Mother Nature wreaked havoc in May for several UTMB Correctional Managed Care employees who live in the Huntsville and 
north Texas areas, but all say they are relieved no one was hurt and are grateful to co-workers, friends and family for extending a helping hand in their time of need.
Patricia Outlaw, a CMC facility nurse manager at the Bridgeport Correctional Center about 50 miles northwest of Fort Worth, was home with her husband and 5-year-old granddaughter on May 19 when the storm hit; her lights went out and her bay windows began rattling.
She and her granddaughter ran into a closet and as she tried to pull the door closed, she could see water swirling around her living room and her French doors flying through the air. “It was wicked; the door was being sucked out of my hand and then all of a sudden, the house lifts up in the air, and then lands back down,‘’ she said. “It was quite frightening, but thank God we’re OK.’’
Amazingly, all were safe, but the tornado devastated her home of 33 years. Outlaw, a 10-year UTMB employee, said her co-workers and friends have been helping out by gathering supplies and helping comb through the scattered belongings on their property. “It’ll take time, but we’ll be back,’’ she said.
Severe weather also did major damage on the property of Vicky Easter, a CMC nurse manager at the John R. Lindsey State Jail 
in Jacksboro, about 30 miles west of Bridgeport. She has worked for UTMB for four years.
“A tornado hit where we raise livestock and keep animals for show,’’ she said. “It lifted up one of our barns and tore the roof off.’’ Thankfully, they found all 75 nanny goats and about 40 of their kids alive and well, once they rounded them all up.
The most heartbreaking damage was the devastation of the family’s “reunion tree,’’ an oak tree that had been on the property since 1959. “It was a 3- to 4-foot diameter tree, and the storm just sheered it off,’’ Easter said. “It had a lot of sentimental value to our family.’’
Shelia Curry-Ware is a CMC regional nursing administrative secretary who covers 24 prison units and has been with UTMB for almost 13 years. She could do nothing but watch the water rush in through the door of her Riverside house, which sits about a mile south of the Trinity River.
“It’s the weirdest feeling in the world. There was nothing we could do to stop it,’’ she said of the rising water. The best she and her family could do was scoop up all of the belongings they could, including her two cats, load everything into a flat-bed fishing boat and get out – while stopping to pick up her 90-year-old neighbors along the way. That was May 11, with the second flood hitting on May 25th.
The water only recently began receding in the past few days. “We were in a motel for about a week,’’ she said. “It’s been a nightmare that we can’t wake from.’’
Co-workers from UTMB and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice 
have been very supportive and helpful. “The support has been amazing,’’ she said. “Everybody’s said they will be there for us to help clean up, but there’s nothing we can do until the river quits rising.’’