A number of friends from across the U.S. and Italy have written asking us how they can help us during the ongoing extreme weather, electric grid failure, and now water shortage in Houston.

My recommendation is to give to the Houston Food Bank. I’ve done a lot of events with them over the years and they do an amazing job. Right now, people simply don’t have enough food to eat: between the electric and cold temperature crises this week, people haven’t been able to get out of their freezing homes to shop for food and now we are facing food shortages because of shipping challenges (it’s an accumulation of things, including icy weather, gas shortages, and electric outages).

Here’s a New York Times list of resources for helping to feed people across Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.

The Houston Food Bank will get food and water into people’s hands right away (they were open again as of yesterday, at least according to social media posts).

Tracie, the girls, and I have had power for the last two days and our water pressure is just starting to come back. And we’re praying for no busted pipes but so far so good. We could all use a hot shower but we managed to make through. Not everyone has been so fortunate.

Thanks for all the notes, wishes, thoughts, and prayers. Our children, ages seven and nine, have now lived through Hurricane Harvey, Tropical Storm Imelda, the global coronavirus pandemic, and now a human-made crisis.

Governor Abbott, you can blame this on windmills, you can blame it on Democrats, but there’s no doubt about this: it happened on your watch, man. People across Texas have died because of your administration’s ineptitude, negligence, and sheer callousness (spurred and cheered on by a Republican-dominated state government). Why is it that the buck never stops with you? I love living in Texas, I love being a Texan, I love raising our children in Texas. We deserve better from our elected officials.