Baker Jorge Abundis and his seven staff at El Bolillo Bakery in Houston were trapped inside the business by Harvey's rains. Instead of trying to go home to be with their families, they worked through the night to make bread for the storm's victims. They made 5,000 bread rolls for those affected by Harvey.

"It was a mixture of impotence and desperation," Abundis told. "Above all we were stuck here are there was nothing we could do. It was a very satisfying thing to do even though I knew my own family was running out of food and they had water outside the house."

The crew was stuck inside from Saturday to Monday, baking thousands of loaves of bread, including the store's signature bolillo bread, a torpedo-shaped loaf similar to a french baguette. In the mornings they delivered to shelters, first responders and churches.

Alexandre Jourde was preparing to leave his home in the badly flooded Buffalo Bayou area of Houston with his wife and their two children when he was approached by a neighbor asking for help.The father-of-two from Paris, France, remembered he had a paddleboard and wet suit in his garage, and used it to evacuate a four-year-old boy, Ethan Colman, from a Houston neighborhood inundated by floodwaters on Monday. He saved the child before getting his own family to dry land.

Jourde, an oil and gas engineer, won hearts when a photograph emerged of him paddling Ethan to safety.

"They asked me for help as I was about to get my kids. It bought us some time while my family packed our belongings," he said. He then made two more trips - one to rescue his children, aged eight and six, and another to get his wife.

Local heroes – dubbed the Cajun Navy – braved floodwaters in boats, big and small, to help their neighbors and total strangers. Houston businessman Jim McIngvale turned his furniture stores into a storm shelter. A furniture store in the city has opened its doors to help those made homeless by the flooding. “Anyone in need of shelter who can safely navigate out of their neighborhood, Mattress Mack and the GF Family invite you to join us,” they posted

Matthew Marchetti put together an app overnight to help track stranded Houston residents. In the app's first day of operation, according to Quartz, 5,000 people signed up to be rescued on the app and 2,700 of them were safe. Those using his web app, located at houstonharveyrescue.com provide their basic information and exact location. Rescuers, who can also sign up on the site, can then spot and pick up those who are close to them or those in the greatest need.

Since the storm hit, Onofre's traveled around the West Oaks and Twin Oaks neighborhood in Houston, picking up however many people he can in his boat.