Cajun Navy races to the Carolinas; citizen rescuers pull people from rising waters

Working through the night on little sleep and lots of Mountain Dew and adrenaline, Taylor Fontenot, the Texas captain of an-all volunteer group known as America’s Cajun Navy, headed right into Hurricane Florence’s wrath. As the storm headed toward land Thursday night into Friday morning, Fontenot and his group say they helped to rescue more than 150 people, including terrified parents, their sleepy toddlers and scores of elderly trapped in attics, as water moved higher and higher inside their homes.

“Man, last night was insane,” Fontenot said from the riverfront city of New Bern, N.C., where he was working alongside police and firefighters to save people from storm surge and flooding.

Todd Terrell, with the United Cajun Navy, said those who did not heed pleas to evacuate got trapped in their homes or tried to leave too late. He said rescuers used air mattresses to float people to safety because the storm’s gusts were toppling rescue boats.

“A lot of people did not get out, tried to drive out, and a lot got stuck. So a lot of people, we were rescuing from the tops of their vehicles,” Terrell said. “It’s real bad right now.”

The Cajun Navy put out a widespread call for more boats on Friday, warning authorities that people who were trapped in their homes in the historic inland town were “terrified.”

As Hurricane Florence trudged west off the sea into the Carolinas, an armada of kayaks, fishing boats, shallow-draft duck hunting boats, airboats and pirogues moved north and east from Texas and Louisiana to meet the storm. As the rains and winds began to whip the coastline, the all-volunteer flotilla settled in.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/cajun-navy-races-to-the-carolinas-citizen-rescuers-pull-people-from-rising-waters/ar-BBNl1hn?li=BBnb7Kz