MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Texas is still recovering after a deadly winter storm left millions without clean running water, and now more help is coming from here in South Florida.
“I got the call that our transit workers union had organized a drive to get water to those areas of Texas that have been so hard hit with the freeze,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Tuesday at Miami International Airport.
The union said their goal is to bring relief to residents who have gone without clean water for over three weeks since the collapse of the state’s water infrastructure and electrical grid.
“This is only, like a week it took us to get all this together,” Transport Workers Union President Jeffery Mitchell said.
“They have gathered 29,000 pounds of water bottles to go to Texas, and I just had a chance to go out there on the tarmac and see it -- it’s so impressive,” Levine Cava said.
Right now, there are over half a million Texans still under a boil water order on their tap water.
To lend a hand, Transport Workers Union members from around South Florida and American Airlines are shipping more than 4,300 gallons of water to communities most in need in the Dallas and Houston areas.
“Here in South Florida, we are so used to dealing with disaster -- we have the hurricanes, obviously we know covid -- everybody has that -- so our hearts go out to others who are suffering,” the mayor said.