A nurse named Emily Grigsby braved the bitter cold to care for her senior neighbors during the recent severe weather conditions in Texas.
“The 39-year-old nurse has been tending to the elderly residents in her Austin neighborhood over the last week when freezing temperatures caused by Winter Storm Uri hit Texas,” People reported Thursday.
As countless Texans endured power outages, they also grappled with a water shortage that left them with no drinking water or a way to wash themselves.
On Thursday, Grigsby traveled through 32-degree weather to get to an elderly neighbor who was burned when she melted snow to fill her toilet.
“We’re now melting snow on the stove to flush out toilets with, and she accidentally poured the pot of boiling water on her leg,” said Grigsby, who is a mom to two boys. “It’s getting kind of crazy around here.”
When the storm swept through the area last week, Grigsby said she and her family had no idea how bad things would get, but she continued reaching out to people when she could.
“Then I started checking on my elderly neighbors once that 24-hour mark passed, and that’s when I found how dire the situation really was,” she explained.
Grigsby said she soon realized they had to stay and help others nearby, adding, “There were opportunities for us to leave and it just wasn’t an option anymore. And that’s the sad part for me, a lot of my neighbors didn’t have the means of staying warm.”
Since that time, their family has done everything in their power to help, such as bringing meals to a neighbor in a wheelchair.
“I think the worst was telling my boys I needed to go check and make sure that our neighbors were okay and do pulse checks every morning. And make sure they were still alive. … A lot of elderly that have no means for warmth, no food, it’s just a really sad situation,” she said.
The storm claimed the lives of almost two dozen people, with over half of them reported in the Houston area, according to Breitbart News.
Grigsby said it was important for her family to recognize the needs of those around them, adding that the situation might have been worse if they had decided to leave.
“I think knowing your community, knowing the needs, being able to respond is really important when it comes to an event like this,” she concluded.
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