About Us
We are volunteers from all walks of life with the common goal of helping Texans in need.
History
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey grew to a Category 5 storm in unprecedented time and made landfall in Houston. A central Texas business owner saw the photo below and new his team could help. Employees, friends, family and acquaintances numbered 50 and these men spent Sunday prepping 24 trucks, boats, and trailers.
On Monday morning we arrived in Houston and responded to distress calls in the Greenspoint, Katy, Richmond, and Kingwood areas. We tallied approximately 1,000 total boat hours and approximately 3,000 evacuations/rescues.
Our experience during Hurricane Harvey was very successful because we arrived as a unified team, rather than a single boat owner with a desire to help. While the everyday Boat-Based Volunteer (BBV) might be a very skilled operator and navigator, he/she knows nothing of how emergency management works, particularly during an actual emergency. The need to increase effectiveness and efficiency for the individual BBV who wants to help in an emergency gave rise to Flood Busters and this website.
Flood Busters enables BBVs to be more effectively utilized during an emergency by providing a supply list, rally points for group formation, and a designated area to receive directions from emergency management officials upon arrival. Flood Busters is a 100% nonprofit, volunteer organization for those who wish to help their fellow Texans in times of need.
2021 Mechanical Engineering Design Project
Students Involved
Michael Galvin
Mechanical Engineering
December 2021
Leamari Gamboa
Mechanical Engineering
August 2021
Bennett Landen
Mechanical Engineering
August 2021
Joshua Rillera
Mechanical Engineering
August 2021
Matthew Truong
Mechanical Engineering
August 2021
About the Project
The Mechanical Engineering Design team was formed in January 2021 as part of the Capstone Senior Design Program. Although each member had different motivations for choosing this project, everyone believed that completion of this project would be a large stepping stone towards saving countless lives and benefiting numerous communities. From January to May, the team worked to create a product that met the needs of Texas Flood Busters. By the end of this planning period, the team came up with several ideas: A Chain of Command and Organizational Structure for Flood Busters, a Functional Text Blast, a Completed Website, a Search and Rescue Games, and a Simulation Model.
From May until August, the team worked with Mr. Jones to make the ideas a reality. The team spent countless days developing a chain of command and organizational structure which included a Rally Point Operation Order. The team worked closely with Clint Jones to finalize a working text blast to call volunteers to action, and with Abigail Jones and Adam Boone to make the website come to life. The team created simulation models to give a visual understanding of what the Flood Busters organization can hope to expect during natural disaster scenarios. Lastly, the team organized and ran the first Search and Rescue games, which they hope to be the first of many throughout the years.
