Amid floodwaters, residents make desperate treks to safety across Houston's sprawling freeways

HOUSTON _ The survivors' cries for aid _ "Hey! Hey!" _ could be heard just beyond Interstate 610, the freeway that loops around central Houston. Fortunately, help was close by, perhaps even closer than they knew.

The floods that slammed Houston over the weekend brought the city of 2.3 million people to a near-total halt, and nowhere was that reality more obvious than along the city's ubiquitous freeways.

The massive intersecting roadways thread like concrete veins through the city and tower over some neighborhoods, providing unexpected views both of the storm's dangerous power and of the weapons Houstonians were bringing to bear against the storm: fortitude, bravery