MIAMI — The rescuers from California Task Force 1 had finally dried out. They had waded in the floodwaters left by Hurricane Harvey in southeast Texas. They had slept in stalls ordinarily used for horses, and two of the task force’s men had survived being suctioned through a large pipe.

But as the search-and-rescue team of about 70 — including swimmers, canine handlers, doctors, communications specialists and even a structural engineer — reached El Paso, commanders received a new order: Turn everyone around, and head toward an increasingly menacing Hurricane Irma.

“We’re just firemen,” Mark Akahoshi, a leader of the task force, said later over a late-night package of Oreos in the Florida Keys.

He thought for another beat or two: “You know what we really are? Adrenaline junkies. We could sit here, and every time that alarm goes off, everybody perks up.”