Janice R. Andrews
Along with help from the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard successfully rescued a woman, her young daughter, and their pets from a ship that was stuck 925 miles east of Honolulu during Hurricane Gilma. Coordinating the operation very carefully and working very hard for several days shows how hard it is for relief teams to do their jobs when the weather is bad.
Distress Call and First Response
The sailboat Albroc, which was flying the French flag, sent an immediate distress notice to the Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Honolulu on Saturday afternoon. Someone called the Coast Guard at 12:33 p.m. local time to report that a 47-year-old woman, her 7-year-old daughter, a cat, and a tortoise were stuck on board their boat during Hurricane Gilma.
An airplane team picked up the first emergency call and was able to find the sailboat and hear the woman’s mayday call. Even though the weather was bad, with 6-foot waves and 20 mph winds, the crew saw the woman throwing flares to desperately call for help.
Challenges and Efforts to Coordinate
The bad weather made it very hard for the rescue operation to succeed. On Sunday morning, a plane crew saw the grounded boat and saw the woman and her daughter waving from inside it. Radio and message blocks were used to try to talk, but they didn’t work.
Later that same day, a ship crew got close to the sailboat but couldn’t save the people on board because Hurricane Gilma was making the conditions worse. The operation was severely affected by the storm, and the winds got stronger as the hurricane got closer to where the sailboat was.
Navy Help and a Successful Rescue
When Monday morning came around, things were absolutely terrible. A guided-missile warship called the USS William P. Lawrence showed up at the scene. Unfortunately, the Navy ship’s crew only had six hours to make a safe escape because the weather was getting worse.
The USS William P. Lawrence sent out a small boat crew to try to get in touch with the trapped ship. Even though the waves were rough and the conditions were dangerous, the rescue team was able to get to the boat and save the woman and her daughter. It was safe to bring the couple, their cat, and their tortoise back to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Honolulu on Wednesday night.
Ongoing Investigations and Effects of the Weather
The man’s body, who was thought to be the sailboat’s master, could not be found because of the bad weather. Unfortunately, the Coast Guard is still looking into what happened that made them so scared and how the man died.
Hurricane Gilma, which had top sustained winds of 110 mph, kept moving westward. It got dangerously close to where the ship was, with winds hitting 60 mph near the boat. The harsh weather and the hurricane’s constant movement made the rescue operation even more difficult and important.
As a Testimony to Rescue Efforts
Rescueing the mother and daughter was possible because the Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy worked together. Kevin Cooper, who was in charge of the search and rescue task, praised the effort and teamwork that went into it. “Through tireless planning, coordination, and teamwork, our watchstanders pieced together the key elements needed for such a dynamic search and rescue case,” said Cooper. “We are grateful that the Seri Emperor and William P. Lawrence were able to reach the mother and daughter, who were caught right in the path of Hurricane Gilma.”
This exciting rescue operation shows how important organized reaction is during natural disasters and how brave the people who worked on it were in making sure people who were in dangerous situations stayed safe.
