Volunteers are important contributors to response and recovery. Little is known about their engagement, particularly in terms of comparing the engagement of response volunteers to recovery volunteers. This study sought to explore volunteer engagement in response and recovery in the case of flooding experienced by a number of communities in East Texas following flooding in 2016. Data was gathered through interviews with 72 response and recovery volunteers and key informants, an analysis of key documents, and first-hand observations. This study developed a list of factors that were found to explain volunteer engagement in East Texas and factors suggested by the literature. These factors should be systematically tested in the future to expand our understanding of volunteer engagement.