Bryan Curtis normally rides his jet ski for fun. On Sunday, he turned it into an emergency rescue vehicle.
Curtis — who lives in Conroe, a little to the north of Houston — was one of the many civilians who pitched in to help evacuate those stranded in rapidly rising floodwaters unleashed by Hurricane Harvey in Texas’ biggest city.
“I’m not even thinking about myself right now to tell you the truth, it’s just people need help. I’m here to help, I want to do my part,” he said.
Photo: Reuters
With the official emergency services overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster in Houston, the fourth-biggest city in the US, it was sometimes left to an army of volunteers to save the day.
Some formed human chains while others fired up their motorboats to pluck their fellow Texans to safety from the floodwaters swamping the state.
After more than 60cm of rain fell in Houston in a 24-hour period, some streets resembled canals, making it impossible for cars to navigate the city.
Photo: AFP
Some of the few vehicles that could be seen on the streets were giant trucks, loaded with evacuees who had gratefully clambered on board after hearing offers of help.
“We continually go through these neighborhoods and are actually calling out on our loudspeakers trying to get people’s attention and saying: ‘Hey, are you ready to evacuate?’” local law enforcement officer Alan Rosen said.
“We’re just inundated. There’s not enough resources — there never is enough resources — to actually go around and save everybody,” he told the local KTRK television channel after loading up one of the rescue vehicles with dozens of evacuees. “We’re doing absolutely the best we can.”
Photo: Reuters
One man on Saturday night was spotted clinging to a tree by police patrol officers who then formed a human chain across a bayou to save him. He later posed grinning broadly without his rescuers on the local police department’s Twitter feed.
With so many roads underwater, a boat ride was the only option for some of those stranded in outlying areas.
James Lofton, a resident of the suburb of Spring Valley, made multiple journeys on his boat to ferry residents to safety from a nearby hotel.
“We’ve just been carrying people back and forth from the Omni most of the afternoon,” Lofton said.
One of the last to leave the hotel was a woman who had back surgery who was delicately brought on board.
Some of the most dramatic rescues came as helicopters winched those stranded on the upper floors of houses to safety.
The Houston-based ABC 13 channel captured footage of a father and his six-year-old son, both called Jeremiah, climbing out of a second-floor window and into a makeshift basket dangling from a chopper, with one bag on each of their backs.
“This is all that we got,” the father said. “We thank God. We thank God.”
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