Rita Slams Orange, Texas

[Airboatcapt2]

Big Thanks to everyone who has called and been sending e-mails.
Everyone in my family is safe and American Airboats survived the hit. There is massive amounts of damage in town.
We are waiting for the power to be reestablished and we will be moving forward with production. I will try to post some pictures of the damage as I get it.

The doors of our shop were completely blown away, one of our building lost it's roof and over hang, and our trailer shop lost a very large over hang. Our boat docks are gone. Ect...... I was told the eye of the storm went directly over Orange.
Thank you for your support and prayers, we are very thankfull to have pulled through the way we have. A similar building within a few hundred yards was completely leveled. Some reports say that Orange has about 80% destruction rate.

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.
Faron

 

[SwampMatt]

ccasion5:

 

[Airboatcapt2]

My conversations have been limited with family and most employees. I will know more as time goes on.

I do know that my brothers house is a complete loss. He has taken his wife and two boys to our family in La.
My fathers house has some severe damage but will be fine unless flood water continues to rise.
Many of my friends houses are gone. Many of our neigbors houses are gone.
many of our local businesses seem to be in ruins.
Everyone I have spoken to seem to be positive and in good spirits. Food, water, and gas is scarce. Many of our employees are staying with my father at the shop. We do have a large generator, and I assume they all have fresh water. We have large coolers and 5 gallon drums of water for the crew during day to day work. Our employees are the same as family and we will do whatever is neccessary to take care of them as well.

 

[basketcase0302]

Faron,

No report of "loss of life" is good news as Mood stated. Sorry to hear of all the other destruction. I will also hope and pray that the water does not rise any more. Tell em' all we're thinking of them.

Jeff

 

[rick]

I'm glad to hear everyone's okay Faron. All it takes is a lot of hard work to rebuild the other stuff and I'll bet your family knows a little bit about that.

Thanks for keeping us posted.

One more thing:

Many of our employees are staying with my father at the shop.

Bet you won't see any looters showing up there. Of course ( & not to my surprise), I haven't hear of any looters showing up in that part of Texas & Louisiana.

 

[bigkavr]

Faron,

On our way back from doing rescue work with AZ-TF1 SAR Team, down in the Cameron area, we stoped at your shop on Tuesday. The shop itself is fine (except for two of the overhead doors) but the rest of the buildings are toast... Your dad's house is in sad shape but fixable. Even your swamp monster is still standing with most of it's moss still on it!! We only stayed for about three hours and then had to start for home. Stan was in pretty good spirits but had a LOT on his mind.. Go figure. My hearts out to all of you. I wish I could do more to help!!

 

[Sniper]

Hay Brian

Are you staying away from the fire plugs and Dumpsters this time ?
If you need me buddy let me know and I will load up and be on my way
that is if you need a Wing man I have not heard of any reports of any one getting shot at in Texas I guess the folks over there are a bit more civil.

 

[Airboatcapt2]

Don't mis-judge those Texans Sniper.
They are doing a little shooting of their own, but it would be shooting the looters not the people who are trying to help save their butts.

Brian, thanks for the update. I was told we will be up and running Monday on full generator power. The phones have been smoking with friends calling offering to come help. We really appriciate everyones support. We are ready to get the power back on and get moving back at 100%.

The Airboating Family is much bigger than most people realize.

Sincerely,
Faron

 

[bigkavr]

Sniper, I was going down with the CG so they could get their Airboats at the shop and then deploy. Alas, three hours into the trip, the CG had their travel orders changed and they were called back. Since my fire chief and myself had the time and we were already near the Ohio line, we decided to keep going. To make a long story short, we hooked up with the Arizonia Task Force 1 SAR boys and helped them with house to house in the Cameron area. We only worked Monday and then all the teams started to step down because the locals had done such a GREAT job of evac, that there was no one to look for. All were accounted for!! :lol: What a difference from Katrina.

Faron, I told your dad that I'd bring a gen-set down from Ohio if needed.
I haven't heard back from him yet so I figure he found one closer.. I tried to help him make more room by taking one of the cages he's got sitting there to replace the one on my airboat. Alas, I was too tired and he was too occupied with other things to comense with our usual two day barter.... We're all with ya..

 

[bigkavr]

Sniper,
I forgot to tell ya. I didn't hit any fire hydrants. None!! Nor any R/R switches either.. But, I did hit, go over, or through, a couple hundred concrete pedistals used for house trailers and double wides. I didn't realize that concrete pedistals (aprox. 18" high, 12" wide at the base and tapering alittle at the top) are used like cinder blocks up here. Since most of the manufactured houses were "relocated" sometimes miles away by the tidal surge, all that was left was a small forrest of the damn concrete pedistals where ever the original location of a house was.
And since the water was dark brown (remember that?) vis was non existent so I didn't realize that I was in one of the concrete jungles till it was too late. My polymer is in really bad shape now. But, the AZ TF1 SAR team was so grateful to have the help that I guess it was worth it.
This search was totally different than in NO. Different for the operator and different for the airboat. A real good learning experience.
Dont worry, your still first on my list for wing man!! :wink: Take care.

 

[Sniper]

Well I guess God FORBID if we have any more floods any where else we will be very seasoned vets at working floods I am having a friend of mine make up some decals to go on our rudders to comemerate our original team in New Orleans and what we did there I figured we all earned it and we will be able to display it with pride on our rudders I will send you a pair when there done.