With the images of Hurricane Katrina still burned in their minds, a group of St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies wasted no time when TV footage showed recent hurricanes ripping through Texas.

“We started making calls to see who needed help, and it was on from there,” Capt. Donald Sharp said.

With bags packed, Sharp and three other deputies headed to Orange County, Texas, last month to cook for local first responders and offer free appliances and food to those affected.

Capt. Donald Sharp of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff'€™s Office monitors a pot of steaming Jambalaya on a goodwill mission to Texas to aid the area ravaged by hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

“Almost every deputy there lost their home, had no food, nothing but the clothes on their backs,” said deputy Greg Martinez. “They were hugging us, crying on our shoulders. After Hurricane Katrina it was our time to give back.”

Orange County is roughly the same size and makeup as St. Tammany and was just 30 minutes or so away from where major news networks focused their stories, Sharp said. It’s also a mesh of populated areas like Covington and Slidell and rural areas like Folsom and Bush, he said.

“When Hurricane Katrina hit here, everything went to New Orleans,” Sharp said. “So we knew what these guys felt like. We wanted to give them help.”

For two days, Capt. Herbert Sterling, Sgt. Bobby Golding, Sharp and Martinez cooked 200 pounds of jambalaya, four cases of chicken, three boxes of sausages, 20 Cornish hens, 100 pounds of ribs, dozens of pounds of white beans and more to feed 450 people.

They also gave away three pairs of washing machines and dryers, as well as canned food and clothes for teenagers.

“It’s hard to find the right words to put this (experience) in perspective,” Sharp said. “They were all thanking us, and to be honest with you, we were thanking them.”

“It’s amazing to see how happy a 17-year-old is when you give them some new shoes,” he said.