Camp Holloway Discussion Forum Archive 04 - 01/01/04 to 02/10/06

New Orleans 1st Person Report

This sounds sort of familiar:

Subject: Post from a chopper crewman.

This is a good first person report from a helicopter crewman in the New Orleans area of responsibility.

Hope no one minds me posting this. I am still trying to unwind from the
caffeine/sugar rush you build up sitting 12 hours in a hole drinking coffee
and eating snacks instead of real meals. So I thought I would share:

It's still a mess, our wing is providing back haul communications, forward
linking sensor data, food, water, fuel, and aircraft but at times it feels
like we are pissing on a forest fire. It could be the constant UAV feed that
play on the big screen, or the never ending stream of MISREPS we copy, but
it's still going on strong. We have guys who literally got home from over
seas are now working in the area, hell of a welcome home... We have been
cleared to engage hostiles which pretty much put an end to that stupidity.
Even crack head gang bangers will not tangle with a brace of GAU-2s. I am
supposed to be on leave (vacation) right now (doing the SEAL-160 run) but,
I will stay in place until we have things better sorted out, besides we have
no/limited fuel in my neck of the pan handle right now.

got this from my old crew thought I would pass it along.

We left Tucson Last Wednesday in the early afternoon heading to New Orleans
to render whatever assistance we could. It is an understatement to say that
we had any idea what we were up against, but we did speculate along the way
to help prepare ourselves for what we might see there. We had hoped to make
it in one shot straight across the country to expedite our arrival to
Jackson Mississippi, but ran out of crew duty day along the way and had to
stay overnight in Dallas-Ft. Worth. It ended up taking us 9 hours of flying
to get to Jackson because of 25 knot headwinds along the way. Right now all
of the Air Force Rescue assets are staging out of the international airport.
We have every available HH-60G from the Reserve, Active Duty, and the Guard
here at the moment, somewhere in the neighborhood of 32 helicopters. It's
the most I have ever seen in one location ever and if it were other
circumstances I would consider it more impressive...Seeing New Orleans makes
this entire operation from a community perspective pale by comparison. After
we arrived they immediately put us into crew rest...we would have to wait
until Thursday to see the city.
Thursday we figured out we were working 12 on and 12 off, which really means
your in 2 hours prior to take-off, then you fly around 10 hours straight,
then you are debriefing and preparing for tomorrow for another 2 hours
before you get to head to bed. So it really is a 14 to 18 hour day by the
time it's really over. I could go into detail about the rigors of flying 10
hours straight in a helicopter, but I can't adequately describe the effect
it has on you for an extended period of time. Prior to this I had done an 8
hour day with a 2 hour break halfway through...not quite the same, but
definitely not enough to prepare you for what we've gone through. It's an
hour flight from Jackson to Orleans, its hot, humid and boring. All that
changes the moment you get into the city.
I can tell you right now that New Orleans is gone. 90 percent of the city is
under water. You cannot, even from seeing the news understand the scope and
the depth of complete destruction that has taken place there. If you have
never been to NO, then you missed your chance. This city is a total loss.
Most of the city is under at least 4-7 feet of water, the area nearest the
17th street canal is up to the roofline. The only way around the city is by
boat, or helicopter. Most of the elevated interstates are underwater except
for the clover-leafs. There is no road access from the International airport
west of the city to the Mississippi River. East Orleans on the other side of
the river is completely underwater all along Lake Ponchartrain (Sp?).
Where to begin...I'll start with the totals... our crew has flown almost 40
hours in 4 missions, we have picked up 79 people, 6 dogs and 2 cats. For the
record, dogs are cool with the helicopter ride, it's just another open
window to hang there head out while they get a ride somewhere; Cats however
are another story...they are not impressed with the rescue effort. I have
performed almost all the pick-ups with the hoist because there are a very
limited number of places to land and most rooftops are not rated for a
20,000 pound helicopter. We've had cases of helicopters breaking through
rooftops and my crew wanted nothing to do with this risk. We initially
started to pick people off rooftops, balcony's, any piece of high ground
they could get to. Some hoists were quick and we were in a hover for 15
minutes. Others were very technical because of the wires and other obstacles
and we were in a hover for 1-2 hours at a time to get just a couple people.
Kids and old people are fun to pick up, their parents and other healthy
adults are not as much fun. Ummm, one note on people in NO, most of them are
very overweight. You can't exactly pluck a 300 pound woman from a rooftop
and pull her easily into the door of a helicopter when she's dangling from a
slender cable being held up by one of our PJ's. Pulling the combined weight
of them into the door is a very difficult maneuver under regular
circumstances, after doing it all day for hours and hours compounds that.
Combined it can be 600 pounds of swinging weight. That's a lot of momentum.
This is combat flying. I'd say it's absent of only the bullets being thrown
in your direction, but we've had instances of that too. The number of
helicopters flying makes this the most hazardous I have ever seen. You can
be hovering picking up people from one rooftop and there will be 4-5 or 6,
maybe more, helicopters all doing the same within a quarter mile radius of
you at the moment. All trying to do it safely while trying to maneuver in
the same airspace and do all the other associated things that come with
flying. It's dense to say the least. The water is full of sewage, fuel from
cars, rotten "Stuff", dead bodies floating in the water...and all of it ends
up as spray from the helicopter rotor wash as you hover there trying to pick
people up.
We hit the tanker for gas, drop people off at the international airport for
triage and return to the city to do it all over again. During the day you
are trying to find people in windows and doors, on the ground, anywhere. At
night you are looking for lights of any kind that might indicate life exists
in any structure. We are flying straight through from noon to 10 pm. When it
gets dark we goggle up and continue the search with NVG's. There is no
command and control and everything is complete chaos. But it's where we work
the best, we have a simple mandate: Conduct random search and rescue
operations. Recover people you find, assess or triage them and deliver them
to the appropriate collection point...repeat. 24/7.

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