Civil Air Patrol On Duty In SC

Here are two emails forwarded to all members via National Headquarters, Maxwell AFB Ala.

This gives a clear picture of what CAP is doing to help out SC. Keep in mind we are volunteers and we do not get paid to do our job. The Air Force is paying for our fuel but that's it. 

Much like the Minuteman of the Revaluation War, we do this as a sense of duty to our country.....

Good evening, everyone.

Another good day working for the good citizens of the Palmetto State. At the moment, we have flown approximately 20 sorties and 46 hours.

The taskings for today were more focused. Over the last two days, we have flown a LOT of get out there and see what's happening type sorties. With all of the grids we flew, we had a lot more activity in the sky yesterday.

We are still prominent today, but flew about half of the hours because the areas of concern are now more specifically identified. The Georgetown area is of major concern starting right away, as floodwaters are cresting further and further downstream.

Be clear on this:  we are not responding to a disaster that has occurred. We are responding to a disaster that is still in progress. Major flooding is still occurring and will continue to occur through the weekend. This is even more dangerous because people are seeing the blue skies and assuming that all is okay. This is resulting in many, many stranded people.

Today CAP performed Impact Assessment and SAR flights over the most affected rivers and in flood prone areas. Unfortunately, most of the flood prone areas are very large in the flatlands, and water is literally running over the ground from river to river in some areas. We have no real way of knowing if we saved lives today, but I'm betting we did. CAP aircraft identified a number of flooded and isolated areas, noted where there were vehicles in distress, located two unsafe bridges that had no law enforcement or other barricades, and provided hundreds more in the way of IA photos. We also flew roads in and out of Georgetown helping SCEMD folks plan for evacuations and areas that are likely to flood and thus close roads needed for those evacuations. We are again getting real time information to the EOC from the air and help is getting to the right places.

We had three new (in the original wrapper) camera systems arrive from the NOC today. These are small Garmin cameras that attach to a wing strut and take "straight down" photos on a particular flight profile. We'll be taking a look at the first sortie using those cameras tonight - we have high hopes but we are the test case for sure. If we had good success, weÂ'll be flying all three of them tomorrow.

Today, we flew aircraft from SC, NC, VA, and MD wings, with thanks to the two aircrews from Georgia that were ready to come at a momentÂ's notice. This is allowing our aircrews and mission base staff to be rotated out a bit for some badly needed and well earned rest. We appreciate you, and hopefully we'll see you in the next few days. Our mission base staff was augmented by a GA-8 and several van-loads of cadets from Lowcountry, Columbia, and Lexington, as well as senior staff from North Carolina and Maryland. We set up a debriefing section in the main meeting room at SC Wing HQ, and have support personnel in that section to help get WMIRS populated with complete and meaningful debriefing information. That information is also being cross-decked quickly to the EOC. We are taking advantage of our fiber connection to the internet here to upload photos to FEMA at rates about 30 times faster than typical high-speed internet. 

We are very fortunate to have had donations or steep discounts from vendors who have brought us food, water, and soft drinks. We are well cared for here!

Tomorrow we will be flying affected and likely affected roads, possibly with the new camera system, both early and late in the day. We also expect to receive a long list of photo targets (spot targets) along 4 or 5 of the affected rivers. We won't receive those until in the morning, but that list will be completed in the morning and repeated in the afternoon for comparison purposes. We won't be launching the majority of our aircraft (or don't expect to) until after 9am, which is a welcome short break.

Again, so very blessed to have had great assistance from everyone involved. Thank you all for your continued efforts. You are making a difference.

  

SC Wing and friends:  

Today the Civil Air Patrol really got spun up as part of the SAR and disaster relief effort in South Carolina. The weather was great in some areas, good enough in others, and unfortunately almost good enough in a few places. Our priority has been on flying and identifying locations that need or will shortly need SAR assets and getting rescue to those locations. Right behind that, and sometimes simultaneously with that, we provided impact assessment reports and photography. Even now, there are CAP members that are compiling reports and continuing to plan for the next operational periods. WeÂ'll kick off again early in the morning. 

In the roundest of numbers, we had approximately 100 personnel involved, flew 14 aircraft, and logged about 85 hours in the air today. We expect similar numbers tomorrow. We have received all of our taskings and have planned and sorted those amongst several aircrew. Kudos to everyone involved in our operations from the mission base staff to the aircrews to the communications operators stationed all over the state. We have had incredible work by Col Lindler and his helpers at our state EOC for the past 72 hours or so - truly an integral part of the response effort being put forth by all levels of government. Outstanding work by the members of Columbia and Lexington Composite Squadrons who were called and showed up within minutes yesterday to prepare and staff our headquarters. They were back today making sure everyone had what they needed, no one went hungry, or didn't have a place to stay. Mrs. Kim Phillips, our Wing Administrator worked (approved) overtime - well above and beyond the call of duty. There are so many names out there deserving of commendation and recognition - we'll definitely get to that.

Included in all of this, we have two aircrews and aircraft each from North Carolina and Georgia flying with us right now. A GA-8 airvan and an aircrew from Maryland arrived today, and are tasked first thing in the morning. We have a Cessna 206 coming from North Carolina tomorrow. Every bit of support we have asked for we have received without hesitation. This is the concept of No Borders, No Boundaries in action, and it is working better than you could ever imagine for the citizens of the Palmetto State. Thanks to everyone who is here, who will be here later, or who just volunteered to come. Kudos to Lt Col Jay Langley, the MER/DO, who simply answered the phone, heard my request for him to "just handle" coordination of all out-of-wing assets, and said, "I got it."

Tomorrow we will start the day with more SAR runs in flooded and flood-prone areas. We'll then continue to work on Aerial Photography and Impact Assessment missions. As was so prevalent today, we will also have a couple of aircraft and aircrews set aside to fly federal, state and local officials that need to see what they're dealing with.

Please be sure your minds are on safety as we continue forward. It's very easy to get your mind so wrapped around what we need to do that we forget about the little things that can cause incidents and accidents. We have mission requirements and we need to meet them, but remember to plan your response so that you can respond to those needs safely, effectively, and efficiently (in that order.)

I am immensely proud be a leader and a servant in the Civil Air Patrol today. You should be too.

Semper Vigilans,