Hero of Flight 401 - "Angel of the Everglades” Dies
Robert “Bud” Marquis, age 79, the hero of the Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crash that occurred on the night of December 29, 1972, in the Everglades 18 miles west of the Miami International Airport, died Friday, November 21, 2008 as a result of complications following injuries suffered during a fall.
Robert “Bud” Marquis (Bullfrog Bud) a resident of Homestead, Florida was the first civilian to arrive on the scene of the crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 in the Florida Everglades, December 29, 1972.
The night of December 29, 1972 Robert Bud Marquis and his partner Ray Dickinsin (deceased) witnessed Flight 401 go down in the Everglades, while frog gigging 18 miles west of the Miami International Airport.
In the dark of night, Bud Marquis navigated his personal airboat through ten-foot-tall sawgrass and the plane’s debris to be the first person to render aid to victims of the crash.
Having no obligation, other than the commitment to his fellow man and without regard for his personal safety, Bud Marquis waded through jet fuel and hydraulic fluid filled water, choked with jagged metal and debris to free passengers still strapped into their seats. Mr. Marquis braved the burning fuselage to free trapped and injured victims. In doing so, he sustained burns to his arms, legs and face.
Through the night and into the next day Bud Marquis used his airboat to shuttle rescuers, medical personnel and victims to and from the crash site, to awaiting ambulances.
On December 3, 2007, 35 years following the Flight 401 incident, Robert “Bud” Marquis was honored at a ceremony held at the Metro-Dade Firefighters' Memorial Building. Survivors and family members of Flight 401’s passengers and crew attended to meet for the first time the man that saved their lives and the lives of there loved ones.
During the ceremony Bud Marquis was presented with the National Air Disaster Alliance/Foundation’s “Humanitarian Award,” the “Alumitec – Airboat Hero Award,” by the American Airboat Search and Rescue Association and a proclamation from the Miami-Dade County Board of Commissioners, proclaiming December 3, 2007 “Robert ‘Bud’ Marquis Day” in Miami-Dade County, for his actions at the scene of the crash of Flight 401 on the night of December 29, 1972.
Robert 'Bud' Marquis, 79, rescued air crash survivors
Monday, November 24, 2008
(The Miami Herald) --Robert "Bud" Marquis, the Homestead airboater who witnesses the crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 in the Florida Everglades 36 years ago -- and then rushed to help rescue survivors -- died Friday of complications from an accident five weeks ago. He was 79.
A former South Florida wildlife game warden who lived most of his adult live on the edge of the Everglades, Marquis was frog-hunting from an airboat with a friend just before midnight on Dec. 29, 1972, when they heard the roar of a jumbo jet flying dangerously low.
Within seconds, the L-1011 coming from New York and carrying 176 people crashed into the pitch darkness of the Everglades west of Miami International Airport. In horror, Marquis and his friend watched the impact light up the horizon.
"I told my friend to keep his eye on where we had seen the ball of fire, and I started heading that way as fast as I could," Marquis told The Miami Herald last December on the 35th anniversary of the crash.
SURVIVORS FOUND
Marquis and his friend were first at the scene. They found almost 100 people dead, but also more than 70 survivors of what was then Florida's deadliest crash and the first of the brand-new jumbo jet fleet.
In the end, 75 survived. Last year, some of them gathered at an event organized by first responders at the Firefighters' Memorial Building to honor Marquis.
"I would not be alive today if not for Bud Marquis," said survivor Ron Infantino, who along with other survivors is working to build a memorial to honor those who died that night -- among them his young bride.
The memorial would feature Marquis' airboat -- a testament to the significant role it played. From the Everglades, Marquis and his friend used a light rigged to a hat to guide Coast Guard helicopters and others to the desolate crash site. They spent the night pulling survivors out of the marsh.
Flight 401 flight attendants Beverly Raposa of Sunrise and Mercy Ruiz of Miami said the sound of Marquis' airboat was a sign of life.
"Even if we couldn't see him, we could hear him and we knew help had arrived," Raposa said. Ruiz was rescued in Marquis' airboat.
AIRBOAT RESTORED
At the 35th-anniversary observance, the airboat Marquis used that night, which he still owned and which had fallen into disrepair in his yard, was presented to him totally overhauled.
"I would do it all again in a heartbeat," Marquis told the crowd that day.
The accident would change aviation history, and it spawned several books, lore about "the ghost of Flight 401" and a television movie. It also changed Marquis, who was forever connected to the disaster.
"Just today, a passenger who lives out of state called because he had heard Bud had passed away," said Marquis' widow, Nancy.
She and Marquis were married for 61 years. "We met when I was 15 and he, 18," she said. "He had moved with his family from Arkansas to West Palm Beach, where I lived. It was love at first sight." They had two children.
On the night of Oct. 21, 2008, Marquis went to the Florida City Wal-Mart and suffered injuries that led to his death. Something happened to him in the parking lot. "We don't know if he was mugged or run over or if he fell," Nancy Marquis said.
With six broken ribs and a head injury, Marquis refused medical care and drove himself home. He was rushed to a hospital, where he remained in the intensive-care unit until his death.
"Doctors said his injuries looked like those of someone who might have been mugged, but he still had his wallet in his pocket," his widow said. She said Florida City police told her they were still investigating.
There will be no funeral service for Marquis. His wife said his ashes would be spread over the crash site in the Everglades that "he loved so much," at a later date.
Marquis is also survived by a son, Donald Marquis of Altamonte Springs; a daughter, Terri Mabie of Tucson; 10 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Reported by: RNSSunday Oct 5, 2008 @12:37pm CST Two more bodies were found on Texas' Goat Island this weekend, raising the total number of Hurricane Ike deaths to 70. "The Daily News" cites a spokesman for the Galveston County Sheriff's Office as saying rescuers found a man and a woman Saturday afternoon. The two were recovered from marshland near Bolivar Peninsula just west of Rollover Pass. The only way to get to marshland areas is by way of airboat. The sheriff’s office arranged for the bodies to be transported and they were released to the Galveston County Medical Examiner's Office. The bodies have not been identified. Autopsies will be conducted Monday. @@@@@
The Associated Press GALVESTON – The final hours brought the awful realization to victims of Hurricane Ike that they had waited too long.
George Helmond, a hardy Galveston salt, watched the water rise and told a buddy: "I as born on this island and I'll die on this island."
Gail Ettenger, a free spirit who adopted the Bolivar Peninsula as her home 15 years ago, told a friend in a last phone call: "I really messed up this time." Within hours, the old salt and the free spirit were gone as the powerful hurricane wracked the Texas Gulf Coast on Sept. 13, flattening houses, obliterating entire towns and claiming at least 33 lives. The dead – as young as 4, as old as 79 – included lifelong Galvestonians firmly rooted on the island and transplants drawn by the quiet of coastal living. Hundreds of people are still missing three weeks after Ike's assault on Texas. This past week, cadaver dogs pinpointed five spots on Crystal Beach where bodies could be trapped under rubble. "There are definitely going to be people from Hurricane Ike that are never found," said Galveston County emergency management spokesman Colin Rizzo. The estimate of missing residents varies from one agency to another. According to the nonprofit Laura Recovery Center, about 300 people are missing. Of those, about 200 are from Galveston. However, the number "goes up and down by the minute" as people call in to remove or add names, cautioned executive director Bob Walcutt. About 50 people are still missing from the unincorporated areas of Galveston County, which include the Bolivar Peninsula, Mr. Rizzo said. The task is massive and the terrain is perilous, thick with snakes, alligators and mosquitoes, said Hector Gonzalez, a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game warden, as he steered an airboat through a maze of cuts and sloughs in Chambers County."We should make every effort we can to find someone. You should know in your mind that you did every thing possible to find that person or recover that person," said Crystal Beach Volunteer Fire Chief David Loop. The Associated Press
Search crews recovered the bodies of two Hurricane Ike victims in debris fields in Galveston County this afternoon, raising the Houston-Galveston death toll to 35, authorities said. A Texas Task Force One crew discovered the bodies while searching debris fields on Goat Island this afternoon, said Galveston County Sheriff's Office Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo.The identities of the bodies are unknown at this time and will be determined by the Galveston County Medical Examiner's Office, Tuttoilmondo said. As of last week, about 400 people remained missing after Hurricane Ike. Most of those are residents of Galveston County.Volunteers are using airboats, search dogs and even helicopters to search for remains. Sheriff's deputies, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Texas State Parks & Wildlife Department wardens are looking for bodies in large debris fields left by the storm.
More than 1 million people evacuated the Texas coast due to Ike. The storm caused flooding and deaths as far away as Pennsylvania and Illinois.
BRIDGE CITY - Kevin Walker, 38, stood along the marshy shoulder of Texas 87 Thursday afternoon by a spot where the marsh grass was bent over.
His brother's truck was found at the spot three days after Hurricane Ike struck Southeast Texas. No one has found his brother.But Tim Miller, the founder of Texas Equusearch, had arrived and was working on a plan to search the marsh and highway culverts for Greg Walker. In this case, the group's usual horses were replaced by an airboat owned and driven by Paul McElroy of Anahuac."Some places you can't go in in anything but an airboat," McElroy said.Greg Walker's 41st birthday was this past Sunday but his family hasn't seen or heard from him since the early morning of Sept. 13 when Hurricane Ike was wreaking havoc on Southeast Texas and on Orange County's coast in particular.Kevin Walker said his brother took his family to Jennings,=2 0La., then headed back to his house in Port Neches. Greg Walker was traveling from Bridge City toward the Rainbow Bridge on Texas 87 in the marshy area of Sabine Lake as the storm surge rose, Kevin Walker said.Greg Walker made a 911 call to Orange County law enforcement between 1 and 2 a.m. Sept. 13, his brother said, one of the last times anyone talked to him.The storm surge swept across Bridge City, destroying all but about 14 of 3,500 buildings, Mayor Kirk Roccaforte has said. The surge also swept Greg Walker's white Dodge extended-cab pickup off the road.And he hasn't been seen or heard from since.A now-brown tallow tree near the spot where the truck was found has a hunk of marsh grass, left by the flood, about eight feet off the ground.In addition to his brother, Greg Walker's wife, two daughters, ages 19 and 11, and his son, 16, are waiting for him.Kevin Walker had been looking around the site and suggested looking inside road culverts nearby. Miller, along with Lisa Hoffman of Equusearch, set up underwater cameras for a search."You need to stay back here," McElroy told Kevin Walker as they sat on chairs stacked outside a flooded restaurant.
Kevin Walker said he won't ride with the Equusearch team. But he'll be close by, staring at the landscape and wondering about his brother.
Details epitomize Geneva's spirit Sept. 26, 2008 By Karen McEnany-Phillips
Details matter to a writer, so as I drove through one of the still flooded areas of Geneva a few weeks ago, something caught my eye. It was in the early evening of Thursday, Sept. 11, and like everyone I had been thinking about that Tuesday seven years ago, recalling what I was doing and the awful images Americans watched that day. In previous years I had spent more time reliving those details leading up to the anniversary, but this year, as we found ourselves surrounded by floodwaters of the St. Johns River, the memories were somewhat overshadowed by the watery issues at hand. Back in the controlled environment of my daytime workplace it was easier to remember the feelings of that September morning in 2001. The confusion at the sight of the smoky first tower, the sickening feeling when the second plane hit, and the overwhelming impact when the towers fell and smoke filled the Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., skies — all those memories came back to me. Although some of the details have blurred, I remember the feeling of being bonded ev en to strangers and that a love of country seemed to unite us all. This year I was feeling a little sad at that loss of unity, and the deep partisanship that marks the 2008 election year.So it was with these mixed feelings that I came upon a small but poignant scene along a dusty Geneva road. Two or three pickup trucks had been parked along the road in front of a house that clearly was impacted by the high water. A fishing boat and a small bulldozer were also nearby. Although the elevation of the house seemed higher than the water, access to it was obviously a challenge, thus the boat. Who knows if the occupants had electricity or air conditioning? Next came the details that stopped my breath.First, a neat pile of sandbags was stacked not far from the gate and mailbox, ready and waiting just in case. Next, the homeowner had taken the time to hang a brand new, flawless American flag. In the midst of the misery and disruption that came with the floodwaters, this Geneva resident took the time to remember what America and Sept. 11 meant and means to us every day.The simple snapshot of the sandbags and the pristine flag spoke to me of independence, resilience, preparation and patriotism no matter what burdens come our way. It demonstrated a can-do spirit and a pride of20country no matter what. To me it meant "We do not forget" — no matter our current conditions, inconveniences, or how much time has passed.I toast Ben Wheeler's words from his column last week regarding Genevans. To quote Ben, "Folks are helping folks, with sandbags, privately owned tractors, airboats, personal watercraft, bush hooks, hoes and shovels. It's what's needed, so they do it. That's Geneva."We often speak of Genevans' love of God and country, and the symbols of that deep affection have been evident for many decades in our village and surround us still. Houses of worship support and comfort us and the beauty of God's creations supplies us with an unending source of inspiration. Whether we commune in a pew or under a live oak, we believe in a higher power. We honor our history through education in our elementary schools, our historical society and its drumbeat of activities, and preservation of hundreds of items in our Geneva museum. We are fortunate to live in an area where the American symbol, the eagle, thrives among us. In this election year of political sound bytes like "Change we need," "Straight talk," and "Words matter," I would add two more: "Never forget" and "Details matter." @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ http://www.wwltv.com/topstories/stories/wwl091408cbplaq.77d194f6.html Two major Plaquemines levee breaches endanger refinery September 14, 2008 Susan Edwards / Eyewitness News In flood-plagued Plaquemines parish, the west bank continues to struggle. Highway 23 is impassable, and much of the surrounding land is covered in at least three feet of floodwaters, and in some spots, the depth is even greater. Video: Watch the Story http://www.wwltv.com/topstories/stories/wwl091408cbplaq.77d194f6.html#Crews spent hours last Thursday reinforcing the Citrus Land Levee with sandbags, but Hurricane Ike's massive reach and long windspan broke the levee in two spots. "One's about a football field long, the other's about 15 feet long," said Phillip Truxillo, Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Operations for Plaquemines Parish. Late Saturday night into Sunday morning crews started stacking up the sandbags to try and block off some of the water, but the floodwaters were too overwhelming. "The refinery's pumping water out because water is getting into it. It won't force it to shut it down, but it could have," said Truxillo. "We cant' allow Conoco Phillips to be flooded because it's our refinery. It's a critical infrastructure for the United States for fuel, gas, everything," he said. The breaks in the levee will actually help recede water levels, said Truxillo. The parish is also activating 20 water pumps and counting on mother nature to lend a helping hand as well. "There is a cold front coming tomorrow that has north winds to help it push out," said Truxillo. But parish leaders say until hurricane protection levees come to Plaquemines Parish, each storm is another serious threat to their property and their lives. Minos Scarabin stayed through the storm, knowing the levees may not hold up. Now, the cattle farmer is fighting to save his livelihood. "It'll take a month at least to pump the water out," said Scarabin, referring to his pastures, covered with flood waters. Farmers and rescue groups have spent the last two days saving as many cattle as they can. It's estimated that several hundred have been overwhelmed by floodwaters. "We got about 800, 900 momma cows, so that's probably 1,200, 1,300 head of cows we're dealing with just on this group," said Scarabin. The fate of his pasture land and his cattle are still questionable. Scarabin said he will depend on state and federal help to survive. "Otherwise
The final hours brought the awful realization to victims of Hurricane Ike that they had waited too long, that this storm wasn't like the others that left nothing worse than a harrowing tale to tell.
George Helmond, a hardy Galveston salt, watched the water rise and told a buddy: I was born on this island and I'll die on this island.
Gail Ettenger, a free spirit who adopted the Bolivar Peninsula as her home 15 years ago, and told a friend in a last phone call: I really messed up this time.
Within hours, the old salt and the free spirit were gone as the powerful Category 2 hurricane wracked the Texas Gulf Coast on Sept. 13, flattening houses, obliterating entire towns and claiming at least 33 lives.
The dead - as young as 4, as old as 79 - included lifelong Galvestonians firmly rooted on the island and transplants drawn by the quiet of coastal living. Matriarchs and fathers. Working people and retirees.
Seven people drowned in a storm surge that moved in earlier and with more ferocity than expected. Nine others died in the grimy, sweaty aftermath, when lack of power and medicine exacted its toll. Eleven people were poisoned by carbon monoxide or killed in fires from the generators they used in their own attempts to survive.
And while the list of dead could still grow, hundreds of people are still missing three weeks after Ike's assault on Texas. This week, cadaver dogs pinpointed five spots on Crystal Beach where bodies could be trapped under rubble.
Some vanished during the evacuation of towns in the storm's path. Many were last heard in desperate, last-ditch calls for help.
``We are definitely looking and are going to do anything we can to find them, but there may not be any answers to be given,'' said Galveston County emergency management spokesman Colin Rizzo. ``There are definitely going to be people from Hurricane Ike that are never found.''
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It took searchers more than two weeks to find the body of Greg Walker, who was stranded in surging water as he was driving back to his home in Port Neches during the storm. The 40-year-old father of three was returning from Louisiana, where he had taken his family.
Around 2:30 a.m., Walker told a 911 dispatcher that he was going to try to swim to safety. He tried calling his wife, but the line went dead.
Orange County officials used search teams, helicopters and cadaver dogs but could not find Walker. Fifteen days after Walker's last call, volunteers from Texas Equ uSearch discovered his body a mile from where his truck was found.
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Even as Ike bore down on Texas, Jim Devine refused to leave his cream-colored house within sight of the bay in San Leon. Devine had moved to the fishing town after retiring and loved the tranquil way of living there, neighbors said.
The 76-year-old Devine drowned when Ike sent water barreling through his house, picking him off the second-story porch and dropping him a block away. Days later, Devine's empty home still bore the scars of the storm - shattered windows, twisted wood, and his boat, the Seabar, jammed under the front steps.
His daughter left a warning and a memorial in orange spray paint: ``Jim Devine. No Trespassing.''
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At 72, George Helmond had ridden out many storms and thought he could take on Ike, too, neighbor Don Hanson said. ``A lot of old Galvestonians are like that.''
Helmond had been one of the first residents of Sydnor Lane, which overlooks a bayou on one side and a golf course on the other. A retired electrician, Helmond was a die-hard fisherman, a dove hunter and straight-shooter intensely proud of his Galveston roots.
``He had no problem telling you what he thought,'' said Jim Williams, whose family has lived on the street for more than 30 years. ``He was an old school Texan, a good ol' boy.''
But the morning before Ike slammed ashore, Helm ond began to have second thoughts about staying.
Around 10 a.m., Helmond called Hanson, who had already left, to say the water had already slipped over the road and toward his house. The street - the only way out of the neighborhood - was already impassable.
At 9:30 p.m., Helmond and Hanson talked for the last time. By then, the water had pummeled through Helmond's garage, crushing the doors and submerging his Cadillac. Hanson begged his friend to grab a life vest at his house or to seek shelter there.
But at 2:30 a.m., for reasons no one knows, Helmond got in his pickup truck and drove off at the height of Ike's fury.
Neighbors found Helmond's body the next day inside the truck, which had slammed into the white golf course fence. The windshield was shattered.
Helmond's home suffered little damage. The water had reached above the first-floor garage, but not inside the house.
``If he had stayed home and hadn't gone out, he'd be OK, but he panicked,'' said Hanson, 66. ``Life goes on, but I will miss a good friend and I will think about him.''
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Gail Ettenger stumbled upon her house in Gilchrist by accident. But once she saw the site on the bay side of Bolivar Peninsula, she knew she would never leave.
``It was the best thing that ever happened to me,'' said JoAnne Burks, Ettenger's neighbor and close friend.
Ettenger, a native of New Jersey, distilled the house with her own energy and style. The 58-year-old's garden bloomed with vibrant birds-of-paradise.
And Reba, an 11-year-old Great Dane hobbled by arthritis, was her baby. Ettenger loved to treat the dog to dinners of chicken and roast beef, Burks recalled.
``She took care of all God's creatures,'' said Burks. ``She was just a good, caring person.''
But Ettenger, a chemist at ExxonMobil, didn't evacuate, reasoning that her house had weathered Hurricane Rita in 2005 without a problem. She also did not want to leave Reba, who could no longer climb into Ettenger's Jeep.
Burks and her husband pleaded with Ettenger to change her mind. But she insisted.
Hours before Ike made landfall, Ettenger knew she had made the wrong choice. She called the Burks and described the water pushing up under her feet, the propane tanks and other household items drifting by her windows, and wondered which would float better: her Jeep or her house.
Her voice was shaky with fear, Burks said.
They suggested Ettenger break into a newly built house that was higher and sturdier than her own. Again, Ettenger refused, saying she could not force her way into a neighbor's house.
Burks spent the next 10 days searching for her friend, calling local, county and state officials without success. She tried the American Red Cross, FEMA, even private investigators.
``I didn't want her to wind up like the victims of Katrina, who were never found or identified,'' Burks said.
Ettenger's body was found Sept. 23, tossed on a debris field in a Chambers County marsh about 10 miles from her house.
Burks said both her house and Ettenger's are gone. The house the Burks had urged Ettenger to break into was still standing.
And, amid the muck and remnants of homes, Burks found a pink leather collar. The name Reba was spelled out in rhinestones.
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Port Bolivar held special meaning for 79-year-old Marian Violet Arrambide. She met her husband there during World War II. Many years later, he built the beach house where they could retire.
Arrambide, a retired nurse suffering the onset of dementia, lived with her daughter, Magdalena Strickland, and nephew, Shane Williams, in that beach house before Ike struck.
All three have been missing since the morning of Sept. 12, just as Ike began to come ashore.
``My sister said 'I'm walking out the door in a hurry. Everything's taken care of, I'll see you in a few hours.' That was it,'' said son Raul Arrambide, describing a 6:15 a.m. phone call.
Since then, Arrambide has had little luck getting help or information. Instead, Arrambide said, he's been passed from one agency to another.
``They send you back and forth until you're worn out,'' said Arrambide, his voice20showing the strain of the last weeks.
After five days with no word and no answers, Arrambide borrowed a boat to search the area himself, but sheriff's deputies turned people away. He finally found a local contractor who is helping search for missing residents. That man found his relatives' vehicles, which had been washed off the road into a tree grove.
``I want to keep the hope that they are still alive, but by not hearing from any of them, that hope is getting smaller and smaller,'' he said. ``They helped people all their lives. They did not deserve to go this way.''
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The estimate of missing residents varies wildly from one agency to another.
According to the non-profit Laura Recovery Center, about 300 people are missing. Of those, about 200 from Galveston. However, the number ``goes up and down by the minute'' as people call in to remove or add names, cautioned executive director Bob Walcutt.
About 50 people are still missing from the unincorporated areas of Galveston County, which include Bolivar Peninsula, Rizzo said.
Galveston city officials don't know how many island residents are missing, said city spokeswoman Alicia Cahill.
Immediately after the hurricane, Galveston officials conducted door-to-door searches for survivors and possible victims. But the city is no longer taking an active role in the search, she said.
``We have so much to do with resp onding to damages and infrastructure, we haven't moved into the later stage of looking for people.''
In Galveston and Chambers counties, search teams have been using airboats and all-terrain vehicles to sift through massive debris fields, tangled and fetid marshlands, and the rubble left behind by Ike.
The task is massive and the terrain is perilous, said Hector Gonzalez, a game warden with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, as he steered anairboatthrough a maze of cuts and sloughs in Chamber County.
Bodies could have been tossed anywhere in the marshes, where thickets of trees are tangled with seagrass and littered with the contents of houses. Refrigerators, office chairs, and television sets are scattered everywhere -- in the mud, in bushes, on treetops.
The marshes are thick with snakes, alligators and swarms of mosquitoes. In some places, Gonzalez said, searchers could step into waist-high mud or into an alligator nest.
For most of the last three weeks, search crews were limited to sheriff's deputies, volunteers firefighters and the 16 game wardens in a five-county-area, despite requests for more assistance from local officials.
Late last week, reinforcements from the state and special K-9 search and recovery units arrived, said Crystal Beach Volunteer Fire Chief David Loop, who has been leading recovery efforts.
Loop, whose own house was reduced to a concrete slab by Ike, helped recover bodies after Katrina. But this mission is more personal. Some of those still missing were his neighbors and friends, people he knew by nickname and greeted with a wave and a ``How ya doin'?''
``We should make every effort we can to find someone. You should know in your mind that you did every thing possible to find that person or recover that person,'' said Loop. ``Unfortunately, there may be people we might not be able to find, but we want to be able to show the public that did we everything possible to give them closure.''
While most have heeded the mandatory evacuations to leave in Texas, KPLC's Lee Peck reports some have no choice but to stay.
Life along the Sabine River is usually calm, but with evacuations and Ike's pending arrival locals living in the surrounding bayou communities say it's been no picnic as they experience a storm surge like never before.
Orange, TX Resident Roxanna Blanchard:"I've lived here for 42 years and I have never seen the water, the parks the water where everybody sits and plays dominoes and cards, there are usually people fishing on wharfs... This flooding is going to keep on because there is so much little ditches and everything else that is behind houses where it is going to come from the main sources out there it's going to flood. A lot of people are going to see water in their houses."
Ask Ike nears, Diamond Granger tells she's safer than she was yesterday. In a car accident earlier this year, Diamond has been in and out of the hospital ever since. Most recently in Houston where she was told to leave.
Granger:"I was supposed to be going home today, but they were sending everybody home, anybody that was leaving Friday or Saturday they were telling them go ahead, get your stuff get out of here. Because I would rather be down here because we are just getting the edge of it here. Houston and Galveston are getting hit straight on."
As the river continues to swell, those still here are taking pictures. Many of them say after leaving for Gustav, they can't afford to run this time.
Cardell Douglas:"It's the first hurricane I actually had to stay for and I made sure that my wife and kid got out safely."
With his family now safe in Lufkin, Cardell Douglas stays behind to protect his home.
Douglas:"I'm trying to make sure everything was take care of at our house."
Lee: "Before it actually comes in."
Douglas: "Yes, I didn't have enough time to get the boards up and everything, but I picked up any debris around my house."
There's no hurricane parties here to welcome Ike, as this bayou community has no choice but to sit, watch and wait.
Blanchard: "I'm going to ride until I can't, then if I can't I'm going to call somebody to money gram me... (Laughs). We have to ride it out because all of my kin folk are in Louisiana, so I don't have no place to go... They're riding it out too... So we're all stuck."
That is how Texas Department of Public Service Sgt. Jason Dudley described the areas of Chambers County and the Bolivar Peninsula where he and a group of area troopers were station ed shortly after Hurricane Ike hit the Texas Gulf Coast on Sept. 13.
Dudley and his team of 18 troopers were deployed Sept. 17 to help patrol and be a law enforcement presence immediately after the storm. In addition to Rebecca Shelley and Dale Escobedo, from Mineral Wells, Dudley’s group included personnel from Haskell, Weatherford and the Weatherford area.
“We manned some check points, especially in the beginning,” he said. “We also had units doing roving patrols. We did a little bit of everything.”
Their primary objective, Dudley said, was “more a law enforcement presence to deter crime, protect property.”
According to Dudley, there were representatives from several law enforcement agencies working the area. “All kinds of people were spread out.”
The aftermath of the hurricane was apparently something to see firsthand.
“To see it first hand was unbelievable,” Dudley said. “It [television] really doesn’t do it justice. … Just the amount of destruction, to see the homes completely gone, it was just devastating. From talking to some of the local residents, they said it was the worst they’d ever seen.”
He added, “There’s a True Value hardware store sign that stayed upright and an empty concrete slab.”
Texas Parks and Wildlife Game Warden Bill Jones said they deployed an airboat behind the hardware property as part of their mission to locate living livestock.
“The destruction … was just massive,” he said. “At the Port Arthur Yacht Club, all the boats – big boats and little boats – were all stacked up on the beach.”
On the Bolivar Peninsula, Jones recalled, “the only things left were the septic systems and the slabs.”
Jones, who was stationed in the area from 1982 to1985, was one of the three Palo Pinto County game wardens who went to the disaster area to help with the relief efforts.
“We originally went down there to drive airboats,” Jones said. He explained they attempted to locate livestock that survived the storm and “did find a few live cattle” but also saw a lot of dead wildlife like nutrias.
“There was a lot of dead cattle, a lot of alligators,” Dudley recalled.
Jones said they would capture the alligators and release them into the marshes.
During their time in the Gulf Coast region, Jones was stationed in the Beaumont and Vidor area, staying in a closed down Academy Sports & Outdoors store along with a group of National Guardsmen.
Dudley and his team stayed in Winnie, Texas, and slept in an evacuated nursing home.
“We slept on cots and were able to take showers,” he recalled. “They really took care of us. It was unbelievable. Chambers County is rural i n nature. They are a tight community.”
Both Dudley and Jones said they saw people working with each other to clean up the aftermath.
“Overall, everyone really came together,” the DPS sergeant observed. “It was really interesting to see – in a time of disaster, so many people were coming together and helping each other.”
Hurricane Ike is the ninth named storm and fifth hurricane this year. Originating as a tropical depression off the coast of Africa, Ike crossed the Atlantic Ocean and hit the Texas coast as a Category 2 hurricane. Ike is blamed for 67 deaths in the United States, with at least 32 deaths in Texas.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this article.
Searchers dreading what they may find under the debris
Chambers marsh contains hazards and maybe victims
By CINDY HORSWELL Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Sept. 30, 2008
Even with long rubber boots, Jason Saunders got drenched Tuesday as he trudged through a 10-acre field of debris that Hurricane Ike deposited in the Chambers County marsh.
One leg sank up to his thigh in mud, as he picked through everything from lumber to a plastic Christmas dish. Wreckage there mostly came from beach homes demolished 29 miles away in Bolivar. But some also came from his family's and two dozen others' camp houses that no longer exist on the nearby Trinity River.
While salvaging what they can to rebuild their cabin, Saunders and his stepfather, Bryan Huckleroy, know they might also discover something else — bodies of those still missing from the storm.
"We have found some dead hogs, but that's it so far," said Huckleroy, who keeps the phone number to the sheriff's dispatcher in his pocket. "No doubt there are bodies out here somewhere. But it will be hard to find them if they're underneath this stuff."
So far only one Bolivar woman who drowned in the storm has been found in the county's marsh.
Texas Parks and Wildlife game warden Hector Gonzalez uses his 350-horsepower airboat to skim across two inches of water, avoiding alligators, snakes and nail-studded boards in this debris field, which is only about four miles south of Interstate 10 East.
"I use my nose to smell for anything dead. Or look for a finger, hand or something that might be poking up," said Gonzalez. He admits having trouble telling the difference between the scent of dead alligators, cows, birds and other creatures mixed into the piles.
Plus he noted the piles — once stacked as high as his shoulders — have settled into a flat surface, and some of the debris has also been sucked back out into the bay with the tides.
"You can tell that the storm surge was sometimes 20 feet high in this area," he said, pointing to a life preserver and salt grass draped in the treetops. "This surge went all the way to Interstate 10 and dumped debris on the Old and Lost River Bridge there."
He has crisscrossed this saltmarsh with his airboat, which is one of the only ways to search this rugged uninhabited terrain.
Chambers County Judge Jimmy Sylvia said Texas Task Force One is bringing a dozen all-terrain vehicles and eight cadaver dogs to help in the search Saturday.
One of the stumbling blocks has been swarms of mosquitoes.
"The insects will clog your nostrils," said Gonzalez.
Tuesday, the U.S. Army used giant planes to spray the insects that Sylvia jokes are big enough to "wear saddles."
Propane tanks, oil tanks, lawnmowers, refrigerators and other poisonous cleaning materials deposited in these piles may also pose a health hazard, Sylvia said.
SHARÓN STEINMANN CHRONICLE
Texas Parks and Wildlife game warden Hector Gonzalez uses his 350-horsepower airboat Tuesday to skim across two inches of water, avoiding alligators and snakes in this debris field in Chambers County.
Grisly finds put Houston-area Ike death toll at 32 2 bodies found along Galveston shore, another in Orange County
By DANE SCHILLER Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Sept. 30, 2008
The Houston-area death toll from Hurricane Ike has reached 32 with the discovery this weekend of two unidentified bodies along the shore in Galveston County and the body of a Port Neches man found in Orange County.
Meanwhile, 40 people who went missing during Hurricane Ike have been reported found, according to dozens of calls received by Laura Recovery Center's hot line. However, the hot line also received about 16 new cases, leaving its count of storm-related missing persons at 365, according to an estimate from Bob Walcutt, executive director.
Walcutt said privacy laws that keep hospitals and shelters from confirming the location of evacuees and patients have kept many families apart.
"Because of that, we've got people who are desperately looking for loved ones who are safe in shelters," he said.
Walcutt said he hoped the list of missing will be pared down significantly in the next week or two to those who "really are missing."
His current list includes many elderly people and at least 26 children. Most of the missing live in Galveston County, more than 50 from the Bolivar Peninsula alone.
Chambers County officials, meanwhile, are awaiting reinforcements to help continue the search of miles of debris washed six miles inland by Hurricane Ike. Searchers have been picking through Bolivar's wreckage for any signs of people who have been reported missing.
"The state has promised to send us as many workers as we need from Task Force One to do the job," said Chambers County Judge Jimmy Sylvia. Until taking a break this past weekend, an exhausted band of eight sheriff's deputies, state game wardens and national refuge workers had been conducting daily searches.
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Rescue attempt delayed
The three bodies found this weekend include that of a Port Neches man who had been missing since he called 911 when Hurricane Ike made landfall, authorities said.
Texas EquuSearch volunteers discovered Greg Walker's body Sunday about a mile from where his truck was found, said Lt. J. LeBoeuf of the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
Walker called in distress early Sept. 13, but no rescue attempt could be launched until the next day, LeBoeuf said.
"The wind was too high, and water was still white-capping," he said.
Walker, 40, was married with three children. Port Neches is southeast of Beaumont in Jefferson County.
Tim Miller, of Texas Equu-Search, said his volunteers had s pent four days in Orange County searching for Walker. A friend of Walker's spotted his body Sunday, Miller said.
The two unidentified bodies, both found Saturday in Galveston County, are greatly decomposed, but authorities hoped to find more clues to their identities during autopsies conducted Monday. Results were not immediately available.
A fisherman discovered the body of a person believed to be a Caucasian male about 3:15 p.m. Saturday on the rocks two miles west of an area known as Severs Cut. The other body, believed to be a Caucasian female, was spotted in a debris pile about three hours later by all-terrain vehicle riders on the northwest side of Pelican Island, about 300 yards from Pelican Cut.
"The more people that are out and about going places, the more likely they are to find folks," said D.J. Florence, chief investigator at the Galveston County Medical Examiner's Office.
The weekend discoveries bring the total number of deaths nationwide from Hurricane Ike to 67, according to The Associated Press. The 600-mile-wide storm caused flooding as far north as Illinois.
Searching for remains
State game wardens and other law-enforcement officers have shifted from looking for survivors to finding the remains of the deceased, said Aaron Reed, a spokesman for Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.
"Our expectation is there are certainly more storm victims to be found," he said. "Whether we are able to find=2 0them, I don't know."
Aerial spraying has begun to fend off massive numbers of mosquitoes that make search options almost impossible.
"A great deal of debris was washing out to sea, and some of the missing may never be found, unfortunately," Reed said.
Capt. Rod Ousley, also of the parks department, is overseeing search efforts in an enormous coastal area that runs from the Louisiana state line to the Harris County line.
"In this deal, we've tried by airboat, four-wheeler, four-wheel-drive truck and helicopter, and we're just going to keep trying," he said.
Staff writers Lise Olsen, Rosanna Ruiz and Cindy Horswell contributed to this report.
HOUSTON — The Texas death toll from Hurricane Ike rose to at least 32 with the discovery of three bodies, which were found this weekend amid storm debris in Galveston and Orange counties.
On Sunday afternoon, volunteers with Texas Equusearch discovered the body of Greg Walker, who had been missing since Sept. 13, when he made a 911 call for help after he got caught in Ike's storm surge, said Lt. Jimmy LeBo euf, with the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
Walker's body was found in the tree-line of a levee in Orange County, about a mile away from the spot where his truck was discovered last Tuesday. Walker was trapped by rising water while driving back to his home in Port Neches after taking his family to Louisiana.
Walker called 911 at about 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 13, just as Ike barrelled into the Texas Gulf Coast. Just before Walker lost contact, he told a dispatcher he was going to try to swim to safety, LeBoeuf said.
Search teams used helicopters, airboats and cadaver dogs during the two-week search for Walker, who would have turned 41 on Sept. 21, LeBoeuf said.
In Galveston County, fishermen found the body of a man Saturday on Goat Island, off the Bolivar Peninsula, according to the Galveston County Medical Examiner's Office. The body was that of a white male, who was wearing blue jeans and one black tennis shoe.
Also on Saturday, the body of a woman was found on top of a debris pile on Pelican Island. The body was that of a white female wearing a black tank top, the medical examiner's office said.
Neither victim could be identified. Autopsies were scheduled for Monday.
The weekend discoveries bring the total of deaths nationwide from Hu rricane Ike to 67. The 600-mile wide storm caused flooding as far north as Illinois.
Woman rescued by IRVFD after accident TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS
August 12, 2008
A 33-year-old woman was transported Saturday by ambulance to a local hospital after being hit on the head by a falling tree branch on the Illinois River.
The Illinois River Volunteer Fire Department received a call at 3:45 p.m. for help in rescuing the woman from the river just above Hanging Rock.
She was floating on the river when the incident occurred.
Oklahoma Scenic Rivers Commission rangers also helped find the woman, who suffered a large cut to her forehead. She was taken to the landing at Peavine by airboat.
Members of the Broome County Sheriff's Department search the Chenango River on Saturday near Hillcrest.
Emergency personnel to resume search today By Jim Wright Press & Sun-Bulletin
FENTON -- Recovery crews and dive team members will resume their search this morning for the body of a 41-year-old Town of Chenango man believed to have drowned Saturday afternoon in a former quarry lake that is now part of the Chenango River.
Wayne Hoover of Riverview Lane, Town of Chenango, slipped in 3 to 4 feet of water, authorities said.
"We are simply in a recovery mode at this t ime," Broome County Sheriff David Harder said. "We are doing the best we can to find the subject."
Hoover was identified Saturday night by Broome County Sheriff's Detective James Broderick.
"He yelled for help. I didn't really think he was having a major problem. I looked away for a minute and when I turned back, he was gone," said Hoover's friend, Eric Torvund, 30, also of Riverview Lane.
The search began shortly after 4 p.m., with the dive team searching areas ranging from 3 to 35 feet deep, according to Capt. Michael Fedish of the Broome County Sheriff's Department. Dive team members continued searching until 8:30 p.m.
Hoover was spending Saturday afternoon with Torvund. They were sitting in chairs on the bank of the river while fishing, Fedish said. Hoover went into the water to cool off and was still fishing when he appeared to slip, went under water and never surfaced, police said.
Torvund was nearly swept away by the "crazy" currents as he went to his friend's assistance, he told Harder.
The area where Hoover disappeared was described as a "small lake" by Broome County Sheriff's Officer Lt. Kathleen Newcomb. The river took over the lake, where Fedish said the currents go in several directions.
A staging area for rescue equipment -- and about four dozen rescue workers -- was established behind Binghamton Ithaca Express Inc., 287 W. Arterial Highway.
Family members, including Hoover's fa ther, arrived at the site shortly after 8 p.m.
Torvund, who was kept a distance from rescue workers and onlookers, stayed as the search continued for 4 1/2 hours.
The Broome County Water Rescue Dive Response Team, airboats and motorized rafts from the City of Binghamton, Johnson City and the sheriff's department were assisted by a state police helicopter. Shoreline searches were conducted by firefighters from Hillcrest, Port Dickinson, Chenango Bridge and Chenango under the command of the Broome County Emergency Field Operations Unit.
Yuma County sheriff's deputies can now travel where no watercraft has taken them before. A newly acquired airboat will help deputies patrol shallow areas of the Colorado River.
"It's a great resource," said Maj. Leon Wilmot of the Yuma County Sheriff's Office. "We can do a number of different responses by finding missing people on the Colorado River, drowning victims or boating accidents."
The airboat's flat underside makes it possible for law enforcement officials to get across the sandy shallow areas of the lower Colorado River, he said. It is also great for deploying emergency dive team members to find missing people people on the river and transport first aid medical personnel to save victims.
Also with the airboat, law enforcement officials have the ability to patrol areas anywhere from Laguna Dam to Morelos Dam.
Before, the YCSO tried everything from jet skis to motor boats to patrol along the river but none of those resources were as effective as the airboat.
"This is the first vessel that we can actually work on the lower Colorado River," said Lt. Darren Simmons of YCSO.
Now, with the new airboat YCSO deputies can also carry up to six people, including the airboat operator. The airboat has the ability to carry drowning victims to their safety.
"It's more expedient and a way to get there quicker with whatever the case may be, whether it be someone drowning or any type of accident," Wilmot, spokesman for the YCSO, said.
With the airboat, law enforcement officials are ensuring that all boating laws are being enforced and also keeping an eye on immense boating traffic that can cause accidents, Simmons said.
"Just the presence (of the airboat) slows a lot of them down," he said. The YCSO was able to purchase the airboat with a grant received from Arizona State Parks.
The airboat is from Coco, Fla., and is estimated to cost about $42,000. It has the capability to run up to 70 mph, said Simmons. But the airboat is usually traveling about 35 to 40 mph along the lower Colorado River, he said.
"It's a very=2 0valuable platform," Simmons said. "With this we can now come down and do some patrolling."
The Yuma County Sheriff's Office has a new tool to promote sa fety on the Colorado River. You can hear it coming from miles away, but its agility is far more impressive than its roaring engine. Deputies are using their new airboat to expand patrols to the busy lower river.
"We're starting to see a lot more PWC (personal watercraft) like the jet-skis and the smaller boats running down in this area, and just with the people swimming in these shallow areas, they come flying through here. You're going to end up with somebody getting hit," says Lt. Darren Simmons.
Deputies watch for a number of violations, but their main goal is to promote water safety. These patrols were virtually impossible before the airboat. That's because average boats can't glide over shallow waters.
This new watercraft means more than heightened law enforcement presence. Deputies say it will dramatically decrease response times.
"[It would take] an hour or two hours if not more depending if there was somebody at the lake who could hook on then drive back," says Lt. Simmons. The sheriff's office keeps their boats at Martinez Lake. If they received a distress call on the lower river, it would take hours to reach the victims by truck. Problem is most deputies drive cruisers.
"With this boat, it's kept in Yuma over at our shop area, so we can pick it up and be on the water in just 15 minutes."
Getting to the scene and getting there fast. It's=2 0a new reality for people who enjoy the river and the deputies who vow to protect them.
The search is over for a 20-year-old man who went missing Saturday while tubing on the Salt River. Juan Tepezano's body was spotted from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office helicopter at about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday.
A spokesman said the body was found about 100 yards south of the garbage dump, near where the victim went under while tubing with friends Saturday. An airboat will pick up Tepezano's body.
Sheriff's detective Aaron Douglas said Tepezano was floating in an inner tube with family and friends when his tube broke free from the group. All of them had been bound together. Douglas said Tepezano fell off his tube and he tried to swim toward a cliff wall. A large group of tubers floated over Tepezano, and he did not resurface.
Sheriff's lake patrollers conducted the initial search Saturday and Sunday.
Authorities have apparently recovered the body of the 20-year-old man who went missing while tubing on Saturday afternoon, ending a three-day search.
A law enforcement helicopter found the body after it resurfaced at about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, about 100 yards south of the garbage dump where the man disappeared, said Deputy Lindsey Smith of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. Sheriff's officials said the body was that of the missing man.
The man was identified as Juan Tepezano of Brawley, Calif..
On Saturday, Tepezano was riding a tube in the rapids when his tube broke free from his friends' tubes, authorities said.
The man fell off by a bridge near a garbage dump and tried to swim toward a cliff wall, but a large group of tubes floated over the man and he did not resurface. Airboats and helicopters were launched over the weekend to search for him.
Video available: 12 News
Authorities on July 8, 2008, recovered the body of the 20-year-old man who went missing while tubing on July 5.
Divers, airboats and helicopters with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Monday will resume their search for a 20-year-old tuber who went missing Saturday afternoon at the Salt River.
The unidentified man was riding the rapids with some friends when his tube broke free from the group's tubes, which were bound together, said Det. Aaron Douglas, a Sheriff's Office spokesman.
Douglas said the victim fell off by a bridge near the Foxtail garbage dump and tried to swim toward the cliff wall. However, a large group of tubes floated over the man, and he did not resurface, the man's friends said.
The victim was dre ssed appropriately for water activity, Douglas added.
MCSO lake patrollers conducted the initial search Saturday and again Sunday morning, from 6 to 8 a.m., but it was called off by noon Sunday.
Airboats and helicopters were relaunched Sunday night, but divers will not return until today.
The bridge where the man was reported missing marks the end of Point One on the Salt River, which takes about two hours to reach, according to the Salt River Tubing and Recreation Web site.
— CONNEAUT — Firefighters came to the rescue Friday afternoon of two young girls briefly trapped in a rain-swollen Conneaut Creek. The girls, ages 12 and 13, were in good shape and did not require any medical attention at the scene, according to reports. Firefighters were dispatched to the Old Main Road bridge shortly before 4 p.m. A friend of the girls, using a cellular telephone, called for help, according to reports. The pair, both from Conneaut, were swimming in the creek when the “water came up real quick,” one girl told=2 0firefighters. The current was too strong for the girls to reach shore, firefighters said. When help arrived, the girls were clinging to a tree pinned against an old bridge abutment in the water. Conneaut Fire Station 1 firefighters Matt Anderson and Matt Marous, wearing safety vests, entered the water and tossed ropes to the girls, who were helped to shore, according to reports. The rescue was completed in a matter of minutes, firefighters said. An ambulance was dispatched and members of the fire department’s dive team also arrived as a precaution. Conneaut Fire Station 3 airboat was sent to the scene but didn’t need to enter the water, firefighters said. Severe storms that rolled through the region Thursday produced plenty of rain that boosted the depth of the creek dramatically. One firefighter said the creek rose two feet within the span of a few hours Friday.
(July 23, 2008)—Gov. Rick Perry asked President Bush Wednesday for a major disaster declaration as Hurricane Dolly made landfall at South Padre Island as a Category 2 storm.
By 2 p.m. Wednesday, Dolly had weakened slightly to a Category 1 storm with sustained winds of 95 miles per hour.
The bigger threat for the region, however, is flooding.
Dolly has the potential to produce widespread rainfall totals of eight to 12 inches and as much as 20 inches in isolated areas.
Perry issued a state disaster proclamation Tuesday for Aransas, Bexar, Brooks, Calhoun, Cameron, Hidalgo, Jim Wells, Kenedy, Kleberg, Nueces, Refugio, San Patricio, Starr, Victoria and Willacy Counties.
We are now working through the three steps, rescue, recovery and re-entry,” Perry said during a news conference Wednesday.
“We prepare for the worst and pray for the best,” he said.
More than 2,800 people were in shelters across the state Wednesday, the governor’s office said.
The state began to position resources ahead of the storm on Sunday.
Texas Forest Service: Three incident management teams have been deployed to Weslaco to support mass care activities. The Lone Star Task Force is on standby ready to be deployed.
Texas Military Forces: 1,200 national guardsmen, an incident management team and six UH-60s have been activated and pre-positioned throughout south Texas.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department: 81 game wardens, 68 boats and 8 airboats have been stationed from Corpus to Brownsville. An additional 84 wardens, 59 boats and 7 airboats are ready to deploy should it become necessary.
INTRACOASTAL CITY - Gusting winds betrayed the sunny skies and calm Gulf of Mexico on Monday as fishermen, oil industry workers and residents in Vermilion and Cameron parishes prepared for the possible arrival of Tropical Storm Edouard early today.
Tropical Storm Edouard was expected to come ashore this morning anywhere from western Louisiana to Port O'Connor, Texas.
Commercial shrimp boats, crew boats, even a few recreational boats passed Shell Morgan Landing in Intracoastal City as they made their way Monday through the Leland Bowman Locks via the Intracoastal Waterway, heading for the safety of inland waters.
"All the boats are coming in," Shelton Morgan, owner of Shell Morgan Landing said. "Not as many as for Rita because they think it's going to go in between Cameron and Texas. But it's still too rough for them to stay out."
Early Monday morning, there was no wind at Intracoastal City. By 11 a.m., wind was gusting at 20 to 25 miles per hour "from the east, which is not normal for the summer. It's usually only from the east after a cold front," his son, Tony Morgan, said.
Farther west in Pecan Island, where camps bear names like Maison de Coco, Pop a Top Hunting Camp, Woo Woo's and Porky's Place, life seemed unaffected Monday by the threat of Edouard.
A boy on a green John Deere tractor mowed the lawn. A shirtless man fished from the roadside. Cattle grazed. A flock of roseate spoonbills gathered on the water.
Down the road, just over the Cameron Parish line, at the Rockefeller State Wildlife Refuge - where Rita took a heavy toll that they're still trying to recover from - workers were taking Edouard seriously.
From 7 a.m. until noon on Monday they moved all heavy equipment to high ground and took their airboats to Lake Charles to assist with rescues if necessary, Guthrie Perry, biological program manager with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said.
The refuge lost several buildings to Rita 's 12-foot storm surge plus two 1,000 gallon fuel tanks. "We still haven't found them," Perry said.
Mary and Robert Johnson of Creole in Cameron Parish heeded warnings by the Sheriff's Office to leave their FEMA trailer. They had a trailer in Creole before Rita.
"Oh," she said, shaking her heard when asked what happened. "History. We would leave for years and always have something to come back to. Not with Rita."
Rotocraft Leasing was busy Monday moving its helicopters from its Creole operation.
"What we're doing is relocating our helicopters to come in behind the storm" for the transports to start back to the rigs, said Wayne Martin, chief operating officer.
Naperville Fire Department investigators continued Tuesday to seek the cause of a blaze that did more than $25,000 damage to a plastic coloring warehouse in an industrial park.
Seven workers escaped unhurt late Monday night from the explosion and fire at Accel Color Corp, 720 Frontenac Road. The warehouse is in the Naperville Center for Commerce and Industry on the city’s far northwest side.
Thirty-seven firefighters and 16 emergency vehicles from Naperville and Aurora responded to the emergency, which was reported at 10:50 p.m. Monday. Firefighters had the flames under control within a half-hour of their arrival at the scene, Assistant Naperville Fire Chief Rich Mikel said Tuesday in a written statement.
No one was injured during the blaze.
The source of the fire appeared to be “an air-handling unit that filters paint particles out of the inside air,” Mikel said. Fir efighters moved hoses into position and opened rooftop skylights to help alleviate the “extremely heavy smoke conditions” in the warehouse, he said.
Aurora firefighters were arriving around that same time after a 911 caller reported the warehouse was ablaze, Mikel said. A thick cloud of pungent but nontoxic smoke had wafted westward into Aurora, and was noted by passersby and others in areas around the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway tracks and as far west as Eola Road.
Mikel said Aurora firefighters also brought their water rescue team’s airboat to the warehouse.
The boat “generates a very large capacity air flow from the fan that powers the unit,” Mikel said. The fan “forced fresh air into the structure via an overhead garage door to assist in clearing the smoke from the building,” he said.
Acting Naperville Fire Chief Mike Zywanski said Monday night at the scene that firefighters found “a relatively small amount of fire (that) caused quite a bit of smoke.” He said firefighters remained in the area until 1 a.m. Tuesday, ventilating smoke from the building and conducting salvage and overhaul operations.
Mikel said the warehouse suffered no structural damage, with the flames confined to the air filtration machinery. He estimated damage in excess of $25,000, and added the cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Accel Color Corp. manufactures color for plastic products. Its Naperville facility empl oys 50 people, according to a business Web site
WOODSTOCK – Fish and Game officers pulled the body of a 19-year-old man from the rain-swollen Pemigewasset River yesterday evening, nearly six hours after he was swept away by current while swimming upstream, authorities said.
The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department will not identify the victim until Monday morning in order to make sure that all family members are notified, said Jim Goss, a lieutenant with the Fish and Game Department.
The victim lived in Dallas but was working in Lincoln over the summer, Goss said. He and a friend were swimming in the river behind the Lincoln police station about 12:30 p.m. when the current swept him away, Goss said.
His friend called 911, and although rescuers spotted the body at one point, the current pushed it downriver. At 4:30 p.m., a state police helicopter spotted the body hung up on rocks in the middle of the river in Woodstock.
Fish and Game retrieved the body at 6 p.m. with the department airboat. "There's no reason to suspect anything," Goss said. "He was just enjoying a nice day and got caught in the current. It happens in these rivers especially after we've had a strong rain."
Crashed airboats investigation under way BY JOE PAGAN FLORIDA TODAY
The two airboats that collided Monday afternoon on the St. Johns River are sitting in a Titusville evidence compound where officials with the Forida Fish and Wildlilfe Commission will investigate the cause of the crash.
The evidence compound, an FWC Titusville field office, gives investigators a calm place where they can study the evidence and determine what happened, FWC officer Lenny Salberg said.
Investigators will look to determine in which direction the boats were traveling and who was at fault, Salberg said.
“They’ll determine where boat A was going when it was hit by B, who had the right of way and who had the give-way.”
Three people riding in one airboat were injured when their craft collided with a second airboat occupied by two people who escaped injury, rescue workers with Brevard County Fire-Rescue said.
Two of the three occupants in the first airboat suffered serious injuries and were airlifted to Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, BC FR reported. The third person refused medical treatment, Orlando Dominguez, chief of EMS and public information officer, said.
The airboat riders were in a swampy canal off US 192, west of Interstate 95.
Salberg said he believed the FWC investigators would know more later this afternoon. Also, he thought he would be able to get the names of the parties involved.
Officials seek clues into airboats' crash BY JOE PAGAN FLORIDA TODAY
The remnants of the two airboats that collided Monday afternoon are in a Titusville evidence compound where officials with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will investigate the cause of the crash.
Officials said one airboat, occupied by three recreational boaters, sank after it collided with a state-operated airboat that was spraying herbicide in a swampy canal off U.S. 192, west of Interstate 95.
Both airboats were traveling at least 20 miles per hour, FWC officer Lenny Salberg said.
One of the recreational boaters, James Vickers, 36, of Melbourne is in serious condition at Holmes Regional Medical Center after he suffered a serious laceration on his back, several broken ribs and bad bruising.
The operator of the sunken vessel, Darryl Adams, 40, of Melbourne, had a minor laceration and internal bruising but was released from the hospital. The third man aboard the sunken airboat, Troy Reidel, 39, of Melbourne, did not require hospitalization.
The other airboat was owned by the St. Johns River Water Management District. Neither of the two district employees onboard was injured, said Ed Garland, a spokesman for the district.
"It was the end of their day, and they were on their way back in," Garland said.
Investigators are studying the remains of the boats to determine what happened, Salberg said. They will try to determine who was at fault, he said.
The Coast Guard rescued eight people, including three St. Bernard deputies, who were in a boat that was stuck in shallow water early Thursday morning, Coast Guard Lt. junior grade Christopher Aument said.
U.S. Coast Guard photo/Petty Officer 2nd Class Isreal Parker
The St. Bernard Sheriff’s Office was notified Wednesday afternoon about the stranded boat, which had two adults and three children onboard, and sent out an airboat to rescue them, Aument said. He said that airboat became stuck as well, and a second boat was sent out by the sheriff’s office.
That second boat was not able to get close enough, Aumont said, and at 1:30 a.m. they notified the Coast Guard about the probl em. The boats were sent back, Aumont said, but three deputies stayed with the stranded boat.
The Coast Guard successfully rescued all eight members later that morning after launching an HH-65C Dolphin helicopter, Aumont said. The aircrew transported them safely to the Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The Coast Guard rescued five people - plus three sheriff's deputies who had stayed with them to help - from a 14-foot airboat in St. Bernard Parish early Thursday.
The Coast Guard Air Station in New Orleans was notified at 1:30 a.m. about the grounded boat.
The vessel got stuck in shallow water after two adults and three children left for an afternoon trip on Wednesday.
The St. Bernard Sheriff's Office sent out another airboat, but it wasn't able to get close enough to get the stranded group safely on board. Three deputies remained with the grounded boat, and the Coast Guard sent a rescue helicopter.
The aircrew took all eight people to the Coast Guard Air Station.
Copyright 200820The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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