truck driver nick sheridan drove more than 200 miles in his big rig to help rescue those stranded in flood waters. the military veteran told abc his team of three big rig drivers rescued more than 1,000 people. members of the cajun navy, a voluntary rescue group that formed after hurricane katrina saved a 73-year-old woman who had been laying face down in the flood waters. seriously thought it was a trash bag. as we got closer and the current pulled it closer to our boat, we realized it was a body. and instantly donnie jumped from the vessel, brought her up out of the water. reporter: joshua lincoln and two others got her breathing again and reunited her with her family. good boy. good boy. you get to go home. you ready to go home? reporter: rowdy shaw from the humane society of the united
buildings have flooded in houston. and even with the water still standing, one resident still wanted to see her home. my colleague anderson cooper went along with her. reporter: susan peterson has to use a canoe to get to her house. it s probably a quarter of a mile from here. reporter: she s waited all week for the water to recede, but she can t wait any longer. she needs to see what s happened to her home. she invited us to go with her. the water too deep and dangerous in some spots to walk through. there s quite a current. so this is of her cars is completely submerged. only the roof still visible. that s one of your cars? it s a 91 cavalier. reporter: from the outside, the house doesn t look too bad.
are there stairs there? yeah. there s stairs under here.her s. the kids bedrooms and bathrooms are all down the hall. i mean, you know, that was ground lelevels of the house ar water. the garage, her office, and three bedrooms. mold is already visible on the ceiling. susan looks for her four cats, but finds no sign of them. guys? reporter: does it help to actually see it or does it no. i think i probably would have been better just waiting until somebody told me the water was down. reporter: so that s an original? yeah.
storm had moved there. conditions were deteriorating. you had one of the largest refineries in the country that s under water and smoke s billowing. the clouds are looking very ominous. and everybody s trying to get boats into the water into this residential neighborhood. and when you get to the families and see the looks on their faces of despair and being distraught, it s very hard to swallow. but then, you know, the good light on that, the other side is the hope and just the sense of, hey, somebody s here for me. i m going to be okay when you arrive. what were people telling you? when you pulled them out of their house and put them on your boat, what would they say to you? just thank you. there s a little bit of shock and disbelief. you know, a lot of people have tried to hold it out as long as they could. but in port arthur s situation, it came on so fast, they didn t really have time to get out. really it s just you know, there s not a lot of talk, but
people help the people. thank you is much. thank you. as people leave their shelters here, leave the emergency shelters like the one we re at now, the flood waters are still in many places around the city and officials warn bacteria in the flood water surrounding homes and businesses can be toxic. cnn hired a lab to check the quality of the water in houston and the results are in and the results, quite frankly, they are disturbing, they are concerning. elizabeth cohen has more now on the threat survivors and rescue workers are facing in those waters. reporter: we went out and tested these waters here in houston and when we got the results back, they were shocking. not only is the water contaminated, it is highly contaminated. numbers some experts have never seen in their experience. let s take a look at e. coli. this is an indication of how much fecal contamination there is in the water and other bacteria as well. we took three samples in this one area in houston. the first had 8