This is an email I received not too long ago from an Army retiree concerning his experience with the Coast Guard.
During hurricane Ike, I was called by a resident of Texas and asked if I could help him get rescued from his house in Bridge City, Tx. He said they were in the attic and the house was flooded. I contacted the Coast Guard station in Houston and they made the rescue with the information that I had given them.
The thing is that the Petty Officer I was dealing with WAS THE MOST CARING AND PROFESSIONAL PERSON I HAVE EVER MET. He cared and was quick to return my calls and keep me informed. this was about 1200 on Saturday, 13 Sept. 2008. If you can find this person would you please tell him how much I and probably hundreds of others appreciate his dynamic attitude and dedication to his job. Thank you Coast Guard personnel all over the world.
-Jack P.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what the Coast Guard does. If we didn't care about helping people, we wouldn't have voluntarily joined a service that would constantly put our lives at risk for the benefit of complete strangers. In a later exchange of emails this retiree said, "Your service members were absolutely fantastic. Their attitudes towards a third party trying to help because I had power and phone service though I was located in another state, was commendable. They were never rude and responded to me as if I was the only emergency they had. They explained how the recovery was based on the conditions of the persons needing rescue was how they determined priority and that they would act as soon as they could. I called several other assistance agencies prior to calling the Coast Guard and was treated badly by all of them. You can imagine how thrilled I was to talk to a person that really cared and expressed concern for the situation. God bless the men and women of the United States Coast Guard and for what they do and how they do it so well."
I couldn't have said it better myself.
-PA3 Stephen Lehmann
- Location:Houston, Tx
- Mood:oorah!
- Music:Led Zeppelin- III
I am Petty Officer Patrick Kelley from PADET Houston. I am currently in Galveston, Texas where there is a massive effort is underway to turn the Sector field office here into the largest buoy yard in the Coast Guard.
Hurricane Ike damaged or destroyed 90% of the aids to navigation in the Houston Ship Channel, so cutters have been deployed from all along the Gulf Coast to help get the ship channel back open as soon as possible.
I was just onboard the cutter Clamp and watched as the crew took on tons of wood that will be used to rebuild some of the 20 or so ranges that were destroyed.
Each person I spoke with was amazed at the size of this undertaking. SN Shane Clark has been on the Clamp for 18 months and said he has never seen so many black-hulls and TANB’s in one place.
No one seems to know just how long they will be working at this pace, but they all agree that they won’t stop until the job is done.
Pic one
- Location:Houston, Tx
- Mood:watchful
- Music:Incubus-S.C.I.E.N.C.E
Hurricane Ike was projected to make landfall in the early morning hours of Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008, and the nine Coasties remaining at Air Station Houston, myself included, were not taking any chances. It was 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 12, 2008, when Commander Edwards walked into the PADET Houston office with a sense of urgency.
“You have about one hour to shower, gather your belongings and pile into the van. We are leaving the air station at 8 p.m. sharp, en-route to the bunker,” Edwards said.
I put my game face on, tied up my remaining loose ends, gathered my personal effects and jumped into the van.
As we arrived at the bunker, I took an inventory of my fellow Coasties. Air Station Houston XO, one DC2, one OS2, an AMT1 and AET1, the air station EO, two PA3s and a CWO4 all present and accounted for. We all filed into one room with our personal belongings, each of us grabbing a cot and carefully selecting our corner.
We all changed into more comfortable attire and rested our weary bodies in preparation for a long night. Though mentally and physically drained, the atmosphere remained lighthearted. Some told Coast Guard “sea stories,” while I schemed with AMT1 Kilgore about our post-storm night out.
As XO gave us one final brief before we fell asleep, it was decided that we would sleep by the glow of CNN. Some fell asleep without a hitch, while others could not divert their eyes from the television broadcasting the wrath of Hurricane Ike. Cheers were audible from various corners of the bunker when a Coast Guard rescue video was aired.
As the night wore on, the weather conditions deteriorated. Sleep did not come easily that night, as the wind howled outside and the rain battered the bunker. We knew it would be a matter of time before we lost electricity. Finally around 1 a.m. the bunker went black. That was just about the same time AET1 Bishop and Mr. Saldano moved their cots from the steady dripping coming from the leaking roof. So much for a secure location.
We collectively left at 8 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008. We battled the winds, made it safely to the van and made our way back to the hangar. We were the first to see the toll Hurricane Ike had taken on Ellington Field. In the back of my mind I said a little prayer. One reoccurring thought came to mind.
“And now it all begins.”
-PA3 Renee Aiello
It was my first time sitting through a hurricane and the excitement was almost bearable. We've all seen the incredible footage of homes folding under the power of hurricane force winds and the guy with a rain coat and a microphone yelling into the camera, "I think the winds are starting to pick up, Tom!" as a truck does somersaults in the background. I've always wanted to be that guy sans the obvious statements.
Army cots took up most of the space in our cramped room. The only possessions we brought with us were our go-bags, which in most cases contained a change of clothes and a bathroom kit and little else. There wasn't another somber about the mood of the group. XO seemed to making it a point of going from cot to cot, joking with each inhabitant.
Sleep was elusive for most of us. I found myself listening to the wind claw at the walls, trying to visualize what was going on behind them. Sleep did finally come, but it didn't last long. The first time I woke up the flood lights were on and there was a dripping sound coming from the ceiling. There were three Coasties walking around, trying to rearrange their cots and belongings to keep them dry. I couldn't count how many times I woke up that night, but the morning finally came. I knew it had to be morning because I saw the other Coasties packing what few belongings they brought. I have always been reluctant to get out of bed, but the previous nights excitement was still fresh. I jogged to the nearest bathroom, shaved and brushed my teeth by the light of my cell phone and began packing away my cot.
Ike's effects were still being felt as we filed into the van. We drove back to the air station slowly, still very wary of a rogue gust of wind. We passed an F-16 that was on display at one intersection. It now lay upside down 15 feet away from where it was prior to the storm. I started to think that if that was the worst it did to the base then this storm was severely over hyped. After I saw the destruction on the Bolivar Peninsula, Freeport and the greater Galveston area, I rethought that opinion.
-PA3 Stephen Lehmann
- Location:Houston, Tx
- Mood:busy
- Music:Iron Maiden- Number of the Beast
The crew of the 6512 departed Air Station Corpus Christi at around 10 p.m., en-route to Houston/Galveston for Hurricane Ike search and rescue and damage assessment. As we approached the west beach and were viewing the damage 6593 (another rescue helo) called us saying that they had just seen a group of five or more people in the back of a black pickup truck surrounded by water. We proceeded to the coordinates passed to us and found, not five, but seven people, three of which were children in bed of the truck. The area they were in used to be several feet from the beach, but was now in the breakwater and had a storm surge coming over the hood of the truck. AST3 Shane Moore and I began preparations for a direct deployment to the truck to recover the survivors.
When the crew arrived on scene we had approximately 15 minutes to “bingo,” which is the minimum fuel required to return home. We quickly hoisted the three children first. We quickly figured out that the storm surge was so strong that walking to the truck was impossible; AST3 Moore would have to be put within arms length of the truck to be able to quickly get to the survivors. With the three children out of harms way, Moore decided to get the elderly man next. While hooking the strap around him a wave came in knocking Shane and the survivor over the bed of the truck into the water. After a few seconds, the swimmer came up with the man and was ready for pickup. By now, the wind was becoming more intense and erratic making it difficult for Lt. Brodie, the pilot at the controls, to maintain a hover.
The fifth and sixth survivors came up quickly with little problem. But by now the waves were beginning to swallow the entire truck and the truck itself was drifting. With one person left, Lt. Moran, the co-pilot, said that the last hoist would be in our bingo time and it had to be quick. I told AST3 Moore we didn’t have enough fuel for more then one hoist. He signaled he was ready and we began to retrieve the last survivor. For the last hoist the crew was able to put Shane in the bed of the truck and with a few seconds he was ready for pickup. As the swimmer and survivor came up we started transitioning forward and the swimmer and survivor started to swing heavily. The aircraft slowed helping me to control the swing. Once all seven survivors and the swimmer were in the cabin we returned to Ellington Field to drop them off and refuel to go back out.
-AET2 James Russell
This was but one of the many rescues successfully executed by the Coast Guard during the early stages of Hurricane Ike. The video of the rescue can be seen here.
- Location:Houston, Tx
- Mood:still proud
- Music:Flobots-Fight with Tools
Hi, this is Steve Lehmann with the US Coast Guard and this is the first post of the first blog for our response to Hurricane Ike.
So far our response has been epic. As of Sunday, Sept. 14th the number of people rescued by the Coast Guard reached 200. Rescue crews from all over the Gulf region and beyond converged on the Houston/Galveston area to assist in rescues and recovery efforts. The number of rescues are slowing down, but there's still a lot to do. We're inspecting oil platforms to make sure that they aren't leaking oil from storm damage. A large number of buoys and aids to navigation are either out of place or were completely destroyed by Ike. A number of Coast Guard units were also damaged, but not to worry. The Coast Guard is still here and still performing to the standard to which we've become known.
I've been here, at Air Station Houston, since Sept. 11th to capture as much imagery (photo and video) of our operations as possible. All of our best stuff is posted on our website at cgvi.uscg.mil where you can download any picture or video you want, so feel free to take a look at what your Coast Guard has been up to.
Here's a couple of our products:
Pic one
Pic two
Video one
We'll continue to try and post on here as often as our busy schedule permits. Comments are welcome. Keep checking back!
-PA3 Lehmann
- Location:Houston, Tx
- Mood:Proud of my Guard
- Music:Clutch-From Beale St. to Oblivion
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