Soul cyclist
Relief group established after volunteer rides into storm
The morning after Hurricane Harvey struck Houston, Bill Baldwin grabbed his bicycle and started pedaling from his home in the Heights toward the George R. Brown Convention Center.
The route into downtown was treacherous. When the 52-yearold owner of Boulevard Realty tried to cross Interstate 10 at Watson, 4 feet of water blocked his path — Baldwin hoisted his bike overhead and waded through.
Another 2 feet of floodwaters covered the streets between the Downtown Aquarium and Wortham Center. He plodded through that, too.
“It took me about 40 minutes to get to GRB,” he said. “The one thing is, I know a lot of people, and I knew everyone there. The Red Cross was very short-staffed, so I just took charge and someone appointed me the volunteer coordinator.” That was Sunday, Aug. 27. By Thursday, he and fellow GRB volunteers set up an independent operation at Sawyer Yards that would later become the Houston Relief Hub. Once Hurricane Irma struck Puerto Rico, Baldwin found himself on the phone with Mayor Sylvester Turner, who asked if he could lead Houston’s response efforts.
That conversation only lasted one minute. “I told the mayor, ‘Yes, sir!’”
Baldwin, a father of two, watched the tropical storm unfurl from the comfort of his dry, historic Woodlands Heights estate. Back in 2005, he bought late developer William A. Wilson’s 107-year old, 6,363-square-foot former residence. Three years later, he purchased Karen Derr’s Heights-based real estate firm, one decade after joining her team as a broker.
“In 2008, I made up the bulk of the firm’s income, and I didn’t want to work for anyone else, so I bought it,” he explained. “With my own firm I was able to take
BILL BALDWIN “We would fill a 50,000-square-foot warehouse every day, and it would be depleted every day.”
more of a proactive approach to the city and civic involvement.”
He and his partner, Fady Armanious, never lost power during Hurricane Harvey. The couple saw the bayous overflow into neighboring homes and businesses on television — and Baldwin decided to act.
“Not a thing happened to us,” he acknowledged. “We live in a very safe neighborhood in regard to Harvey, but it’s kind of like an island. You couldn’t get out or drive easily, and I really wanted to do something.” So, he left. That first day at GRB, Baldwin delegated hundreds of volunteers to set up sleeping cots for the thousands of wet and hungry evacuees. In a bright yellow hard hat, he was hard to miss.
His watch read 1 a.m. by the time he attempted to bike home. But the floodwaters had risen too high, and he was forced to turn back.
Friends offered him a room at the Hilton Americas-Houston. That’s where he crashed for a few hours before rinsing his clothes in the shower, blasting them with a hair dryer and reporting to GRB by 7 a.m. Monday for a second shift. The number of displaced Houstonians had jumped from 2,000 to 10,000.
“Fady was mad as hell because I wasn’t communicating,” Baldwin recalled with a laugh. “Someone drove me home (that day) in a van, but I popped back up on Tuesday and Wednesday. By then there were plenty of volunteers, and people above my pay grade decided they would no longer need donations.”
He partnered with fellow GRB volunteers to launch their own relief effort. Their primary goal was to become a real-time information source. They also didn’t want to turn away a single donation or volunteer.
Baldwin understands why some organizations, including the Red Cross, couldn’t allow underage children to help. But with school districts closed countywide, dozens of boys and girls wanted to pitch in.
Mothers, housekeepers, restaurant servers and lawn-maintenance workers came forward, too. Developer John Deal provided space at Sawyer Yards, a 36-acre “creative campus” in First Ward, and the Houston Relief Hub was born.
“We received donations from every state in the nation. People would drive and donate their relief items, or fly in for a week just to volunteer,” Baldwin said. “We would get 18-wheelers in from Kentucky and Wisconsin that were full of brooms or mops. We would fill a 50,000-squarefoot warehouse every day, and it would be depleted every day.”
After the mayor tapped Baldwin to helm Houston’s aid to Puerto Rico, Turner’s next call was to United Airlines — he secured a plane. The Houston Relief Hub transported 55 pallets of supplies, 20 pallets of medical equipment, 11 relief workers and two doctors to the Caribbean 18 hours later.
“The city of Houston had two warehouses: one was on Navigation, the other was Esplanade,” said Janice Weaver, director of community relations for the mayor’s office. “Navigation was where Carlos Correa was working on getting a plane to Puerto Rico. The mayor wanted to get involved and worked with Bill to get it done.”
On Dec. 14, after 112 days in operation, the hub closed its doors. More than 100 volunteers served 250 families, and Turner honored their dedication by proclaiming the date “Houston Relief Hub Day.”
“I really thought I was only going to work three hours,” Baldwin said, reflecting on that first morning, when he biked into downtown.