Firefighters Return, Weary but Happy to Have Helped

A team of Los Angeles firefighters returned home Friday from New Orleans, exhausted and exhilarated after spending two weeks rescuing residents stranded by flooding.

The swift-water rescue units, which included 14 firefighters from the city Fire Department and an additional 14 from the county, had been in New Orleans since Aug. 31. They are credited with saving more than 520 people trapped in houses and buildings by floodwaters.

The firefighters arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday afternoon, and were greeted by their respective chiefs and a group of officials led by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

“Most people run away from fires and disasters; you guys run in,” Villaraigosa told the group.

Trained to rescue victims caught in the seasonal torrent of the Los Angeles River, the swift-water teams have also helped after disasters such as the Oklahoma City bombing and the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.

Los Angeles City Fire Capt. Ernesto Ojeda said the devastation in New Orleans was “on a much grander scale” than the World Trade Center attack, with a different set of challenges.

“At the World Trade Center, the infrastructure was still there, you could drive right up to it,” he said. In New Orleans, “there were no roads, showers or food.”

Immediately after arriving in the city, Ojeda said, team members drove to the edge of a freeway off-ramp submerged in water to launch their inflatable rescue boats.

They found residents in attics and on rooftops, tagged dead bodies and recorded their GPS coordinates for retrieval.

Los Angeles City Fire Battalion Chief Jack Wise said that among the first people he found in New Orleans was an 83-year-old man who had survived eight days in his attic, with temperatures often exceeding 100 degrees. “He was on his last bottle of water,” Wise said.

He said he was moved by the perseverance of New Orleans residents.

At a flooded hospital, Wise said, he found doctors who had stayed with patients for several days rather than leave for safety.

Los Angeles County Fire Capt. David Roy said the first residents he encountered were an elderly couple stuck on the second floor of their house.

The couple did not want to leave their home, saying that they had moved from India 10 years ago and had been through numerous floods.

Roy said he persuaded them that the waters would not recede, then his team headed the boat through the front door and over to a stairway, where they loaded up the man -- who was in a wheelchair -- and his wife.

Wise said he believed the team’s mission was simply returning a favor to other firefighters and rescuers.

“So many times, we ask others to come to Southern California during earthquakes, fires and floods. This was our turn to help,” Wise said.