Military Provides an Exit for the Infirm

Patients Leave on Cargo Planes to Escape Rita

Soldiers methodically loaded the elderly and sick onto baggage carts -- sliding stretchers onto the shelves normally used for suitcases -- and pulled them to the open ramps of huge cargo planes as they evacuated residents of hospitals and nursing homes in the path of Hurricane Rita.

Working throughout Thursday night, military and civilian agencies pulled off an ambitious airlift in 19 hours to avoid repeating the failures of New Orleans, where hundreds of infirm residents were trapped and died before help could reach them.

"We're ahead of this storm, not behind it," said Air Force Lt. Col. Wayne Olson, who helped command the operation from a regional airport midway between Beaumont and Port Arthur.

Huge, gray transport planes, big enough to hold military tanks and Humvees, lumbered into the darkening skies Friday with patients lying strapped onto the metal floors, or sitting in wheelchairs with cargo straps looped through their wheels.

"I don't care where I'm going. As long as I'm getting out of Dodge," quipped Susan Horn, 60, sitting on a wheelchair next to her caged cat, Boots, waiting to board a plane.

The makeshift dispatch center tallied nearly 1,300 patients flown out in 18 military flights that took them to a half-dozen cities around the southern United States, from Louisville to Oklahoma City.

Local officials had planned to leave hospitals full. But when Rita took aim at Beaumont on Thursday morning, they realized evacuation was necessary.

"We were a little behind the eight ball, because we didn't think the storm was coming this way," said John Johnson, a Jefferson County emergency official. "We had buses, ambulances, a variety of vehicles."

But nursing homes began asking for help to transport patients, and bedridden residents stuck in their homes began calling for help.

"I live alone. Everyone else had left already," said Denise Culver, 52, a paralyzed woman who called for an ambulance to take her to safety.

Thursday morning, local officials asked for military help. Air Force, Air National Guard, Texas National Guard and even the Coast Guard responded. By Thursday afternoon, the first plane touched down at the Southeast Texas Regional Airport's 6,700-foot runway.

Already, the Beaumont fire and ambulance squads were bringing people from the hospitals and nursing homes. The first plane filled with patients left at 6 p.m. Thursday.