The "Cajun Navy," a flotilla of about 20 boats borne out the devastation and self-reliance after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, has come to Texas to help residents along the Gulf Coast who are trapped by the floodwaters of Hurricane Harvey.
The Louisiana grassroots volunteer outfit has already been credited with several rescues, including helping to resuscitate one Houston woman floating facedown along a flood street, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Joshua Lincoln, of Madisonville; Ricky Berrigan, of Lacombe; and Donnie Davenport, of Pearl River, found Wilma Ellis, 73, unconscious and floating in the street.
"The lady must have been crossing in some current," Lincoln told the newspaper. "She floated right to the boat. We jumped out and got her and gave her compressions right there in the water. We were holding her from behind."
Ellis began to cough and breathe on her own after about 15 compressions, Lincoln told the Times-Picayune. They were able to get Ellis to a gas station near the corner of Tidwell Road and Parkway Forest Drive and put out her medical information on social media, according to the newspaper.
Lincoln went on to tell CNN that helping Harvey victims in Houston was a personal way of paying it forward.
"In my life I've been through a lot of storms including Katrina," he said. "Seeing how people in Texas responded and helped us in a disaster kind of tugged at my heart. My house was flooded and I lost all kinds of things during Katrina."
Jordy Bloodsworth told The Washington Post he was inspired to help after going through Hurricane Katrina as well, after the hurricane flooded his home with 14 feet of water when he was 12.
"I was young during Katrina and I know how it feels to lose everything," Bloodsworth said to the newspaper. "So being able to help others going through this situation that I have experienced, there's no way — no way — I could pass up helping."
The Cajun Navy uses social media to help them organize, giving out information and contacts on its Facebook page.
But rescuers often do not know what they'll confront while on the job. One of the group's participants, Clyde Cain, said on Cajun Navy's Facebook page Monday night that looters fired shots at the rescuers or into the air, but no one was hurt, The Associated Press reported.
The Houston Emergency Operations Center told the AP, though, that police had not received any reports of shots being fired at the Cajun Navy.