On August 29, 2005, as Hurricane Katrina cleared New Orleans, every available Coast Guard helicopter launched into the storm to rescue stranded families. Amid tropical-force winds still swirling, a Coast Guard Air Station New Orlean’s helicopter aircrew rescued a 4-month old infant, her mother, and grandmother stranded in deep flood waters in lower Plaquemines Parish at 2:50pm that day.
Their home had stood since 1876, but Katrina's storm surge quickly swallowed the second floor.
At the height of the response, the Coast Guard was rescuing 100 people an hour by air.
[Applause]
If you had a message to tell the rescue
crew that uh saved you, what is your
message?
I owe them my life. I owe them our
lives.
They just I I always have the the utmost
respect for the Coast Guard because they
did some dangerous work. They really
took their own lives in the hand. You
know, they did jeopardize their own
lives to save us.
Water got all the way even come upstairs
all the way. This was the living room. I
had some pretty curtains and I had new
sofa set in there.
That's what it looked like after the
hurricane.
I didn't think I'd make it through it.
Honestly, didn't.
[Music]
The wind was blowing so hard I couldn't
do nothing with the boat was just
whipping back and forth. I couldn't do
nothing with it. So, I I seen a bunch of
trees like limbs and stuff floating and
I I nosed it in there and I left it
there. We stayed almost 7 hours in there
and the the wind would
the wind would hit the boat and it would
it was just like a like a bam and the
boat would almost go over almost tip
over to turn it over and then it would
rock back and finally the wind started
calming down. We just we sung with and
prayed
and Cassie just smiled through the whole
thing, you know, little bitty little
bitty thing smiling and she said, "Mama,
they got a radio in here." So I handed I
got the radio and I said, "Mayday." I
kept calling, "Mayday, mayday. We need
some help."
While the storm was coming in, was still
over New Orleans. We decided to follow
the storm in with the Hilos. On the way
over, we decided to go down south where
the opening of the river was. We heard a
mayday from a frantic woman
um saying that her and her daughter and
their and her grandchild were stuck on a
small boat. I said, "We found a flare
gun." I said, "You want us to shoot a
flare? We only had two flares." He said,
"Yeah, shoot a flare." I shot it. He
said, "No, we didn't see nothing." He
said, "Don't shoot the next one."
After about 15 minutes of looking for
them, we finally saw the flare and we
found a small aluminum boat with a
enclosed cabin
directly underneath some trees in the
middle of a port sulfur neighborhood
surrounded by houses that were just
about completely underwater. And I
looked up there and this big orange
helicopter's up there and this man just
come down
and he jumped in the water and he
climbed in the boat and we was I guess
we was just panicked, hysterical and he
hugged me and he said, "Y'all going to
be okay."
He said, "We're going to take care of
y'all. Y'all going to be okay."
Went inside the boat and found a woman,
her daughter, and then the grandchild.
Grandchild was a four-month old
premature girl. woman and baby are
getting in the basket.
He got Tasha in the boat with Cassidy.
She was holding her in her arms and one
dog. He put the dog in the basket. I
said, "I'm not leaving without my
animals." He said, "They're coming with
us." So he lifted her up.
George
moving in survivor.
Then he set the basket back down. I had
two dogs and I was in the basket and the
the basket blew into them tree limbs and
Nettles broke the limbs and all and got
us out of there and picked us up and
that was the scariest part getting in
from the getting that basket into the
helicopter. I was terrified.
What is there that you feel that hasn't
been told yet from the story or anything
that you want to add to the story?
There's not too much to add to it. I
just think that you know the Coast Guard
saved our lives.
that there's nothing I can explain to
you any better than that. They saved our
lives.
