This tiny Texas town is under water from Hurricane Harvey — and Bluffton wants to help

It hasn’t even been a year since Hurricane Matthew struck the Lowcountry.

So naturally when Beaufort County residents saw what’s happening in Texas with Hurricane Harvey, they took it personally.

Posts began popping up all over social media with area residents all asking the same question: How can we help?

Local businesses sprang to action, serving as donation sites.

Some residents wanted to do the same: Heather Nicole Price runs the popular “Bluffton/Hilton Head ask and answer” page on Facebook. She’s working on officially “adopting” Shoreacres — a tiny coastal town located southeast of Houston.

The town already is devastated by flooding from Harvey, and the rain is not stopping anytime soon. As of 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Shoreacres’ rainfall totals for the week were at 41.16 inches.

At least another 2 to 5 inches are expected in the next 36 hours. And the tides are up.

Like Hilton Head Island, Shoreacres is no stranger to hurricanes.

In 2005, the town was hit by Hurricane Rita.

Then in September of 2008, Hurricane Ike blew through Texas, leaving Shoreacres in complete devastation.

The town estimated that 575 of its 650 homes — 88 percent — were left uninhabitable from Ike, a Category 2 hurricane, according to an update on the town’s website immediately following the storm.

“I believe it was Winston Churchill who said, ‘When you’re going through hell, keep going,’” the update says. “That’s exactly what we’re doing as a community. Shoreacres is showing what it’s made of, and it’s all good.”

Incorporated in 1962, though the tiny town of 1,500 came together following Ike, but flew under the radar of large organizations’ relief efforts.

Back in Bluffton, Price says she’d originally posted on her group page asking if anyone had ties to any local resources in Texas.

“A woman responded that she had a friend who was a mayor of a small town in Texas,” she said. “So I got in touch with the mayor.”

The Shoreacres mayor, Kimberly Sanford, sent Price a list of needs for the town residents, which includes things like heavy duty trash bags and gloves, face masks, cleaning supplies, water, bug spray, sunscreen and pet food.

Resident Nicole Hebert Brown posted several videos showing the water rising around her home.

She says her family has been lucky because their house sits higher than most in the neighborhood. She says they have about 6 inches of water in their garage, but the rest of the house is staying dry.

Her neighbors aren’t so lucky.

“It has been horrible and heartbreaking watching the waters rise and seeing our neighbors lose everything,” Brown said.

“(We’ve been) watching people drive into the flood waters to try to rescue their families,” she said.

In one of her videos, Brown even captured someone driving into the flooded street. The car began drifting, and she can be heard yelling at the neighbors that people are stuck in the vehicle.

Her husband can be seen wading through the water, making his way to the car. Someone else yelled “grab a hammer” so they could break the windows.

The occupants eventually escaped.

Brown says there have been at least three of these instances in front of her home in the past few days.

“Just a lot of praying that the rain stops,” she said.

Price said Tuesday morning that Mayor Sanford said she was grateful Bluffton was reaching out to her town.

“She said when this is over, she was thinking of adopting (Bluffton) as a sister city,” Price said.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

This story was originally published August 29, 2017 at 1:37 PM with the headline "This tiny Texas town is under water from Hurricane Harvey — and Bluffton wants to help."