N. TX Hurricane Shelters Close, Volunteers Honored

DALLAS - The last North Texas shelter housing Hurricane Harvey evacuees closed Sunday and volunteers who helped staff the shelters over the last five weeks were recognized with an appreciation picnic.

About 200 volunteers were honored at White Rock Lake, and it's those tireless volunteers who helped put the event together to recognize each other.

The volunteers are part of community emergency response teams, meaning they've had 24 hours of training through the city of Dallas or another city.

Together they logged more than 1,300 hours at shelters in Dallas for Harvey relief efforts alone.

They set up cots, checked people in and out of shelters, worked the in kitchens and even helped one woman as she went into labor.

Dallas CERT President David Cegeleski says he wanted to hold the picnic with the voluteers' families because they've spent so much of their own family time this past month helping evacuees.

"CERT, oftentimes, when we do what we do, we don't do it to be recognized. Quite honestly, we are all going to be a little embarrassed because that's not why we do this. We do it to help people. We do it because we love our communities. Whether or not that's here or the communities that are down on the coast that are suffering, we wanted to make sure if they came up here they were ok," said Cegeleski.

The volunteers came from all across North Texas, including McKinney, Ennis, Bedord, Midlothian and Rowlett.