Texas faced record-low temperatures this February with snow and icy roads, and the failure of the power supply causing millions to go without electricity, but there were many acts of kindness that warmed hearts there.
Like this New Jersey plumber and his family who drove more than 20 hours to Texas to help storm victims with clean water which would have seemed impossible for them.
Andrew Mitchell became a licensed plumber earlier this year, felt it was his ‘calling’ to go and help the people in Texas according to his wife, Kisha Pinnock. They packed up the family car in Morristown with thousands of dollars worth of supplies and prepared for the 22-hour journey with one goal in mind: “to make a difference.”
By Sunday evening, Mitchell, Pinnock, their 2-year-old son, Blake, and Pinnock’s brother, Isaiah, who is his apprentice, made it to Houston. The brutal storm left millions without access to clean water, and there was a cry from Texas-based plumbers for help, Pinnock said.
Mitchell had seen numerous posts on Facebook from plumbers who had called on out-of-state peers to come and help offset the demand.
“They legitimately said ‘if you are an out-of-state plumber and you can come to Texas, we really need you. We are overwhelmed …we are getting like 150 to 200 calls a day … it’s just literally impossible,'” Pinnock recalled her husband telling her.
Since they arrived Sunday afternoon, Mitchell and Isaiah Pinnock hit the ground running, according to Kisha Pinnock. Every day they have been seeing customer after customer, visiting up to 10 houses per day. They would leave around 7:30 a.m. and work until about 2 a.m. the next day, she said. “It’s like back to back to back,” she said. “They aren’t stopping,”
Plumbers have been racing to fix water pipes, the demand has been “impossible” to keep up with. Kisha Pinnock said customers can barely get a plumber on the phone, and when they do, they’re told the wait time is three to four weeks. “It’s a little heartbreaking to know that when we get to the people’s houses they are so happy to even see a plumber,” she said.
Needless to say, the customers were beyond thankful, one even shared how relieved they felt knowing that they wouldn’t have to travel an hour to their friend’s home just to take a shower. “You don’t even really realize the little things that you have until you don’t have it,” she said. “You can’t cook, you can’t clean, you can’t wash your hands.”
Kisha Pinnock was proud of her husband who had worked his entire life to become a plumber, starting his career under his father to getting his own license and opening his own company, Mitchell’s Plumbing & Heating LLC. He knew it was his chance to do some good after the storm hit and was “what motivated him to come in the first place,” she said.
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