Colorado Floods - Recovery Ops

[CharlesHarris]

My good friend George Jasper, author of the book "Six Ways In and Twelve Ways Out," was deployed with one of the FEMA teams to Colorado and recently returned, posting his report, which depicts a level of self reliance in America you seldom see in the hyped news reports:

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I'm back from the floods in Colorado, MO Task Force-1 deployed on the 14th at 0330. On the morning of the 15 we flew into the cut off mountain communities in Black hawks and Chinooks. We were broken up in 6 man teams. The first day we extracted 350 people and about 150 pets. Each team had a sheriffs deputy and two Mountain Rescue team members attached.

Many of the teams "spiked out" over night for three days at a time. Each day the amount of people that we extracted grew less and less. The houses along any of the bigger streams were wiped out. the people that we extracted were mostly from Storm mountain. Our Base Of Operations (BOO) was in Lovelyn. the last three days we spent doing bank searches of the Big Thompson and Little Thompson rivers/creeks for bodies. Many bridges and 36 miles of highway was wiped out which stranded many communities.

Lessons learned:

Many of these people were ready and capable of sustaining themselves through the winter, so they didnt come out on the choppers.

Preparedness is their life style all ready. the majority of people that came out were running out of their meds. Some of them lost everything so they came out. There were no fat people that we came across in these communities, there life styles no matter what their economic status was just didn't allow it. There were many driveways that were a mile long and many more that were 1/4 of a mile long.

A good many were off of the grid and had many months of food already on hand. A 72 year old woman brought some of our guys into her log home to show them a garage that looked like a grocery store. she had 100 gallons of fuel for her generator and 45 in the gas tank in her truck. As she put it "she knows how to syphon gas from abandoned cars if need be."

Many communities were cutting their our own roads out of the mountains which were once old forgotten mining and logging roads. The roar of chainsaws was everywhere!

Cell phone coverage was out for the first three days, which accounted for the majority of missing person reports. This was one of our missions, to check on the people that were reported missing. When we left there was still 26 missing, down from 1500.

If you ever have to exfil on a helo with your animals make sure cats are in a pet carrier and the halves are taped together. We had the bottom fall out of one and the cat scrabbled out of the crew chiefs door while in flight. Needless to say that cat didn't make it. Dogs should be muzzled with at least a rope loop.

Local law enforcement were just awesome at welcoming people into the shelter system when we brought them in. You would think that they knew everyone of the folks personally. They didn't, by the way.

Colorado's Incident Management Team was in charge of the whole incident and they taught Uncle Sam a thing or two. They are use to dealing with 5000 wildfire crew members at a time. Running air ops for four 80 man search and rescue tasks forces was nothing for them. this flood covered 700 square miles by the way. The Hot Shot fire crews were super human in the mountains.

Many times people would leave their personal ATVs at the different locations with a sign on it that read "use it if you need it."

Many roads and bridges were repaired by locals with their own farm equipment. They are only about 10 days into this thing and are already getting back into it unlike the Eastern suburban folks in the hurricane Sandy incident.

Be prepared to evac your personal documents in a moments notice, which most of you already know. I took one old couple off of a chopper that had a small soft side cooler with about 25 lbs of silver and some gold coins. The older gentleman told me "he thought it might come in handy."

Bicycles are a good form of alternate transportation in emergency situations for flat landers, but in the mountains its ATVs! We always take 2 Gators with us when we deploy, but had to request 4 more from the Army. Large amounts of bottled water, MREs and gear not to mention patients were transported on these.

We run Honda generators to power our BOO. The IMT had diesel 15K's brought in that were all but silent. I leaned against one while I was talking on the phone and the Mrs. couldnt even hear it over the phone. The 6500 Hondas sound like chainsaws compared to these monsters.

If you are in an effected area don't get pissed if local fire department knocks on your door one day, then emergency management the next day and USAR the next.

Storing water is as always a good idea, but the ability to purify large amounts of water is essential in large scale long term living situations. A gravity filter is the most inexpensive way to do this task.

Have you ever thought about what it takes to wash clothes without electricity or a pressurized water source? Rain water is hard water so figure a way to soften it or filter it. Check out Lehmans plunger and bucket clothes washer. Hard water is hard on clothing.

The estimated time for the roads to be passable was 6 months to a year. Can you feed yourself for a year without any support from an urban center?

Can you heat your home for an extended amount of time? We are talking a whole winter. Most of these folks heat with wood as a secondary source.

If the line from your propane tank to your home is compromised can you fix it? Do you have spare line and fittings.

What will you use to cook with? Gas, wood, propane, alcohol, solar?