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Bring it on Mother Nature

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Sara Csurilla
  • 47th Flying Training Wing public affairs
LAUGHLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  Imagine a force that could literally creep up on your community so fast and strong takng hundreds of lives, injuring thousands and leaving even more homeless.

A force like this does exist, and she goes by the name of Mother Nature. She has displayed ruthlessness and blatant disregard for human life on many occasions, and we all know she will not hesitate to sneak up at any time.

That's why the Department of the Defense and many other Texas agencies gathered at Laughlin Air Force Base in preparation for her next attack.

If a tragedy like Hurricane Katrina were to threaten America again, we are ready said Lt. Col. Joe Pace, 79th Rescue Squadron commander, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.

Colonel Pace said this with confidence while debriefing a group of individuals with jobs ranging from an aerial gunner stationed at Davis-Monthan to a Border Patrol agent from Del Rio, Texas, during a seven-day exercise May 29-June 4.

"The federal government has a substantial part to play in helping disaster victims," said Capt. Matthew Ross, 47th Flying Training Wing chief of exercise and evaluations. "The president has tasked the DOD to work with civil governments to save lives. Here at Laughlin, we can help by bedding down rescue forces and this exercise helped us practice that."

The exercise kicked-off May 29, with Laughlin and Davis-Monthan simultaneously receiving a mock warning order and a chart showing a hurricane in-bound from the Gulf of Mexico.

After both bases received an exercise execution order for the 563rd Rescue Group to come to Laughlin June 1, their advance team and main forces arrived and set up their Rescue Operations Center. They performed their first rescue within the first 24 hours, Captain Ross said.

The following two days of the exercise required members of Laughlin and the 563rd RQG to work hand-in-hand with members of the U.S. Border Patrol, Texas Task Force, National Park Service, Customs and Border Protection and Val Verde Regional Medical Center to practice saving mock hurricane survivors from land and water.

To perform the rescues and ensure the exercise participants received the training they needed, the scenarios were as real as possible.

For water rescues, volunteers in life jackets were taken out to the middle of Lake Amistad by boat, dropped off and told to act as if they were hurricane survivors. After waiting only minutes, a HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter came to their rescue getting as low to the water as possible, dropping a few pararescue Airmen into the lake to aid in treating the survivors' simulated wounds and hoisted the survivors back into the helicopter. 

Survivors equipped with moulaged injuries including lacerations to the head, missing fingers and broken bones were scattered around the 850-mile shore of Lake Amistad and were also rescued with a group effort byall agencies involved.

On June 3, 39 more simulated survivors were rescued bringing the total number to 45, according to Colonel Pace.

Once the seven days of honing skills to save lives ended, agency participants packed up, were debriefed and said good-bye to the new-found partners from Davis-Monthan.

"This exercise was about preparing us to partner with multiple government agencies to provide support to the nation in its time of need," Colonel Pace said. "We absolutely feel prepped and ready to execute actual rescue missions during the 2009 hurricane season."