Coast Guard HeroesA story that hasn't been getting
enough attention:
At least 1,000 times in the last nine days, a crew from the Clearwater Coast Guard Air Station has plucked a hurricane survivor from a roof. After some of them returned Wednesday, they recalled an amazing experience.
The first day was the roughest, many said. There were so many people to rescue that sometimes they didn't know who to pick first.But... but wait a minute! I thought the Federal Government didn't do anything to save lives in the first few days!
"I remember that first day we had, at one time, four Coast Guard H-60s and three Coast Guard H-65s all in one city block. Things we would never normally do," Lt. Cmdr. Eric Johnson recalled.
For every rescue mission, there's a support plane flying behind it. Every plane based in Clearwater has been up and back to the hurricane zone, putting in a total of almost 500 hours of flying.
Here's
another good story:
Ryan White, a rescue swimmer with the Coast Guard, helped to rescue people from flooded buildings.
“I was on a school top with about 200 people, and we could only take so many at a time, so they left me behind, and we were shouldering the people off the roof and I told them, ‘You guys just won the lottery. We’re going to get you all out of here. I promise you that,’” White said.And
here:
Mixson, of Orange Park, Fla., said as his crew finished pulling up a group of survivors, a young girl, about 2 years old, tugged on the pants of the rescue swimmer, and offered him her candy bar.See also our friend
Mrs Media Matters.
