CAP Flights Scouted Landing Areas, Located Refugees

During Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, hundreds of aircraft flew missions to evacuate the stranded residents of New Orleans. But, it wasn't just military aircraft running rescue missions in the congested skies above the hurricane-stricken region -- members of America's Civil Air Patrol also provided support to the agencies working there.

"We did a lot of spotting of survivors on rooftops and relaying that information to the emergency operations center," said CAP Col. Rock Palermo. "We also found suitable landing zones for helicopters as well and did aerial photography."

Colonel Palermo is a civilian pilot and a lawyer in Lake Charles, LA, about 200 miles west of New Orleans. Immediately following Hurricane Katrina, he was asked to volunteer his efforts in New Orleans as part of CAP operations there.

While he did some flying during the relief efforts of Katrina, Palermo mostly took pictures out of the back of a CAP aircraft. Those pictures were immediately transferred to a laptop computer, then to a phone, a satellite, and back down to an end-user.

Sometimes pictures were in the hands of local, state, or federal agencies within minutes of the shutter release, he said. Much of that photography was of schools and hospitals.

The CAP also took pictures for National Guard aircraft that needed to scope out potential landing zones, flew key disaster relief personnel around the region, and spotted stranded citizens on rooftops so helicopters could rescue them.

CAP pilots don't fly expensive military aircraft. Typically, they use civilian-grade passenger aircraft like Cessna 172s, 182s and 206s. Those aircraft are suited to fly lower to the ground. That, coupled with a CAP pilot's familiarity with their region of responsibility, makes CAP an obvious choice to scout in disaster areas inside the United Sates.

"When we get a call to go look at Tulane University or the Touro Hospital, we know where those locations are," Colonel Palermo said. "We can fly low and slow over them and take the photographs we know are important to the end user. So, our low and slow aircraft are of great benefit to the country and they are efficient."

"One of the most eerie feelings was the fact that as far as you could see, these neighborhoods were underwater," Palermo added. "On television, you see maybe one or two neighborhoods. But from 1,000 feet, you see hundreds of these neighborhoods, and you know that all of them would have to be bulldozed because water was up to the rooftop. And that water was staying there and it wasn't receding."

The CAP is a corporation, funded by the federal government, with federally purchased aircraft. It is meant to serve local governments in times of crisis, and to serve, in certain circumstances, as an auxiliary to the U.S. Air Force.

But it is the people of the CAP, almost entirely volunteers that really contribute to what CAP brings to the table in any emergency situation.

During hurricane Katrina and Rita relief and recovery efforts, the CAP flew some 984 sorties. Ground personnel conducted more than 100 missions in support of the effort, and overall members put in over 11,000 hours toward the effort.

"We all have skills and think our skills can be used to protect human lives and mitigate disasters," Colonel Palermo said. "And we use our skills in CAP to help those in need, whether it be flying as aviators or photographers or radio communicators. All those skills can be brought to bear as force multipliers for state, local or federal agencies."

(Aero-News salutes Staff Sgt. C. Todd Lopez, Air Force Print News)

FMI: www.cap.gov