ALCON:
Please bring your 101 card, updated CAPF161, and CAP ID card with you tonight. If you have already sent Col McCroskey your availability form, make certain to send a copy to SQ/CC for local use. Parents have already received a school excuse letter. We will reissue a new one should we remain activated beyond the dates therein.
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ALCON: Be advised that our Disaster Relief training exercise may turn into post-storm SAR and DR operations if called upon. Per Lt Col Dodrill's email two hours ago:
On the forecast track, the center of Florence will move over the southwestern Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda and the Bahamas Tuesday and Wednesday, and approach the coast of South Carolina or North Carolina on Thursday. The strengthening high pressure system to the north will prevent Florence from curving to the north and out to sea. On Tuesday, Florence will be over very warm water well to the southwest of Bermuda and very well could be a Category 5 hurricane as it approaches the East Coast of the United States. This hurricane could cause catastrophic inland flooding in the Carolinas and Virginias. We may be called to assist damaged areas in our state as well as potentially support the other states in our Region. Check your email, text messages, and voicemail throughout the day. Make certain your contact information is correct in eServices. Unit Information Dissemination:
Contact numbers for Command Staff
Please also take a moment to prepare your family for a potential natural disaster. You can find more information at https://wv049cap.weebly.com/sqn-hub/disaster-preparation. Senior members, cadets, and cadet parents: PLEASE contact your command staff with your availability throughout the week and into the weekend. We need to know who we have available should we be activated. We are holding an all hands meeting this Wednesday, 12 Sep 2018. Cadet PT activities and Aircrew training have been suspended in order to prepare for activation. Bring in your day packs and other essential equipment. We will load the van ahead of time. Parents are welcome to attend. We will also hold our Disaster Relief training this Saturday if we are not activated. We need all available hands for this.
Andrew Feldman, Jacques Heinrich and Warrent Ratis photographed damage from the 9/11 attacks from above the following day. (Warren Ratis) Sept. 12, 2001 was a somber if not sobering day for our nation. The crisis from the day prior was still ongoing. Emergency Services volunteers and employees had converged at the site during the night. Still, it was difficult to assess the fullness of the situation. Ariel photography was necessary. The Civil Air Patrol rose to the challenge. On orders from Gov. Pataki to photograph the smoldering World Trade Center from above, a three-man aircrew boarded their Cessna 172 XP. It would be the first non-military flight allowed following the attack. Their craft was nearly alone that morning. Planes had been grounded across the nation. They were briefly challenged by a NYPD helicopter, though it left them be after receiving word that the mission was indeed authorized. The aircrew continued their sortie. It wasn't difficult to spot their target. The smoke heralded the grim situation beneath it. CAP trains hard. The reward doesn't always consist of sunshine and roses. Still, there's a potent feeling that rolls through an aircrews' chests whenever we spot the bright orange of a lost hunter's jacket or find a group of people clustered on a rooftop during a flood. We taste sorrow when we find the scattered debris of a downed aircraft. Sometimes we return to base without any news, and we pray that the CAP ground teams or other emergency services agencies were more successful. Nothing could have prepared our aircrew for what they saw as they reached their target. Lt. Col. Warren Ratis, Lt. Col. Jacques Heinrich, and Lt. Col. Andrew Feldman were among the first to see the devastation from above. Their sortie lasted for hours as they snapped photos of the horrific scene. These images would be utilized by FEMA and the state government to assess the scope of the disaster in order to plan a recovery mission. "There were huge amounts of smoke emanating from where the buildings collapsed and we had to steer away from it," Ratis said. "It was stunning how spread out all of the debris actually was -- like a quarter-mile or a half-mile. There was so much powdery debris, it was like it snowed on lower Manhattan." "It was very somber but our mission came first," said Heinrich. "We knew we had a job to do. It didn't really hit us until later what we saw." "You never forget what you see, obviously," added Ratis, who used to work in the World Trade Center and knew eighteen people who were killed. "But it's still hard to believe." Seventeen years have passed. Tomorrow, the nation will once again pause to remember the tragedy - a tragedy that occurred before some of our youngest cadets had even been born. To these future leaders, the event is framed in history text books. They know it occurred but they are incapable of understanding what it was truly like to experience it. The same could be said of many of our senior members too young to remember World War II or the sentiment behind the "sweating plane" patch.
The Civil Air Patrol continues to rise to the challenges laid out by the U.S. Air Force and government agencies such as FEMA. Threats to our native soil, terrorists attacks, natural disaster damage assessment - this is what we train for. It is how we - volunteers from all walks of life - can best serve our community, state, and nation. We are following in the footsteps of those that came before us. Our cadets will follow in ours someday. Seventeen years have passed since that fateful day in New York City. The events are seared in our minds. As we pause to pay respect to the lives lost on 9/11, we should also celebrate the lives saved due, in part, to the determination of Lt. Col. Warren Ratis, Lt. Col. Jacques Heinrich, and Lt. Col. Andrew Feldman. Strive on with diligence.
Information courtesy of Ready.gov. For more disaster survival tips, please visit www.ready.gov/
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ScheduleFor a full schedule of events, please visit our
UNIT CALENDAR Additional events can be viewed on the WV Wing calendar.
We meet weekly at the Wheeling-0hio County Airport. Cadets report 1830 hrs local Seniors report 1900 hrs local In addition, we hold a meeting the 2nd Sunday of every month, 1400 -1700 hrs local. This day is also reserved for Cadet Program elements or events. WV049 Staff Notices
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