It was a surreal scene along the Gulf Coast after the most destructive hurricane ever to touch down on U.S. Soil -- 175 mph winds, wiping out the levee system in New Orleans, and crushing everything in its path into Mississippi, and even Alabama.

The National Fire Academy put out a call for help to fire departments across the nation.

Jeff Parsons, Idaho Falls Fire Department: "It was an anxious time for me, they didn't give us a lot of details -- any details on the conditions we'd be living in."

Jeff Parsons and five of his fellow firefighters would leave their families for a month and a half to help victims along the ravaged Mississippi coast. What they saw was unforgettable.

Parsons: "I had never seen trees snapped 30 feet off the ground and whole fields of timber tipped over by the wind. We went into houses where the water line was up to the ceiling."

The men worked directly with FEMA.

Parsons: "We lived in a tent city that was set up for people in the relief effort. We helped distribute information, water, ice and hooked people up with FEMA."

That wasn't all the six firefighters did. They also manned fire stations there, so exhausted fire crews could go home, check on family and friends, and begin to piece together their lives."

Parsons: "We gave them a chance to go fix their homes and take care of their family. That's probably the part that sticks out the most, the brotherhood we had with those guys, we never met them, and came from different cultures, but the way they accepted us and took care of us, and we took care of them."

Back home in Idaho Falls, 14 truckloads of donations from the public and Melaleuca were assembled in just a few days. The Salvation Army says the trucks were some of the first private aid trucks to arrive.

And who could forget the Crawford family from New Orleans who lost everything, but were given a new life in Idaho Falls for a year until they were able to return home.