ILWG Katrina Team Photographs posted

[Eclipse]

One year ago this week, thirteen members from Illinois Wing, including one of the few cadets authorized to operate in the field,  joined the over 1700 members from around the country to deploy to Mississippi in support of Hurricane Katrina Operations.

To mark the anniversay I have posted photos of our little jaunt South:

http://group22.net/katrina/

Most of these have never been published anywhere, especially the ones showing the destruction South of I-10. On a sad and interesting note, recent news reports have indicated that much of the area we were in has been neglected by the press and relief agencies, and not only hasn't rebuilding started, a lot of debris has not even been cleaned up yet.

Though the photos feature people from ILWG, you will see members from PAWG, MOWG, INWG, MIWG, and NHQ, among others...

[Pylon]

One year ago this week, thirteen members from Illinois Wing, including one of the few cadets authorized to operate in the field,  joined the over 1700 members from around the country to deploy to Mississippi in support of Hurricane Katrina Operations.

To mark the anniversay I have posted photos of our little jaunt South:

http://group22.net/katrina/

Most of these have never been published anywhere, especially the ones showing the destruction South of I-10. On a sad and interesting note, recent news reports have indicated that much of the area we were in has been neglected by the press and relief agencies, and not only hasn't rebuilding started, a lot of debris has not even been cleaned up yet.

Though the photos feature people from ILWG, you will see members from PAWG, MOWG, INWG, MIWG, and NHQ, among others...

Great photos, Bob!  Thanks for sharing them!!

By the way:  Who's CAP HMMWV is that?

[Eclipse]

Thank you…

The H1 belongs to a member of M6’s unit out of Midway - he can be seen checking the oil in some of the pics from Stennis, a Marine, and the kind of professional guy you want on your team.

Truth be told, it's an impressive beast, but frankly more trouble than its worth on a cross-country trip.  It looked great on the news, though.  One report said he had bought it “just for Katrina”.

Its a huge beast, and adding the fully-loaded mil-spec trailer, was probably affecting earth's tilt a bit.

H1's are designed for pretty specific uses, and long-hauling isn't one of them.

It has a fairly limited range, my guess about 200 miles, before getting into reserve / nervous territory, and its weight and gearing limited the convoy's speed a bit. We had bad intel about 3/4 down to MS, being told that there was no diesel South of the MS border - that was going to leave us one refuel short of Jackson.  Thus the yellow containers on the roof.
(ever try and find more than one diesel container in a disaster area? and they say we can't do SAR!).

Anyway, diesel and other fuel was never dry anywhere in MS that we saw, and once at Stennis, everything was diesel.  We were provided a fuel cel for the sortie vehicles, and I believe Sam was filling up at the Nat Guard's depot.
Even at that, I understand he dropped about $1000 in fuel.

The other issue is the seats, straight-up and down, not fun for 13 hours.
Once down there, of course, it turned plenty of heads, and came in more than handy several times - it just that these things are normally delivered by C-130.

I spent the week in a Ford Aerostar corporate vehicle that belong to the ILWG Comm Dir.  Perfect for our use - we pulled the middle seats, which gave us a ton of room for a notebook for navigation, and made getting in an out in full gear pretty easy (thank god for the air conditioning).