The American town of Pinetops, North Carolina is sleepy and quaint. On the corner of East Hamlet and North East 1st Street, stands “Webb’s Antiques & Auction Service”. Down the road apiece stands a bank, as well as a Shell gas station. What doesn’t exist just a hop, skip and a jump away, is the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, it’s more than 100 miles away from the town where less than 2,000 people live.

But that didn’t stop the United States Coast Guard from saving eight Pinetops residents from their homes recently, as the floodwaters brought on by Hurricane Matthew swallowed up their homes about 50 miles from the state capital, Raleigh.

Watch as highly-trained, brave service members rescue the stranded from a helicopter high above their rooftops …

According to reports, the aircraft was an MH-60 Jayhawk, both itself and its crew stationed at Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

“We were glad to assist our partners from Edgecombe Fire Department in this rescue effort,” said Lt. Cmdr. Scott Koser, Assistant operations officer at Air Station Elizabeth City told WNCT 9. “Our crews are standing by to assist our emergency response partners with future requests.”

When it comes to pitching in and saving lives during grave natural disasters, the USCG is certainly no stranger. During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the branch had their cutters positioned to help fight fires, and their service members even helped guard the U.S. Mint amidst the rubble-laden frenzy.

The Coast Guard has also been there for volcanic eruptions (Novarupta-Katmai, Alaska, in 1912), oil spills, epidemics, tidal waves, mass migrations and terrorist attacks.