HOUSTON – A rescue Tuesday morning amid Houston floodwaters was, as KPRC reporter Haley Hernandez put it, “(something) you don't see every day”: a monster truck managed to pull a delivery vehicle from a flooded feeder road.
The monster truck towed the delivery truck to a gas station parking lot along Interstate 45 near West Road around 11 a.m. The vehicle had been stranded there for hours.
Richard Reynolds, of Katy, was behind the wheel of the monster truck when it all went down.
In the video, Reynolds may seem like he’s initially spinning the truck’s wheels, but it wasn’t because the truck couldn’t handle the weight of the tow, according to Reynolds.
“I had to heat the tires,” Reynolds explained. “(You have to do that) when the ground’s wet to get traction. That’s a lot of weight you’re carrying up the hill.”
Reynolds managed to gas it just enough to bring the truck into a furniture store parking lot where a wrecker could tow it to a garage.
It was just one of the three vehicles he towed to dry land in Tuesday’s floods, and seven people he helped for free on Houston’s highways.
Reynolds drives the truck, but his friend from Huntsville, Harold Hill, owns the monster truck wrapped in blue to honor the nation’s police force.
Reynolds picked the truck up last night in Huntsville because he saw the rain moving in.
“It’s just something to do,” Reynolds said. “I love helping others and helping the community out. I knew that truck could do it.”
Reynolds and Hill are part of a closed Facebook group called Texas Towing and Recovery with more than 1,100 members. They step in to assist people in need of help on the area’s roads.
Tuesday’s floods were nothing compared to other flooding situations Reynolds and Hill have faced.
Hill noted that during the Tax Day Flood, the monster truck almost toppled into a ditch in Tomball.
Hill, a wrecker driver since 1991, said he’s just driven to help people.
“I wouldn’t care if I had a little truck,” he said. “I don’t need to be recognized. I just need people to realize there’s nice people out there.”