Once the skies cleared after Hurricane Harvey moved off, the work of cleaning up was hampered by flooding across various counties. This didn't slow down the tight-knit aviation community here.
As donors began to send semitrailers of water and supplies into the area, the Conroe North Houston Regional Airport became the natural staging point for relief operations.
Two local aviators, Chad Herdrich and Mike Barksdale, began to negotiate hangar space to store the supplies and called for local pilots to carry them to flooded communities north of Beaumont. As they began to carry the cargo, two problems faced the aviators. Their personal aircraft could carry only a few hundred pounds at a time, and the airspace became congested with military helicopters trying to locate trapped survivors.
As a solution, the two men reached out to local U.S. Army Reserve aviators with the 1st Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment. One day later, four CH-47 Chinooks from the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment, each capable of moving 15,000 pounds of water, took on the mission.
"We kept having [semitrailer] loads show up, and we just weren't cutting a dent into it. …The Army Reserve comes in and tackles the issue with these big CH-47 Chinooks, and God bless them that they came in and helped us out," Hendrich said.
Critical Capabilities
"We do have the capability to move a massive amount of cargo to affected areas with four Chinook and three UH-60 Black Hawks," said Army Capt. Chris Fishel, an assistant operations officer for the 1st Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment.. "Yesterday, we moved just shy of 100,000 pounds. Safety is always paramount, and airspace deconfliction is a huge aspect of it."
The Army Reserve provides capabilities critical to defense support of civil authorities, including search and rescue, aviation, engineer, transportation, medical and communications support. The Army Reserve owns a stake in domestic welfare with soldiers and equipment in more than 1,100 communities across the nation, allowing immediate response to local emergencies.
"Here's the bottom line for the Army Reserve and for this unit in particular, the 1st of the 158th Assault Helicopter Battalion: this community has supported us through the good times, through the bad times for a lot of years. Having the opportunity to support the community that has supported us for all those years, is an honor, it's a privilege, and it's a responsibility that we take very seriously," Fishel said.