ‘Oh, Harvey’s a great chance to make Houston more walkable.’”
STAGE 7: FINDING HOME AGAIN
True recovery, Blanchard said, is when people can look around and see a version of their community they recognize — when loss has been transformed into meaning, and solidarity has reshaped belonging.
“And now you’re at this inception point where you have to decide where you recreate versus what you created new,” she said. “And trust yourselves. You have the wisdom, you have the knowledge of the place to do it. So, this is where we land, when we’re all home again, when we all recognize the place that we’re in, and the place we’re in recognizes us, we can earn, learn and belong in this place.”
Dickson thanked Blanchard for sharing her stories and giving clarity about what the future holds. He said the foundation is working to keep recovery efforts high and appreciating all of the grantees who put their time and effort back into the community.
After raising $100 million in the first 30 days, the foundation has continued to raise money, committed to giving back to the community.
Dickson said they have goals to assess and meet the mental health needs of not just the immediate community but of the people who were part of the community on July 4. That means working with organizations statewide to get free of low cost mental health resources to everyone who needs it.
Another two goals are to make sure every family has a safe place to sleep and that small businesses have a chance of standing back up.
Dickson said that recovery does not mean simply replacing what has been lost, but to come back stronger.
Read full article here: https://dailytimes.com/2025flood/community-foundation-learns-about-7-stages-of-recovery/article_60a2caf0-ad68-4dba-a904-a879f5f8a864.html
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