New Jersey residents are continuing to help the people of Texas in their time of need.

Fifty nurses and doctors from the Garden State departed Teterboro Airport for Texas Thursday to offer relief to the overworked Texan medical staff in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

Dr. James Pruden and nurse Kim Russo are among two doctors and three nurses from St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Paterson who are volunteering.

“The hospital is supporting us. We are engaged and ready to go, so we are looking forward to it,” said Pruden.

The medical staff will be spending at least a week in Texas. They said the request for aid wasn’t formal. Russo said her boss asked her to go on Tuesday.

Russo said her boss asked: “Who wants to go to Texas?”

The staff from St. Joseph’s will be working at the Bay Area Regional Medical Center in Webster, Texas. Staffers there have been working straight through since Saturday. Many of the doctors and nurses there not only need to rest, but need to tend to their own homes that remain underwater.

Pruden said he volunteered for similar work in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and in New York after the Sept. 11 attacks. He said so many people want to help and that this is his chance to make a difference.

"Many of us who work in health care are sort of adrenaline junkies, and we found a socially acceptable way to dispatch that energy,” he said.

Most of the medical staff said Houston will be impacted by the effects of Hurricane Harvey for a long time and will need help for a while.

The volunteer program was put together by the New Jersey Hospital Association.

Once the New Jersey doctors and nurses return home, medical staff from Massachusetts will relieve them at the same hospital.

How to Help Hurricane Harvey Victims
American Red Cross Website
Call: 1-800-RED CROSS
Or Text Harvey to the number 90999
Save the Children
The Salvation Army
North American Mission Board
Heart to Heart International