Video Shows Cajun Navy Rescuing Residents of North Carolina City

New video footage shows the Cajun Navy rescuing residents of New Bern, a town in North Carolina, amid a rapidly rising tidal surge from Hurricane Florence.

The footage was recorded on Sept. 14.

The Cajun Navy ended up rescuing 160 people, many of whom were stranded on the roofs of their cars after trying and failing to flee the hurricane at the last minute.

“The tide came up really strong -- five to eight feet, they’re saying -- and a lot of the people did not get out,” Todd Terrell, the founder of the United Cajun Navy, told ABC.

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“So a lot of people we were rescuing from the tops of their vehicles.”

The Cajun Navy is a volunteer relief group that was formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

They’ve helped rescue people from a number of hurricanes since then, including Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Marine.

Around 310 people from nine different states were representing the group in New Bern.

Florence Deluges Town

Florence remained a category 1 hurricane for more than 12 hours after making landfall on Sept. 14. It was later downgraded to a tropical storm.

The effects of the storm are being felt widely, principally through huge amounts of rain and storm surges.

The rapid surges caught people who hadn’t evacuated off guard, leading to the need for rescues. Terrell told NPR that the rescues started around 3:30 a.m.

“Most of the time the people just didn’t get out, and the water came up really, really fast,” he said.

High winds made rescues difficult, forcing the Cajun Navy at one point to abandon some of their bigger boats.

New Bern officials told North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper that storm surges in some areas of the city hit 10 feet. The dangerous conditions prompted authorities to put the city under 24-hour curfew, starting at 7 a.m. on Sept. 14.

Mayor Dana Outlaw told the Anderson Independent-Mail that only 300 of the city’s 22,000 residents had power as of the afternoon of Sept. 14, and at least 4,200 homes had sustained damage from Florence.

“People who live in New Bern have experienced hurricanes before, but it has been a long time since we have experienced something like this,” Outlaw said.

Neighborhoods are flooded after the storm surge from Hurricane Florence flooded the Neuse River in New Bern, North Carolina on Sept. 14, 2018. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Wide Recognition

By now the Cajun Navy is well-known, after helping out across the country.

President Donald Trump even hailed them earlier this year at his State of the Union address, noting how many storms and other natural disasters the United States had dealt with over the past year.

“But through it all we have seen the beauty of America’s soul and the steel in America’s spine. Each test has forged new American heroes to remind us who we are and show us what we can be,” Trump said. “We saw the volunteers of the Cajun Navy racing to the rescue with their fishing boats to save people in the aftermath of a totally devastating hurricane.”

On Sept. 14, Trump praised the navy on Twitter, sharing a video from Accuweather that showed the performing a rescue.

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Clyde Cain, founder of the Louisiana Cajun Navy, told The Herald-Sun that operations in the Carolinas started about a week ago. His Cajun Navy group focuses on removing large animals from the area.

Terrell and Cain make sure to get in touch with local responders before arriving for coordination, and also try to bring enough food to help feed law enforcement.

“That is what the Cajun Navy is. It is a people-helping-people movement,” Terrell said. “I always tell people that I think a disaster is God’s way of bringing the country back together and bringing people back together. … People just pick up their bootstraps and help their neighbors.”

From NTD.tv