The first thing you see when drive into Port Arthur, Texas is piles of trash and debris waist-high outside of nearly every building in sight.

This week, I, a small-town girl from Michigan, traveled to Port Arthur to help out the Port Arthur News, a Boone Newspapers affiliate, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

As someone who has been fortunate enough to have never seen a natural disaster, many things about the scene I met in Texas surprised and shocked me, from the debris to the many houses that may be beyond repair. However, what surprised me most was how the people of Port Arthur have stepped up in the aftermath of this disaster.

The Port Arthur News is publishing an ongoing series called “Harvey’s Heroes.” Each day, the paper shines a light on someone who helped out others during the hurricane or in the aftermath.

For this series, I talked with a man who had spent hundreds of hours clearing out the house of a woman he had just met. He worked hard pulling out wet, molding carpet from her floors and carefully packing up the collectables for the woman, so that she could keep the things that we important to her after the flood.

When asked why he would give so much of himself to a stranger, he simply said that it was the right thing to do.

I also met a young man living in a tent shelter in the city after losing his home. This man, who had little more than the clothes on his back, spends his days helping a wheelchair-bound resident of the tent shelter get around. He makes sure this resident gets on the bus and pushes the resident’s wheelchair all around the encampment so that he does not have to sit inside all day.

Another man visiting the same tent shelter drove for hours to bring some of his family staying there a couple of their favorite treats.

Both of these men said that helping people is the only way to get through a tragedy like Hurricane Harvey. They did not believe they deserved praise just for doing what they saw as they right thing.

These three men are far from the only people who have stepped up in the aftermath of the hurricane. They are not the only ones I have seen in my three days in Texas, and the list of people to feature in Harvey’s Heroes is pages long.

Even the staff of the Port Arthur News could be considered heroes of the hurricane. Many of the reporters lost their homes or belongings in the flood, yet are still working overtime to tell the stories of others who have given themselves in this time of crisis.

The rest of the country should follow the example of the citizens of Port Arthur.

While the rest of the country may not be dealing with the level of tragedy that Texas is, we can still step up and help one another. We can still knock on our neighbors’ door and ask them if they need help with anything. We can still bring food to our hungry. We can give of ourselves.

We can still be kind to each other, because it is the right thing to do.

If my time in Port Arthur has taught me anything, it is that people need each other. That does not change because of geography or weather.

We all, like the citizens of Port Arthur, need to step up, every day.

Sarah Culton is a reporter for Leader Publications. She can be reached by phone at (269) 687-7712, or by email at sarah.culton@leaderpub.com.