ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The New York National Guard is on standby to assist with Hurricane Florence efforts including helicopters with the Army National Guard housed at Rochester International Airport.

The Army Aviation Support Facility has two Blackhawks and two Chinooks on standby and ready to go as needed. The Chinooks and Blackhawks have deployed to every major hurricane since Hurricane Katrina.

“Recently the units activated for Hurricane Sandy, they were around for two weeks in New York City and last year we had soldiers go down to Puerto Rico for Hurricane Maria," said Capt. Mike Jamieson, New York Army National guard pilot. "A lot of soldiers like doing this type of stuff.  Part of the National Guard is doing disaster relief, so it’s something we enjoy doing and it’s a sense of giving back to the community. Everyone on standby doesn’t want the storm to be as bad as they’re calling for, but if it is then they’re ready to provide disaster relief."

The Blackhawks can hold up to 11 people and will assist as medical evacuation helicopters.

“The big thing right now for state active duty for disaster relief is we have the hoist that can hold 600 pounds and it has a maximum usable length of 250 feet, so the cool thing about that is we can hover over houses, fields or whenever people need to be picked up and drop the hoist down and the medic if needed,” added Jamieson.

 

Chinooks take a day to prepare carrying up to 32 troops or 19,000 pounds of cargo and Sgt. Mike Landauer says they’re prepared for a broad spectrum of operations.

“In the event of a hurricane its sandbags, generators, trucks, anything they need us to move around would be fairly easy for us to do. We’re pretty excited to do this, it’s what we do and we’re pretty excited to do this, we’re proud of the Chinooks. Anything that comes up that we can do we’re going to do the best we can to facilitate that,” said Sgt. Mike Landauer, New York Army National Guard flight engineer.

Four helicopters and 20 soldiers are on standby and ready to assist if called upon.