The first flights between Houston and Boston since the hurricane struck have gotten off the ground.
"It was very devastating," said passenger Edith Rumbaut, who flew in from Houston. "We weren't expecting that much flooding."
After the first deluge, her family's home was surrounded by water.
"Before you knew it, on our street, the water level was up to chest deep," said Rumbaut.
Their neighbors, an elderly couple with no one to help them, were trapped. So when some good Samaritans came canoeing through the neighborhood, Rumbaut and her husband, Rolando, flagged them down.
"We asked the guys to go over and get our neighbors," she said. "So we have been housing our neighbors in our home."
Also on the flight from Houston were Susan Fisch and her son, Ryan, who's coming up for college at Brown and moving in on Saturday.
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"It was a catastrophe," said Fisch. "But Houston is strong."
They're thankful they made it after witnessing so much chaos.
"You were worried whether your levee was going to hold up, whether you will be flooded out, if friends in a nearby neighborhood would be flooded out," said Fisch. "It was just a very stressful storm to try to endure."
While the ordeal is far from over, the Rumbauts are happy to have survived and to be in Boston to get their son settled at Northeastern.
"It was remarkable how as a community we came together to help one another," said Rumbaut. "And that beautiful humanity came out from this tragedy."
