Birds in the air
“Hurricane!”
They cried out and hopped in their helicopters to descend on Butler County Community College.
First one, then two, then three and finally four metal birds landed at the school, ready to mobilize and rescue a seemingly endless number of Hurricane Jessica's victims from the storm-ravaged campus. As a rope lowered from one chopper, a second's blades whirred to life. As the second's crew lifted a man from the roof of a car caught in the storm's floodwaters, a third bird rose to the skies.
Butler County Community College lent its public safety training center to the Pennsylvania Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team (PA HART) Thursday for a marathon of high-powered emergency training. The exercises aimed to run the group through several difficult rescue scenarios rapidly in a simulation of the intense missions they'd fly in natural disasters. In this case, they aimed to simulate a Category 5 hurricane named Hurricane Jessica.
Chris Calhoun, a professor who coordinates the school's parks and recreation management program, served as the chief organizer for the training. He's a member of PA HART, and is the assistant chief for Butler County Water Rescue Team 300.“We're going to have three helicopters functioning at the same time,” Calhoun said, walking toward a room of emergency responders to deliver their mission briefing. “It's all in preparation for our guys to be deployed to flash flooding situations.”The training center at BC3 gets regular use by fire and police departments, but the occasional helicopter rescue program always turns out a monstrous crowd of emergency responders.
PA HART is a partnership between the Pennsylvania Army National Guard — the source of Thursday's helicopters — and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. It serves the whole commonwealth and is occasionally tapped for disasters throughout the country.Other Butler County groups provided support throughout the program. Butler Township Volunteer Fire District lent a hand, as did BC3's police, the county's emergency management, Butler Ambulance Service, Butler Township Police, Butler County Medical Team 200 and several others. A different agency's name was printed on nearly every vehicle in the training center's parking lot.
The training began with a briefing in a room full of U.S. Army soldiers, first responders and a lot of tactical gear. Calhoun explained the day's mission.Their task proved a tricky one: Three helicopters would maneuver around each other, hoisting “victims” in proximity to one another. The PA HART members dangling from the aircraft would move laterally from one save to the next, battling the wind from both their own and neighboring helicopters' blades. The fourth would cycle in with a new crew as the first finished and landed.The Army provided the vehicles: three Black Hawk helicopters and one big, tandem-rotor Chinook.Participants had to land rescuers on tiny targets, such as the roof of a car, repeatedly.
They aimed to perform 60 full hoists Thursday, if conditions were perfect. Calhoun said they came close enough for success.“We did accomplish what we set out to do,” Calhoun said after the training. “I'm very excited about how well the day went, considering how many moving parts we had with the operation of three helicopters at the same time.”The marathon rotation of helicopters provided a loud, blustery spectacle for the small crowds of people who came to watch.Brian Opitz, BC3's executive director of operations, marveled from atop a nearby hill.“They have two or three birds in the air at a time,” Opitz said. “This is great for them.”
Calhoun sent out email invitations to BC3 staff. While some trails and sections of campus were restricted, space was allocated to allow spectators to gather. Among them, Darlene Nanni, the college's secretary of communications and marketing, stood excited as she waited for the show to begin.“This is my first time actually coming down and watching this,” she said. “I can't wait. I wish my son was down here to see this.”Scott Richardson, director of the campus police department, said the training is a matter of being a good member of the Pennsylvania community for the school.“We are the community's college,” Richardson said. “And this is a fine example of that. We're providing a venue for them to get the training they need to keep us all safe and secure.”
