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Rescue crews add new cyber-tools to search

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Bob Thompson
  • Air Force Reserve Command Public Affairs
After saving more than 4,200 people, Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard and active duty airmen are finding innovative ways to check for survivors and people who need help.

Using the internet, Web sites, e-mails, personal interviews and calls from families and friends, the helicopter-borne rescuers are working every lead they get to save more lives.

“After September 8th, we just weren’t finding anybody,” said Maj. John Lowe, pilot with Air Force Reserve Command’s 920th Rescue Wing at Patrick AFB, Fla. “We kept trolling the roofs and balconies but all we would run into were people who didn’t want to go.”

Lowered by a hoist rig on the right side of the HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter, the pararescuemen would not force people to leave, but while on the ground would ask the New Orleans holdouts if they knew of anyone in need of help. Armed with these leads, the rescue teams would seek out the addresses as best they could in the debris and wreckage.

“We got tasked to find three judges that no one had heard from,” said the major. “All we had were their street addresses.”

In a town that endured winds in excess of 160 mph and was under 12 feet of water, street signs were in short supply. Instead, Major Lowe called his wife and asked her to use the internet to get the coordinates, latitudes and longitudes, of the street addresses so he could enter them into his global positioning satellite navigational system. It worked. Although the judges had already been picked up, they found the locations and a new rescue tool was developed.

“By converting street addresses into GPS coordinates, we rescued a mute and deaf mentally-handicapped man who was all alone in a locked house with a candle,” said the major. “Through e-mail leads and the GPS-address conversion, we found the home of a 250 lbs elderly woman who couldn’t get out of bed. We dropped in our pararescuemen and they worked with the Army folks to get her out by boat.”

As the team had more success, they followed more leads, finding street addresses, sometimes finding people, sometimes verifying that no one was home.

“We’ve followed leads from phone calls, e-mails, and websites,” said Lt Col Rob Ament, director of operations for the Cocoa Beach, Florida-based rescue wing. “Right now there are 40-50 helicopters hovering over New Orleans. This is the most massive undertaking I’ve ever seen in 30 years of rescue work.”

According to Colonel Ament, when there is a call for help at this stage of the rescue operation, several helicopters converge on the scene. As the electric power crews go in and the clean-up workers remove debris, he said the airborne rescue workers will be ready for anyone who gets hurt on the job.

“When you get a survivor onboard and they are alive and are going to be okay, it’s a great, great feeling,” Major Lowe said. “It’s an awesome mission. I don’t think there’s anything else in the world I’d rather do.”