As storm raged, neighbors helped neighbors.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)

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Tropical Storm Fay pounded Florida relentlessly last summer, striking the state multiple times from the Keys to the Northeast Atlantic coast, then traveling westward to the Panhandle. However, as is often the case after natural disasters, stories of people helping people emerged afterwards. These are all from Tallahassee, the state's capital.

When Tallahassee Fire Department Lieutenant Brad Deanda arrived at a flooded Timberlake neighborhood, he found the only road into the community flooded, making evacuation by vehicles impossible. The only way out was by boat.

"The mailboxes were only 12 inches above water," Deanda told the Tallahassee Democrat. "And the water was constantly rising."

Deanda and his team of rescue workers spent 72 hours, using one fire department rescue boat and two Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission boats--which could take six people per trip--rescuing people from their flooded homes and ferrying them to safety. When asked about their effort, the rescuers eschewed the hero label, however. "There are no heroes here," said firefighter Tim Kercher, whose comment was reflective of his teammates' view that they were just completing the mission for which they had been trained.

A couple of miles away from the Timberlake neighborhood, residents of another subdivision called Windwood Hills were cut off as a causeway was destroyed, leaving only a narrow walkway as a means of escape. Resident Keith Hetrick told his story to the Tallahassee Democrat: "It was like walking on a tightrope. And you couldn't see in the water at all. It was about a 30-foot walk, and all around were very large alligators that the flood had disturbed. It wasn't something you wanted to do."

Sheriff's deputies went through the neighborhood knocking on doors, accounting for the whereabouts of every resident, and informing them that the causeway had been destroyed.