A little more than a week has passed since Tyclynn Brazil left behind her wind-ravaged home in the coastal city of Victoria, Texas, and headed to Austin, bouncing from shelter to shelter with five family members.



On Saturday she stood in the shadow of Darrell K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium alongside other evacuees and several Red Cross volunteers. A Longhorn fan all her life, Brazil was about to attend her first Texas football game.



"It's kind of surreal," Brazil said. "I'm from a small town, so it's a lot of people. It takes our mind off the bad things that went on before."



In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, which wreaked havoc last week in Houston and along the Texas Gulf coast, hundreds of evacuees have made their way to Austin. The ensuing days have been filled with a mixture of tragedy and heroism, as Texans and the rest of the nation struggled to grasp the extent of the destruction, while ordinary citizens and institutions such as The University of Texas offered aid to the survivors.



This past week, Texas Athletics contacted the Red Cross to offer tickets to the first football game of the season to those who had fled the hurricane and were now staying at the shelter. Kiley Davis, senior disaster program manager for Central Texas, said members of the Red Cross jumped at the chance to provide a distraction for their guests.



"We know that Texas is taking care of Texans," Davis said. "When the University reached out, we were shocked. The support from the University to do this, really everybody was jumping at the chance to try to get out here."



Providing free football tickets for evacuees was just one of several ways the University joined in the Harvey relief efforts. The football program opened its facilities for the University of Houston team to use while much of Houston was still underwater, and the University pledged $500,000, including funds from the athletics program's sponsorship with Nike, in additional financial aid to students affected by the hurricane. University President Gregory Fenves said the school aims to raise a total of $1 million with matching donations from the University community.



Volunteers informed guests at the shelter Friday night that they could attend the game if they wished. At one point they expected to fill 11 buses with fans, but with some evacuees being able to return home prior to kickoff, many chose to skip the game and return for the first time in over a week to begin assessing the damage.



According to Davis, many of the evacuees at the shelter were still desperately trying to get in contact with friends and family from whom they had been separated. William Sheppard left Houston on Aug. 9 for military training in Orlando, Florida, and was unable to get a flight home when Harvey hit. Instead he flew to Las Vegas and then to Austin, where he's now staying at the Red Cross shelter. Throughout that time, he endured a period of time in which he was unable to communicate with his family back home.



"I wasn't able to talk to them for a week," Sheppard said. "I got a hold of my dad this morning. Everybody's doing good. I talked to my daughter, she's doing good. They're happy to see that I'm taken care of right now."



Sheppard, who attended the game on Saturday, said the outing provided a welcome reprieve from the devastation and anxiety of the past week.



"It really is a blessing," Sheppard said. "Now that I know my family's okay, this is a good relief. It's good to try to get your head away from everything that's happening around you and focus one day at a time."