The floodwaters were raging again in Houston and Jim McIngvale knew it was time to dispatch the furniture trucks.

The salesman is known here as Mattress Mack. From his Gallery Furniture showroom on Houston's north side, McIngvale, 68, could see Tropical Storm Imelda wreaking familiar havoc on Thursday. There were vehicles trapped on freeways that turned into rivers. First responders were rescuing people from their own homes.

PHOTO GALLERY: See scenes from the Texas flooding caused by Imelda in a gallery at the end of this story

Imelda, which has killed two people and forced the evacuation of at least 1,000 other residents, brought the most catastrophic flooding to Houston and Beaumont, 85 miles west, since Hurricane Harvey in 2017. And as he did then, Mattress Mack knew what he had to do now: He opened his showroom as a shelter and sent out the furniture trucks to rescue Imelda's stranded victims.

"I'm a half capitalist and half social worker," McIngvale said in an interview Thursday night. "I can't let my people drown. It's so easy to open the doors and let them in. ... They've got pretty much all the creature comforts they need. We let them in and take care of them, just let them know that people care about them."