Not a bad article, Max...
Far from shunning the media, locals have offered umbrellas to reporters taking notes in the rain and telephones to those whose cellular phones can't get a connection in the piney woods. At the Dairy Queen in nearby Pineland, reporters and search and rescue workers can get anything they want for free.
Residents also are offering their homes.
Terry Vaughn, a real estate agent in Hemphill, opened her four-bedroom home to four Dallas technicians who operate global-positioning gear used to pinpoint debris.
"If it had been me, I hope someone would have done it for me," Vaughn said. Besides, with her five children grown and out of the house, Vaughn said, she had room.
Lisa Owens, the director of the Sabine County visitors' bureau, answers an endless stream of calls from residents offering up their rooms, mobile homes and summer cabins. She estimates that about 200 folks helping with the shuttle search are staying in donated homes or marinas and hotels offering reduced rates.
Owens said she's never seen the community come together like it has since Columbia fell.
"The largeness of this event has just erased all the small, petty, daily problems, you know, the silliness that people engage in," Owens said between calls. "It's taken people out of their little, tiny nucleus to see the bigger picture."
