Four Central Florida

men head to Houston with airboats in tow as they help rescue victims of Hurricane Harvey.

Like many people, Jordan Munns and his Osceola County co-workers were horrified by the images they saw of sprawling disaster in South Texas. Unlike a lot of people, they said: “We need to go there.” Munns, 28; brother Daniel Munns, 39; brother-in-law Sam Haught, 40; and family friend PJ Brown, 30, all work at Wild Florida, the Osceola County attraction that gives visitors a taste of what the state was like before developers came. They’re also all experienced airboat captains.

Airboats, which can cross stretches of dry land, are critical in reaching people stranded by flooding.

“We had the resources. We had the ability,” Jordan Munns said. “We couldn’t just sit here when we saw how many people needed help.”

Their decision came about 4 p.m. Monday. Shortly after midnight Tuesday, they were on the road with 200 gallons of fuel for their two trucks and two airboats. They drove through dawn and most of the next day, at times navigating roads under 4 feet of water.

Coordinating with police, FEMA and leaders of their church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they ventured into neighborhoods where water reached the rooftops.

“All day Wednesday we spent rescuing people. It was still raining sideways, the water was rising, and we were picking up people on their doorsteps in waist-deep water,” Munns said Friday afternoon, talking by cell phone from outside Beaumont, Texas.

One man — escaping with his wife, two children and two dogs — told them he had just lost his job last week. Everything he owned, including his home and vehicles, was now under water.

“The devastation is so real. It’s just hard to imagine where these people go from here,” Munns said.

Yet for all the somber reality, he said, the men were touched most by the kindness and gratitude they’ve been shown. Strangers brought them meals and invited them into their homes to sleep. Others stopped them to offer money. Businesses in St. Cloud, where they live, wanted to sponsor them.

“We didn’t do it for that,” Munns said. “We told them to give it to [nonprofit] organizations and the people who need it.”

The men all have families with small children at home in Osceola, and even as they continue their work in Texas, they’re keeping tabs on Hurricane Irma, now intensifying in the open Atlantic.

“We plan to stick around as long as they need us, as long as we can,” Munns said. “But if Irma heads towards Florida, we’ll need to get home.”