Fluctuating water levels and storm debris are creating hazardous conditions for rescuers to navigate as they continue searching for missing persons, a volunteer with the United Cajun Navy, a volunteer rescue group from Louisiana assisting in the search and rescue efforts in Kerrville, told CNN’s Sara Sidner.
“When these waters are rushing and they continue — the water level continues to fluctuate. And so it exposes new debris, brings new debris into the water and creates hazards for airboats” Nick Sortor explained.
He pointed to footage CNN aired where rescue workers were pulling their boat out of the water and then going back.
“You’re showing this video right now and you notice they have to keep taking the boat out of the water and put it back in the water, because there’s so many obstacles,” he said.
Sortor added on some days, hours were spent “chainsawing in order just to be able to traverse, you know, 50 feet down the river. And, you know, as the water moves, the debris also you know, sometimes, it falls into the water. You have to worry about these, these snapped trees falling on top of rescuers. There have been a couple of instances of that happening.”
Sortor said it’s “a really dangerous mission,” especially for helicopter work.
“Over the past several days with the weather and that low cloud cover, that made it incredibly dangerous,” he said, adding that luckily “no first responders in those instances were injured or killed. But I’m telling you, these guys are absolute heroes.”
United Cajun Navy volunteer described difficult conditions for rescuers in central Texas
