Lombardini-Powered Auxiliary Rescue Unit helps Rita Workers

With 120 mph winds and a 10'-20' storm surge, Hurricane Rita, the strongest hurricane ever to enter the Gulf of Mexico, made landfall at 2:38 am on September 24, 2005 near the Texas-Louisiana border, scoring an almost direct hit on Port Arthur, TX. After staging in Huntsville untill the winds dropped below 70 mph, it was just before 9 pm when Captain Greg Westermier and his volunteer eleven-man task force from the Edmond, OK Fire Department carefully picked their way through the empty, dark, and debris-strewn streets of Port Arthur into the Holiday Inn parking lot. Now serving as the Command Post for rescue efforts in this hurricane-ravaged Texas oil town, the Holiday Inn was still standing, but dark. Inside, Mayor Oscar Ortiz, Fire Chief Larry Richard, and Police Chief Mark Blanton struggled to manage Rita's devastating consequences under makeshift lighting from police cars shining their headlights through the building's glass doors. Without utility power, and with their emergency communications off the air, it was going to be a long night.

To make matters worse, a substantial portion of the police fleet was out of action with flat tires from hurricane debris. With no power, there was no place to repair the tires. Captain Westermier brought with his team, a brand new Foster ARU-320T Auxiliary Rescue Unit, placed in service just two weeks before Rita hit the Gulf Coast. The compact rescue trailer was equipped with a 44 HP water-cooled Lombardini diesel engine and a 20kVA alternator as well as 1800 watts of scene lighting. Within minutes of arrival, his team had connected into Holiday Inn circuits, lighted the Command Post, and gotten emergency communications back on the air.

Outside, the ARU's telescopic light masts brought light to the darkened rescue staging area in the Holiday Inn parking lot, and the Edmond team worked through the night using the ARU's air compressors to change over 100 flat tires, getting the police force and other emergency vehicles back on the road. "We knew from our experience helping with Katrina that flat tires were going to be a big problem, so we brought all the air tools and tire plug kits with us," said Westermier.

Within 24 hours, grateful fire and rescue workers had affectionately nicknamed the Foster ARU the "Superman Trailer". Captain Westermier says the power and versatility of the ARU makes it invaluable during the early hours following a disaster such as Rita. "What makes these trailers so nice is that they can enable a municipality to sustain itself in that first 12 or 14 hour period following a disaster until FEMA or other outside help arrives."