HOUSTON – There were more than 7,500 water rescue calls during a four-day stretch of Hurricane Harvey last August, according to the Houston Fire Department.
Channel 2 Investigates obtained fire department dispatch tapes from the first night, Aug. 26, 2017. On that night alone, there are more than 2,800 calls.
The HFD calls were essentially a soundtrack of struggles, perseverance and the spirit of personnel not giving up.
Down I-45 in Dickinson, the situation was just as dire. Toni Ann Costa made a call for help as the water rose around her home.
"I don't think we called, but a couple of times because we knew they couldn't get to us," she said.
Costa, like so many others, swam for it.
"It was hard," she said. "We were going against the current. I was swimming this way and we were going that way."
Eventually she got picked up by a boat. However, an alternative plan from that night, a pink sheet, still remains tied to the roof of her home -- symbolic even to this day because of what it represented: “So that they would know we were in the attic. That we were here," she said.
Coast Guard helicopter pilot Lt. Daniel Crowley was all over Dickinson in the midst of Harvey.
"We rescued quite a few people, there were tons of people needing help at that time," Crowley said.
For Crowley, this was not his first time dealing with the wrath nature from high above. However, during Harvey, it was personal.
"In Katrina, New Orleans was a town I knew, but it wasn't home," Crowley said. "This was my home, my neighbors, that were needing help. It was completely different emotions."
It was an experience Houston will never forget.