| Canadian rescuers in lousiana first { September 7 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050907/BCRESCUE07/TPInternational"They couldn't believe it -- we're from Canada," he said.
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KATARINA: THE AFTERMATH Exhausted Canadian team returns home By JONATHAN WOODWARD
Wednesday, September 7, 2005 Page A17 VANCOUVER -- They waded through foul, waist-deep water and oil to find survivors clinging to life in the washed-out, impoverished city of Chalmette, La. They turned abandoned cars and boats into ambulances for the injured left after hurricane Katrina.
After being greeted as heroes and seeing the Canadian flag fly above the fire hall where they had set up a command post, 46 members of the elite Vancouver Urban Search and Rescue team returned home yesterday morning.
"We're exhausted," said team member Ross Depever. "We were awed by what we saw."
On his last day in the refinery city, rescuer Rob Nybo and his four-person squad found one middle-aged man who, after a week of defiantly guarding the last few things he had left, had finally decided to leave.
"Here he was in an old pair of beat-up, old leather tie-up shoes, a dirty, rank pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and there he stood," said Mr. Nybo from his home in Delta, B.C.
"We asked him how he survived when the water came up," Mr. Nybo said. "He said, 'I was sitting on top of my freezer and the water was up to my neck when it stopped.' "
The squad asked the man, in his 50s, whether he wanted to bring anything with him, and he showed them a picture of his wife, who had died shortly before the hurricane hit.
"When you see them standing there, with everything gone, and ask if they want to take anything with them, you always think there would be some mementos of the life that they would take, and there was nothing there," he said. "That's regular fare down there."
All told, the team rescued 119 people and provided medical assistance to another 125 people in St. Bernard Parish, an area that once housed 66,000 residents before being completely flooded.
Mr. Nybo, who works as a superintendent in Vancouver's city engineering department, said he was proud to see the Canadian flag hoisted alongside the American flag at the fire hall.
"I'll tell you that was an unbelievable moment," he said.
Highways in the New Orleans area were elevated and cars could drive along them, but getting from house to house meant getting into boats they could find and restart. Mr. Nybo's squad found one boat overturned on the side of the road with markings from Lake Borgne -- more than 30 kilometres away.
"Boats are all over the place. It's like God threw them up in the air," he said. "We got it started up and we went.
"Whether the boat got there by the tidal surge or was brought there at another time, I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me."
Rescuer Bob Alexander, who is a superintendent with the British Columbia Ambulance Service, said when the team identified itself to two women surrounded by a half-metre-deep flow of crude oil from a ruptured tank, they were met with disbelief.
"They couldn't believe it -- we're from Canada," he said.
"They really had no idea what was going on because the transmissions were down. They'd lost radio antennas. If you were in Chalmette, unless someone came out, you had no idea what happened in New Orleans."
Urban Search and Rescue consists of volunteers from Lower Mainland police and fire departments, B.C. Ambulance staff, City of Vancouver employees and other agencies.
The day-to-day operations are paid for by the City of Vancouver, while the provincial and federal governments are deciding how to split the $500,000 cost of its deployment -- the team's first since its inception in 1995.
Team leader Tim Armstrong said he was glad the province made the decision to send the team quickly. "That decision was the difference between saving 119 lives and doing body recovery," he said.
Navy divers from CFB Esquimalt arrived in Louisiana yesterday to set up camp on the U.S. warship San Antonio, which can act as a home base while in port.
The divers will inspect damaged levees and help their American counterparts clear navigational hazards such as loose barges.
While some rescuers were shot at, Canadians never came under fire, Mr. Nybo said. "It was disheartening to hear that people were shooting at rescue helicopters, and the sadness and the anarchy that was going on.
"But there were other amazing moments where you would come back to dinner at the school we were at, and the people couldn't do enough. It was great resolve. They really are a people of strength, I'll tell you," he said.
"It was a great day for this team and for Canada. But there were no heroes here. The people who lived through that and survived it and are going to be rebuilding that area are the real heroes. Those are the people who have to stick it out every day, and they have to be admired for that."
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