The Fairbanks Flood of 1967

During the Fairbanks Flood of 1967 I picked up a man on his roof downtown Fairbanks and he told me his wife was in the house.

I lowered the rescue basket down and the Chena River was much swifter than I realized. I saw nothing in the water to indicate current and did not even think of the water as moving. Well as soon as the basket touched the water it went around the corner of the house and being a log house it caused me great concern. I hit the up switch and it immediately came back around the corner, clearing the protruding logs there.

We were operating among hot power lines and it was imperative that I kept up a continuous stream of audio informing the pilot of his position, how he was doing, and our conditiond.

The lady waded out from the front door, through the water and got in the basket with a small dog. I took out the slack in the cable and as soon as I did the lady, standing up, fell out of the basket and threw the dog over her shoulder and the last time I saw him he was swimming downstream as fast as he could go.

I motioned for her to sit down, and she did. I brought her up in the basket and I guess she was in shock, she just looked at me, sitting in the basket after I pulled it inside, with a great big smile. I looked back at her and yelled as loud as I could, knowing the transmission and rotor noise would have to be overcome for her to hear, "GET OUT". Well I was on hot mike and the pilot lowered the nose and did a max performance take off. I then said "No, I was not talking to you. We blew the roofing off the house - down to the wood.

This rescue was done in an H-21B, the Pilot was Capt Alread, and the Co-pilot was Silver and he may have been a Major - he came up from Elmendorf to help. We also had an official Air Force photographer taking motion picture film of this event.

It appeared on at least two network stations and some of you may have seen the shot of the dog paddling for his life to escape the monster that had just taken his master away. The rescue operation got so hectic later that I put the photographer to work, and made him lay down his camera. (Bill Lyster)