Page 6 - Volume 11 Number 12

Flooded communities and roads in Beaumont, Texas.
Air ambulance teams from across the country were called on, via the FEMA mobilization order, to move both fixed-wing and rotor equipment, supplies and staffing to southeast Texas. FEMA had requested two aircraft from North Carolina-based MedCenter Air, each with isolette capability for neonatal patients. The aircraft with those capabilities would be MedCenter’s Beechcraft King Air B200 (N209CM), as well as a Cessna Citation Ultra. Each aircraft would be staffed by two pilots and medical crew for day and night shifts which totaled 16 people. Also accompanying the two requested aircraft was the organization’s other King Air B200 (N207CM) to transport additional equipment and crew.
The base of operations for this humanitarian effort would be the airfield in Temple, Texas, which was located far enough from the disaster zone not to be a burden on the immediate disaster area, but close enough to the facilities and patients the aircraft were sent to support. Arriving at the FEMA-managed fleet ramp, the massive hangar was busy with other arriving aircraft, equipment, medical crews and pilots. The first line of business was filling out government paperwork to get the aircraft and crews registered with FEMA. After N207CM unloaded some of the crew and equipment, it headed back to MedCenter’s home base. The other two aircraft were parked in preparation for their duty to start the next day. The crews were divided into 12-hour day/night shifts for each aircraft and they all went to check into the hotel to get rest before their shifts started.
FEMA had quite a job working out the logistics of matching the evacuation needs of the hospitals and care facilities with which air ambulance would fit the mission for each of those flights. Over the next week, N209CM would engage in flying medical evacuation missions and personnel transports, combined with light cargo
4 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
N209CM parking back on the flight line at Temple after a rescue flight.
Crews were required to be at the airport for the duration of their 12-hour shift, so the hangars became their hangout and walking the flight line at night became a regular leg stretching exercise while waiting on a call.
DECEMBER 2017