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1015
Folks on-line
Barrel Racing at Barrel Horse World.com - Horses, friendy active forums, articles, more. |
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1015
Folks on-line
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Barrel Racer Returns  from New Orleans Barrel Horse World is a website where you can
buy and sell horses. Having a bulletin board was an after-thought, a
convenient place where like-minded individuals could post messages of interest
to each other. They might even get replies. It has now turned
into one of the largest equine communities on the internet with over 15,000
visitors a day. Which really isn't giving it justice. It's turned
into a close knit support network that cares, shares and cries for each other.
To many of us, it's become like a second family. More recently, it went even further. Her mother and sister got out earlier - but Dad refused to go. Debbie stayed with him. She typed on the board "please pray for us". We did. And we were riveted to her posts at the same moment the nation's news was reporting the storm - we had live commentary coming from our board. Monday morning Debbie was clearly shaken as Katrina came ashore. The ceiling was moving. It was awful. She typed the following.
And then we heard nothing from her - for hours - then days. And her last words haunted us. "See y'all later I hope" . . . Monday turned to Wednesday night. No one had returned to her last thread since the day of her last message on Monday. Everyone feared the worse and the news reports seemed to hold no promise. But Debbie was alive and no one knew it. She had survived the storm with her father and two dogs and Wednesday night she managed to get enough cell charge on her cell phone to reach her mother. Her mother had spent days trying to get someone to rescue her - calling helicopter rentals was her first thought. The phones were either down or the companies were not available. Debbie told her mom how to get on the website Barrel Horse World and that "they would know what to do." Her mom relayed this information to her other daughter Lisa who was much more at ease with getting on the internet. Not knowing exactly what a "Barrel Horse World" was, they began to read the posts. Another thread was posted in hopes of getting more information on the missing people - and suddenly during the night the following thread appeared:
The word spread quickly. Debbie had survived. Now what? After surviving the horrific winds Debbie and her father emerged to a changed world. The rain had left water everywhere, but even after it stopped raining, the water kept rising. Soon they were surrounded on an area about a mile long and half a mile wide in Lake Vista Park, a northern suburb of New Orleans. Father and daughter had enough time and foresight to prepare a couple of days worth of food and clean water. But there were a few more surprises that made their continued stay in this area more challenging than they could have ever expected. With so much water, thousands of snakes and other vermin had migrated to the dry piece of land to fight for their own existence. They were everywhere and continued to come on land as the flood waters continued to rise. This was nothing compared to what was coming next. By Friday, when waters began to recede a bit, new vermin was making it's way to the more affluent suburbs. Humans. They were emerging from the inner city, people who found no problem stealing
anything they Gunshots could be heard for the first time Friday night and Debbie woke up Saturday from another sleepless night knowing her safety, even her life, demanded some quick action. With limited communication (intermittent Nextel - walkie-talkie mode) or text messaging, even these varied with the crowded airwaves traffic and changing atmosphere. Her mother in a hotel in Little Rock held the other end of the world for her. Debbie sent a message Saturday morning. H-E-L-P M-E. Several of us back at Barrel Horse World were also
watching, and wondering what could be done. My wife had been working the
phones tirelessly for two days, trying to make connections with police, helicopters, friends with boats,
anything. Others on the board were contacting their friends in the
area. We were all posting "HELP" on the boards for someone to
see Debbie's predicament See the red star. I looked at the map and wondered how I could fly to Baton Rouge and once there, rent a truck and boat and buy a shotgun. And I wondered aloud who would be crazy enough to go with me, when yet another barrel racing board buddy came to our rescue at that moment from Utah. It was Ruggedchicca, Shauna, and as a police officer, she worked scheduling aircraft for emergencies and sent us a list of 13 companies that worked with law enforcement and FEMA during emergencies. There were two listed from Louisiana. I picked up the phone about 3:40 CST on Saturday afternoon. The first company did not answer their phone. I dialed the second, a company called Southern Helicopters in Sunshine, LA. Andy answered and I talked. He said he'd put us on a list. I found out later the list was five pages long. The looters were a lot closer than that to Debbie. "What would it cost"? I asked Andy. Andy said it was the same as before the disaster. I recall saying "I'll pay more if I have to with these circumstances", and at this point I don't recall exactly what occurred. Andy said I should probably discuss this with the owner Benjie and I was soon repeating my plea. I don't suspect I was any more eloquent than the other requests on the waiting list of five pages. But Benjie replied "We have a Twinstar ready to go with a pilot" and asked me to get the address and turned his phone back to Andy. I gave my credit card number to Andy and we started to talk addresses and flight times. ( Later, my wife asked Benjie why he so quickly decided to did this for us. Benjie replied simply, "I don't know. It was a God thing". When Gail told me later what he said, I immediately thought of the prayers that were promised us from the board. And I found it hard to speak for a moment. ) But there were still major challenges before us. The first was putting the helicopter in the right place. We had an address of her home and a neighboring Catholic Church and the crew did a quick mapquest on computer and took the printout with them. Ten minutes into the forty minute flight I was thinking about what could go wrong. I knew the pilot could use the map to follow land masses from Baton Rouge to the north side of New Orleans, but once there, he would be looking out of the cockpit into a landscape where addresses wouldn't be posted and storm damage could obscure. I needed an aerial photograph and I "googled" a satellite photo and got lucky. I kept a phone line open to Debbies mother in the Day's Inn
at Little Rock, Arkansas. I looked at the aerial photo and she described
the neighborhood and her conversations with Debbie. On another phone I
called Andy back at the helicopter office in Baton Rouge and he googled the same map
I was looking at from my computer in Olathe, Kansas. Find the only house with a pool
in the backyard (just north of the round white Methodist Church roof), and
you'll see a parking lot just to the east of it. This is where we
chose to land the chopper to meet Debbie . . . luckily it was not filled with Debbie's mother (Linda), said, "do you see the roof that is round like a sailor's compass"? That's the Catholic Church. You can land there. Debbie's house is just north of there. I looked at the aerial. The round roof was visible to me, but there was another roof that wasn't round 100 yards to the west, and it kind of looked like a sailor's compass. Sailor's compass? Round roof? I was confused. Which one was it? The clock was clicking. It was a forty minute flight and half was gone. We were still trying to gain agreement on what the pilot would be looking for when he got there. Then Gail handed me the phone. It was Lisa, Debbie's sister on yet another phone line. After some questioning, I determined Debbie was north of the round white roof, (alias the Methodist Church) and it's parking lot was four houses from Debbie, but I had new problems. Andy said the pilot was over a golf course. I remembered looking at an earlier satellite picture with a larger view and
seemed to recall seeing a golf course. The Google aerial view, when
adjusted for a larger image, picked up the golf course and we could quickly see
they were about a mile south. I grabbed the phone to Debbie's sister, Lisa
and she confirmed it. "Linda? Are you sure Debbie knows we are coming?" I asked. "No." She replied. She had said earlier that she had called Debbie. It was a misunderstanding, apparently. Linda had in fact called her daughter earlier, in fact several times, but she hadn't gotten through. I told her to keep trying - NOW. We had a chopper within two minutes of the location, and Debbie didn't know it yet. Gail handed me another phone. "It's her sister, Lisa" I took the phone and Lisa told me she just spoke with Debbie and she explained what we were trying to do. I quickly told her we were headed for the Methodist parking lot. Debbie's sister Lisa said it was too late, and she had left the house already. "Where is she going?" I asked Lisa. "She said she is making a run for the Methodist Church parking lot, and she's taking both her heelers. " Lisa replied. We had gotten another break. . . . at this time I had no idea where Gail had gone . . . and later learned she was typing updates of this drama right on the bulletin board upstairs on her computer. I spoke into my headset with Andy and told him to contact the helicopter. Andy found the Methodist parking lot on his satellite photo and he tried to radio the helicopter. But he couldn't get through. He needed to focus. He told me he'd call me back in a few minutes and there was nothing more we could do until he reached the chopper with the new location and a contact was hopefully made. I sat there for a moment, then grabbed my phone and went to be alone . . . I prayed - and told my kids to do the same. This was it. The phone rang five or ten minutes later. "Dave this is Andy, and I have Steve on the radio and they just landed and wanted to know how long they should" . . . and then Andy stopped and I could hear him talking in the background. Andy got back on the phone and said Steve was talking to him from the helicopter, and they had found the parking lot, landed. They looked outside the chopper. Steve suddenly radioed, " there is a woman and two dogs and a white male running toward us." I told Andy, "THAT'S THEM . . . ."PICK THEM UP!" And Andy relied my message back to Steve on the radio. Within a few minutes they were pulled aboard, heelers and all. I have yet to talk to Debbie about any of this, but I do know now that her father refused to board the helicopter and they had discussed it earlier. Either way, it must have been a tough moment. Hopefully I will be able to hear Debbie's side of the week's ordeal sometime soon. She was exhausted tonight. I have yet to speak with her. I just want to hear her voice. And see her heelers some day. This was not an everyday occurrence. Benjie's small helicopter company had been under FEMA contract to help with medical lifts. They had never attempted a rescue before! Their phone was ringing off the hook and they were under siege and continue to be. It was a miracle they took my call . . . and they knew the danger . . . and in fact, Steve Simpson the pilot, took the mechinic, Mike Stark along. Andy told me Mike was taking a gun with him. A day after the rescue, I called Southern Helicopter and spoke to Andy. They had not done another rescue like ours since they dropped Debbie off. All their flights were standard medical evacuations. The Twinstar was a loaner they had just gotten. While they waited five minutes for me to make a decision, they received two more emergency airlift calls like ours. I tear up thinking back on the chain of events. I saw a number and dialed it around 3:40 p.m. and by 4:00 p.m. they were in the air flying by faith on my word toward Debbie's location. Anything could have gone wrong. Everything went right. The pilot, Steve Simpson, was a friend who owned his own helicopter business in Pensicola, FL called Heliworks. He had just flown in to help with the disaster. I remember the moment Andy and I were discussing the Methodist Church parking lot aerial photo and he said Steve was on his way . . . then I heard Debbie had left the house with the dogs and was running in that direction . . . I told Andy, "This is quite the drama, I have never done anything like this." Andy replied back, "We've never done anything like this either. We're pretty excited about getting her out of there." There were too many "wows" to this story. Those of you who stopped to pray about Debbie Littleton, need to know. We felt it. It was uplifting. And her heelers got to stay with her. It was a good day. Here's Debbie's dogs. I am not sure which is which.
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One of her last posts was the night before Katrina hit shore. Debbie was
worried. She stayed behind with her 75 year old father who refused to
leave - along with her two Australian Cattle Dogs. In her posts she
expressed how she would "never do this again" as the winds howled
outside and rocked her home. 
could find at gunpoint and killing and raping as they went.
After surviving the storm . . . and letting her family and Barrel Horse World
friends know she was ok early Thursday morning, things began to deteriorate
quickly. 
