Missouri water patrol officers heading to Louisiana for Hurricane relief got some important training right here in Missouri just a few months ago.

The state has sent a half-dozen state water patrol officers and a half-dozen conservation department employees to Louisiana for flood duty. They’ve taken boats, four-wheel-drive rescue vehicles and other equipment with them.

Water Patrol Corporal Jerry Callahan says the patrol has tried to increase training for swift-water rescues. He says officers are "pretty much on the cutting edge." But he says the patrol can’t have a boat for every situation so it has to rely on the equipment it has.

Callahan says Missouri’s Spring floods gave the officers going to Louisiana some valuable experience in dealing with swift water work. He says newer officers had not seen the kind of swift water that Missouri had during some of Missouri’s Spring floods. He thinks they’ll see some of that same kind of water in Louisiana.

The Missouri group will be gone a couple of weeks. Callahan says a relief unit will be sent in if the deployment lasts longer He says fresh people are needed becuae the long hours and working environment take so much out of officers on the scene.

 

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