SALT LAKE CITY — When Michael Magnusson and his family finalized plans for a cruise in the Caribbean Sea, they didn't picture themselves holed up in a hotel room, eating ramen noodles and conferring with staff about whether to make expeditions outside for food.

Unfortunately, Magnusson said tongue-in-cheek, "we had this little thing called Hurricane Harvey that seems to have caused a bit of a problem."

The historic hurricane has had a way of changing plans for just about everyone in southeastern Texas, and the Magnussons — sitting in Galveston waiting for a cruise ship that never came — were no exception.

"We're just doing the best we can with our family and trying to make lemonade out of the hurricane," the Alpine resident said. "We got plenty of water. We just need a few more lemons."

From vacations spoiled to a business trip that can't end to a religious mission delayed to a rescue mission just getting underway, the monstrous storm that has swamped the Gulf Coast has also impacted the lives of many Utahns.

Beehive State responds

Utah National Guard Lt. Col. Steven Fairbourn said the Guard has deployed two Blackhawk helicopters to Texas and they are on standby to help with search and rescue efforts.

"We can move personnel, we can move equipment, we can do (medical evacuations). ... Obviously, boats and others are going to be used, but the aircraft are not limited on where they can go and what they can do. Whereas, the boats may have some limitations," Fairbourn said.

The helicopters can "drop a basket down via a cable" to hoist a person and is also valuable as a scrutinizing eye from the sky, he said. Many people who have a dead or nonworking cellphone would have an extremely difficult time being found by emergency workers without aerial assistance, he said.

"This is a dramatic event. People are losing their lives," he said. "Around the country, not only the military, but everyone is looking for ways to help. ... It's within our mission set to assist Americans in their time of need."

About 30 Utah volunteers from the American Red Cross had either arrived in Texas by Monday evening or were about to, said organization spokesman Rich Woodruff. He said four of the Red Cross's emergency response vehicles were also deployed.

Volunteers will mostly be focusing on bringing food to people in shelters as well as hard to reach areas, Woodruff said. A few will also act as organizational liaisons between multiple emergency assistance groups or assist people trying to track down family members, he said.

"A lot of times cell service is down and it's kind of chaotic," Woodruff said.

Overall, about 2,000 Red Cross volunteers from across the United States have been asked to deploy to Texas, according to Woodruff.

"It's one of the biggest events that we've seen in a long, long time," he said. "This is on the level of a Sandy or Katrina. It's going to be a long haul. This is a big one."

Utah Task Force 1, an urban search and rescue unit overseen by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, also deployed seven Utah Transit Authority vans to Texas on Monday.

The owners of DieselSellerz are taking a convoy of trucks and supplies to help out the people in Texas. Anyone interested in donating items can please drop them at 1955 S. 1800 West in Woods Cross on Tuesday. Items needed include baby formula, non-perishable food and basic toiletries.

Providing portable power

Bluffdale-based solar equipment company Goal Zero loaded trucks Monday that will be taking about $1 million in donated solar kits and solar power generators to help with the recovery effort.

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More rain, more dead: Harvey floods keeps Houston paralyzed

Floodwaters reached the rooflines of single-story homes Monday and people could be heard pleading for help from inside as Harvey poured rain on the Houston area for a fourth consecutive day after a chaotic weekend of rising water and rescues.

Underscoring the need for alternative power sources, Center Point Energy was reporting Monday afternoon that almost 110,000 customers were without power in the greater Houston area and were warning residents that utility crews were “unable to reach many parts of the city due to flooding.”

Bill Harmon, Goal Zero general manager, said the company's usual operations were essentially shut down on Monday as “all hands were on deck” to help get the much-needed supplies ready for the trek to Texas.

“We’ve been working through the weekend to get the equipment pre-charged and staged for shipping,” Harmon said.

Harmon said the company was sending solar-powered kits consisting of a portable solar panel/portable charger/light that can be used to recharge devices like cellphones as well as a variety of their solar power generators and panels that can provided enough electricity to run appliances and other bigger, power consumers.

Harmon said the effort was being undertaken in coordination with Houston-based NRG Energy, Goal Zero’s parent company, as well as the veteran-operated Team Rubicon disaster response team and Texas grocery giant, H-E-B.

Cruise of a lifetime

The Magnusson family looked forward to the Caribbean cruise to celebrate his parents' 50th wedding anniversary. And until Sunday evening, they were holding out hope they would still be able to set sail, along with two of Magnusson's sisters and their families, the group numbering 18 in all.

"Up until about noon yesterday ... they were still saying the cruise was on. They originally told us they would be there," Magnusson said.

The cruise ship that was supposed to dock was not able to get closer than 8 miles from its port at Galveston, then re-routed to Miami, according to Zachary and Michelle Nelson, newlyweds attending Utah State who are on that ship for their honeymoon.

By Monday morning, even the significantly less appealing prospect of heading home and hoping for a cruise refund became much less than a certainty, thanks to the indefinite closure of Houston's two major airports.

"Theoretically we have a flight back home tomorrow morning. But even if they open the airport, we're not sure if we can get to it," said Annie Magnusson, Michael's wife.

The couple has four kids, ages 7 to 17, who have been patient but are both disappointed and ready to go home. The extended family members are spread out among three hotels, and high water levels in the area mean they can't reach other, the couple said.

"My brother-in-law tried to head over to our hotel and it's only about a 10-minute drive, but he couldn't make it ... (because it's) too flooded," Michael Magnusson said.

The anxious wait is also complicated by diminishing food supplies in the hotel, which has the family on edge.

"That's our biggest concern," Michael Magnusson said, noting that the hotel staff has an employee who has a big truck and "they're going to try to go out and see if they can get some food."

There was enough in the hotel for a warm breakfast Monday, and they still have power and running water in the building, the couple said. Michael Magnusson was able to get to a nearby convenience store for "a couple boxes of ramen noodles," he said, to hold the family over in case.

The magnitude of the disaster in Houston isn't lost on them.

"There's a lot of people who have a lot worse situation than what we have, so we're very fortunate for that," Michael Magnusson said.

LDS mission delayed?

For Eagle Mountain resident Michael Pierce and his loved ones, the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey has also turned into a tense waiting game — one that may likely delay his granddaughter's mission service for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"She's supposed to be leaving Wednesday," Pierce said late Sunday. "So we're keeping our fingers crossed that the airport (in Houston) will be able to get her to Salt Lake."

However, both airports remained closed until further notice, leaving the family and tens of thousands others with limited transportation options.

Pierce, who arrived in Katy, Texas on Aug. 17, hopes that his granddaughter, Laurel Pierce, who lives in that Houston suburb, will be able to leave as soon as possible for the Missionary Training Center in Provo. Pierce knows the family remains at the mercy of the elements and needs to be patient during the laborious flooding recovery.

"It's just a deluge. It's rained so hard," he said.

Because of the condition of roads in the region, he said, evacuating inland by car is also not an option.

"We're cut off from going out," he said.

Extended work trip

Mike Judson isn’t a storm chaser, but he wound up in Houston on a business trip a day before Harvey struck. Now Judson and a colleague, Logan Steele, are still there, trapped by flooded highways and closed airports, even though from the windows of their hotel rooms, everything looks normal.

“The ironic thing is, from where I am, I can’t see standing water anywhere,” said Judson, marketing manager for FamilySearch International, the genealogy organization run by the LDS Church.

Judson, Steele and six colleagues were in Houston to interview families of missionaries for a video they are filming. The others were at a different hotel and were able to leave before the worst of the flooding, but Judson and Steele were staying near the airport, which shut down Sunday morning.

The two ventured out in search of a church on Sunday, but couldn’t go a mile without encountering flooding, so they’ve been essentially confined to the hotel, said Steele, who lives near Bountiful.

The hotel internet is running and Judson said he has been able to work remotely. With Houston’s two airports closed until further notice, they don't know how long they'll be stuck there.

“We’re comfortable, we’re safe; we just hope it doesn’t go on too long,” Judson said.

Contributing: Mary Richards, Art Raymond, Jennifer Graham

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