Shortly after 9 a.m., Galveston County put out a call for people who own flat-bottom boats to help with rescues.

Dozens of drivers hauling boats showed up throughout the morning and into the afternoon for rescue missions by boat in flooded Dickinson neighborhoods.

State local and federal agencies, including Texas Game Wardens and local police, staged massive rescue operations, assisting thousands of people as they attempted to escape.

Kenneth Moffett, an off-duty member of the Galveston Fire Department, decided to bring his fishing boat and help after seeing news reports of people stranded in Dickinson and across the north county.

At about 11:30 a.m., he was setting out to pick up stranded motorists and people fleeing their home at a station near the Hughes Road overpass in Dickinson.

“It’s crazy,” Moffett said. “There must be hundreds of people stranded up there and the water looks 4 feet deep in some parts.”

Hours later, Moffett returned with his boat.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said, adding that he had done emergency response during Hurricane Ike in 2008.

“We went up and down Deats Road and there were people walking around waiting for rescues. There were people on roofs wrapped in tarps. We just kept going until we ran out of fuel.”

Crystal Jaramillo and Trey Jones of Texas City got a call early Sunday morning from a family friend needing help in Dickinson. They had a kayak and figured they could use that to get their friend someplace dry.

“It started with one but then we kept hearing people yelling that they needed help so we just kept going,” Jaramillo said.

“We’d just try and get them away and out of the water to somewhere dry.”

By 10:30 a.m., Jones estimated they had brought about 22 stranded motorists to dry land.

“The current got pretty bad at times, and it was hard to row it,” Jones said.

They planned to stay as long as they could and keep getting motorists out of the area, Jaramillo said.

“I’d want someone to help if it were us,” Jaramillo said.

Texas City Independent School District buses, dump trucks and state high water vehicles were parked near the Hughes Road overpass taking people evacuating the area by boat.

Bianca Montemayor and her best friend, Kanecia Kinlaw, were parked on Interstate 45 as early as 8 a.m. attempting to rescue Montemayor’s mother, nephew, stepfather and his two children from the Pine Forest Apartments on Deats Road in Dickinson.

The women had started to wade through water a half mile toward the road, but were stopped and taken back to their car parked on Interstate 45.

“We had to get rescued from our rescue,” Montemayor said.

By 11:45 a.m. they were still waiting for Montemayor’s family and Kinlaw’s boyfriend to reach his mother, who was stranded near state Highway 3. Montemayor had been talking to her mom by phone throughout the morning and her family had taken the children and three dogs and floated on an air mattress to a neighbor’s house on the second floor, she said.

“The water was rising in their apartment so they had to escape,” Montemayor said.

Her family had requested a rescue, but were five of thousands needing to get to dry ground. The women were anxiously waiting, too.

“I just can’t wait to see them walking up,” she said.

Throughout the morning and afternoon, nearly every 10 minutes, a new boat operated by a volunteer was pulling up with groups of people and often pets aboard.

Charla Jones and Ashlee Moore were driving from the Clear Lake area on Interstate 45 when their Ford Explorer stalled in high water.

“We didn’t know how deep it was,” Jones said. “We tried to stay at higher elevation on the car, but thought the water would just keep coming and felt like the car might topple or get flooded inside.”

The two and their puppy, Nibbles, were rescued by boat and brought to Hughes Road on Sunday morning.

“We don’t really know what the plan is now, but we’re trying to figure that out,” Moore said.