You, too, can be part of the Cajun Navy

CLOSE

Port Aransas four months after Hurricane Harvey Wochit

KROTZ SPRINGS — The Cajun Navy Relief has another impending water rescue mission scheduled, but this time the operation will have months of advanced planning.

Leo Martin, treasurer of the Louisiana-based organization, said the Cajun Navy is conducting a publicly-viewed training exercise this spring to illustrate how the nonprofit operates when responding to disasters.

Martin said Cajun Navy members plan a simulated relief operation on Henderson Lake that will be open to the public.

The training demonstration later this year, Martin said, will illustrate all the elements involved when the Cajun Navy launches a rescue effort.

“We will be able to show people how we go about a rescue," Martin said. "

It will something like war games, where we respond to the hidden flags with GPS positioning from the dispatcher where the public and media, which we hope gets looped into it, has an opportunity to see and learn how we do things."

But Martin said this will be about more than just offering a demonstration.

“One of the things that we hope to accomplish is we want to recruit additional men and women," Martin said. "We’d like to get their names and their areas of expertise that may be helpful to us in the future when we are called to respond."

A misconception about the Cajun Navy, said Martin, is only individuals who have boats and pickup trucks with trailer hitches are eligible to volunteer or provide assistance.

Those individuals are still needed, he said, but the organization, which as a response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, also relies on technical assistance and social media in order to perform rescue work.

“During the rain event in Louisiana in 2016 and again this year for Hurricane Harvey in Texas and the Lake Charles area, we relied on people using the Internet and GPS to help us locate individuals who were trapped on the rooftops or needed help otherwise," he said.

“When you’re getting 2,000 calls like we did with Harvey, it’s helpful to have that type of skill."

Martin said the group plans to build a database of trained volunteers from around the country with technical skills that can be called upon when disaster strikes.

But Martin said the Cajun Navy is not limited to disaster response, and has assisted in coastal search and rescue operations and helped law enforcement agencies look for missing persons whose disappearances involve the waterways.

The Cajun Navy, Martin said, is also in need of monetary and equipment donations.

Those areas of assistance will be pointed out during the training sessions, he said.

Martin said corporate sponsors in the past have been generous with donations, but the group could use a closed trailer, batteries, walkie-talkies, a high-water truck and other equipment "suitable for staging rescues."