Using a pool float and a borrowed boat, Houston lawyer Hal Hale helped rescue as many as 75 people in west Houston last week­­—Hurricane Harvey victims who were trapped in houses or apartments filled with floodwaters from the hurricane’s downpour.

A two-hour drive away in Port Arthur, lawyer Julian C. Gomez, who transported his fishing boat from South Texas, rescued dozens of people from two flooded nursing homes in Port Arthur with the help of some fisherman friends.