What do I have to say about the MS150?  I finished it and the challenge route too!  180 miles!  Altough it was a physical challenge requiring perserverance, conviction and endurance I didn't know I had, it was an enjoyable and memorable event.  It instills in you a pride and accomplishment that you completed such a physical achievement while supporting the fight against MS.

 

It all started on a cold morning at 6:30 a.m. on the second to last satruday of January.  My first ride on a borrowed bike and clothing and equipment bought the night before.  What did my friends talk me into just a month prior?  I'm going to ride 32 miles today?  Hope that one spin class helps!  Then comes the next training ride, just a little longer, and then the next.  Week after week.  Yes, every week the routes became progressively more challenging.  Then my friends throw in the Tour de Houston which is 70 miles and was my first loooong ride.  I got 60 miles and then cramped up and couldn't finish, but the objective was met.  I knew what I needed to do.  First was getting my bike re-fitted and hydrate more!  The last four weeks or so of the training series was the most grueling.  The introduction of HILLS!  Not those bumps in the road we'd been experiencing known as rolling hills.  We're talking hills that requires cars to drop out of drive and into 2nd!  Okay, maybe I just imagined it that way.  But, these rides eventually became less challenging which means we're ready for the MS150! 

 

The atmosphere of the ride is amazing.  The people you meet on the ride and the people that find their way to the road to offer support was incredible.  Since this was my first MS150 ride and also my first two day ride, I was just a little wide eyed to say the least.  I had no idea what to expect.  What pace to maintain, how were the packs going to be, are the rest stops close enough, and Dave is crazy thinking we're going to do the challenge route tomorrow!  There were four of us riding together: Dave, Jamie, John and me.  We had been training together and were ready.  We started out just a little after 6:30 a.m.  The weather was a little chilly, but comfortable.  Once we got out of the city, the ride follows back road routes with some amazing scenery.  We were delayed several times for accidents which required us to get off our bikes and walk a quarter to half mile.  We would hear the sirens and that meant something not good.  The first half of the 1st day is pretty much flat and we had a slight tail wind which is favorable conditions.  We actually skipped the first rest stop, hit the second for water and port-a-potties, skipped the third and was at lunch by 10:30 some 50 miles from the starting point.  If you factor out the time spent at the breakpoint and lost to a late start and accidents, we averaged about 15-17 mph.  We ate lunch and about an hour later started the second half of the 1st day which was another 50 miles to La Grange.  John and I eventually ran at a quicker pace than Jamie and Dave.  We later found out that Dave's rear tire had a broke spoke which caused his tire to "wobble" against the brakes creating extra drag.  Poor Dave.  But it was a fate I was destined to the next day.  We passed through Fayetteville midway of the second half of the ride.  The city is known as the bicycle friendliest and let me tell you they were!  There were people along the road in several places cheering us on.  One group has a bubble machine that blows bubbles across the road and you have to ride through them.  It was really cool.  One guy on a two seater bike by himself was handing out free ice creams.  His wife, a former bicycle enthusiast, has MS and rode the first 50 miles with him and planned on riding the entire day with him on day 2!  Somewhere along the way, there was a local famer in overalls playing a fiddle on his tractor with his wife cheering.  What a character.  The last half of the ride took us into the heat of the day and required us to stop at every rest stop to get iced water.  Life saver.  But this slowed us down remarkably.  We finally made it to La Grange probably around 4:00 or so.  Time for a shower, food, massage and sleep!  We stayed at the TeamHP tent and spent the evening in conversation with fellow riders and colleagues.  I slept like a baby!  Day one was done and so was my first "century" ride, all 100 miles of it.

 

Day two was a little less eventful.  Not so many people along the route offering support.  The one thing about day two is how day one affected you.  I was a little tight, but ready to go.  It took us over an hour to get started because there was so many people in line.  13,000 to be exact!  It was hard to get a good pace going because we were so far back in the pack.  Crowds really slow you down.  Today I was riding with Dave and Jamie.  John had gotten an earlier start and we never saw him on day two.  The three of us kept asking each other, "Are we doing the challenge route?" which started at rest stop two.  There was a bypass just before the second rest stop.  If you made it to the second rest stop, you were committed to the PARK and all of its hellacious HILLS!  Somehow the three of us were separated before we got to the second rest stop, but we all decided individually to do the "park"!  This is about the time Dave learned of the issue with his tire, so Jamie and myself took off to wait for him at the next stop.  The park was gruelling!  An eight mile stretch with a total of 5 significant hills with multiple inclines to make the climb out of the Colorado River Basin.  I can not begin to tell you how challenging this was.  Just when you thought you were at the top of the hill, there was another incline as steep as the last one.  Each required you drop down to your lowest possible gear and crank away.  It was either hill number 3 or 4 that had 5 separate inclines.  But, I kept repeating to myself on every hill, "I'm not walking!"  and I never did!  A lot of people were having to stop and walk their bikes up the hills or resting at the tops.  The training really paid off through this stretch!  Jamie and I got separated, but we met up again at the rest stop just before you leave the park.  We waited for Dave for what seemed like forever and finally decided to give up on him.  We had just left the rest stop when Dave called, "Hey, I'm at lunch already!"  He skipped the rest stop!  We met up at lunch where Dave got his bike fixed, ate, and took off.  Dave was a beast, running like 23-25 mph.  Me and Jamie were cranking away trying to stay up.  I kept thinking I was experiencing too much resistance.  Then I noticed my back tire "wobbling" just like Dave's.  Great, how long has that been happening.  Would have made it easier in the hills if my back tire wasn't "wobbling".  We were forced to stop at the next rest stop for about an hour for lifeflight which was landing about 5 miles down the road.  I used this time to get my bike fixed, several of my rear spokes were loose causing the wheel to be "out of true".  We finally got to take off and what a world of difference on my bike.  No wonder Dave was so gung ho after lunch!  We finished the rest of the ride without incident and came rolling in to the finish line around 3:30.  We made up a lot of time on the last 30 miles.

 

What can I say?  What an incredible feeling!  All of your training, hard work and dedication coming to fruition!  The three of us crossed the line together as planned and was cheered on by our friends who made it out to Austin to support us.  John, who was ahead of the pack with an early start, had finished some 3 hours before us and was there cheering us too.  Crazy!  You can not help yourself but to smile.  The reception you receive is amazing.  It is a very rewarding experience and renews your conviction to continue and actually look forward to the next ride whichever one that might be.  I'm addicted to the sport and plan to ride several more rides this year.  I plan on riding the MS150 next year.  Amazingly, I can hardly wait!

Soon to be updated.

This is rather long, but this is my story.  I have a picture album uploaded also.  

 

We got the call on Friday, 9/2, to deploy two rescue boats to New Orleans and assist the Wildlife and Fisheries with rescue efforts.  We loaded up RB-21 and RB-22 with water and supplies and assigned a four man crew to each boat.  The crews were Mike Huffman, Joey Dockins (me), Pete Haskins, and David Englert on RB-21 and Kevin King, Jason Blackman, Kelly Kessler and Frank Bazan on RB-22.  One of our members, RC Ford, was already in New Orleans helping at the Superdome and had been there since the day before the storm hit.  We headed out around 10:00 p.m. and arrived in Gonzales, LA, around 4:00 a.m. at a staging area.  We were a little early and had to wait for the rest of the boats to arrive.  We then headed to our last staging area on the outskirts of the city limits at a mall called Elmwood Mall.  This was our staging area for the remainder of our deployment.  Each day when we returned, there was a suite in one of the strip malls that was our supply depot.  Each day it was replinished and offered MREs (Made Ready to Eat meals), water, sodas, food and snacks, and equipment.  After intoducing ourselves and describing our boats and their capabilities, we were pushed to the front lines and added to the detail which was headed to the downtown area to evacuate the remaining patients in a hospital and adjacent apartment buildings.  We have three boats total in our department that are 18 foot EVAC boats.  They have a 115 hp 4 stroke engine, large wide flat deck, center console steering, and are designed to run in 8 inches of water.  There were times we had 15+ people and remained dry.  Each day we headed out from the staging area around 7:30 pm and would return around 7:30 pm.  We were always off the water and out of town before dark for security reasons.  Each day we worked a grid and moved to different parts of the city.  Every night we ventured to Gonzales, LA, to stay with some (future) family of Kevin King.  They were very hospitable.  We had running water, toilets, air conditioning and BEDS!  It was about an hour drive from the staging area.  They were lifesavers!

 

There was no presence of the local government the entire time we were there.  We heard rumors that 1/2 the FD and PD forces quit the day after the storm hit.  There was no FD to initiate a command system and grid off the city.  This was left to the state Wildlife and Fisheries dept.  The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries were in charge of boat rescue operations and for an organization not trained in Incident Command, they did a good job.  Each day they became more efficient and the different agencies were working well together.  By day two we were there, they began an accountability system of keeping track of which boats were in the water and who was on them.  They still have one of our command/accountability boards.

 

It was an eerie feeling driving into downtown.  It reminded me like something out of the movies like nuclear holocaust or something.  The streets were emtpy, it was unbelieveably silent.  The windows of the tall buildings were blown out with drapes blowing in the wind.  You could see the furniture inside.  Ever so often a lone piece of paper would drift down from above.  You could even hear the wind blow through the buildings ever so often. 

 

There was a strong military/police presence in the area that we launched every day we were there.  I don't know how many helicopters are needed, but I know how many they were using.  There were Shinooks, Dolphins, Hueys and Blackhawks everywhere.  At one time I felt I was in a war zone as the choppers would land one after the other on buildings and landing zones to evacuate patients, etc.  We did not venture out in the boats without an armed officer on board.  They carried either a shotgun or long rifle.  Most of the time we had a LA Wildlife and Fisheries agent.  For part of the second day, we had a Tenessee Wildlife and Fisheries agent.  We affectionately called them "Fin and Feathers" or "Frogs and Logs".  They were good people not accustomed to the work and sights.  It is not customary for them to deal with the death toll and tragic circumstances we faced.  They were just not trained for that type of exposure.  But they handled it well and we offered advice on how we deal with such tragedy from our daily responses.

 

 

DAY 1 (9/3)

We left the staging area and took the scenic route into the city.  The scenic route was the process of taking several different roads to get into the city.  We would end up on I-10 around the area you would exit for the Superdome and French Quarter.  Our first launch point was at Loyola and Tulane.  From there we headed to apartment buildings to evacuate people still trapped by the flood waters.  We continued to do the same eventually heading out to the surrounding residential areas.  This was our first encounter with the flood waters which were already stagnant and putrid.  And yes, ever so often we would encounter a dead body floating.  These bodies didn't liter the streets, but there were a half dozen or so throughout the areas we were searching.  We met up with Texas Task Force One and heard some harrowing stories from the first days after the storm.  The day prior (9/2) they had just pulled out 17 firemen in a high rise buidling that were trapped by the flood waters while on duty.  They had been there from day one and no one had come to get them or check on them.  The day was not too eventful until late afternoon when RB-21 took on a OB patient that thought she was in labor.  Turned out, she was not in labor and faked the pains to get a free ride on the ambulance.  This was our busiest day and there were several hundred rescues off RB-21 itself.  We were introduced to our first MREs.  Suprisingly, some of the meals were decent.  But some tasted like butt.  I personally liked the beef stew and chicken and salsa.

 

DAY 2 (9/4)

Today we launched our boats at Banks and Canal.  We ventured up Canal street away from the French Quarter towards an area mostly residential with scattered commercial properties.  The launch point is just a couple blocks from Bourbon Street.  For me, it was surreal as I have been to New Orleans many times to the French Quarter and New Orleans Bowl (Go MEAN GREEN!).  It was familiar and brought a different reality to the situation.  We had a larger area to cover.  But today, the Missouri State Police showed up with DUCKS.  They would stage in certain parts of the grid while the smaller boats would go house to house and bring back evacuees to the DUCKS who would then take them to the drop points.  My most rewarding rescue happened this day and it involved Herman and Mrs. Rose.  They were an elderly couple in the 80's.  We were in an area that was very deep, probably 9+ feet and we were rescuing people off 2nd story areas.  We had just picked up a family of three and were headed back to the DUCK.  We used our rescue whistles to get people's attention in the houses.  We had taken a different street by accident and ran into Herman and Mrs. Rose.  Mrs. Rose required a walking cane and we had the task of getting the couple down off the second story across a short roof overhang and into the boat.  We did so with no incident.  They then told us that they had been waiting since day one for a helicopter or something to rescue them.  And we found them mistakenly.  We later rescued a crowd from a apartment building in a project area.  They were by far the liveliest bunch of folks.  They were older indivuals and would not leave unless they all agreed.  They sang several songs for us including "How to Say Goodbye" (thanks Warren who sent one out to his peeps that didn't make it) and we all joined in for "Jeremiah was a Bull Frog".  They were quite good actually.  The flood waters had not yet dampened their spirits.  Funniest quote from these evacuees: Miss Ellie, "I am about on my last nerve!", when fellow male evacuee says, "What?  Miss Ellie, you lost your nerves several days ago!" ... It was quite funny and eventually Miss Ellie laughed with everyone else on the boat. 

 

 

DAY 3 (9/5)

This was to be our last day.  It was a short trip for us as some members needed to be back.  The rescues had slowed as most people wanted to stay and ride it out.  It was not yet a mandatory evacuation.  More boats and rescue crews from across the country were starting to arrive, so it was good timing.  They came from NY, NJ, Wisconsin, AZ, to name a few.  Today we launched off an I-10 entrance ramp.  We were futher NE from the Downtown and French Quarter area working a large residential area.  Today was eventful as we had several media outlets on board.  These included Houston ABC13 and Inside Edition and a couple other photographers.  Every time we dropped off a load of evacuees, we had cameras thrown in our face including CNN.  At some point in the day, Marine 1 landed with President Bush at our launch point.  Someone found a flag and raised it before he got there.  We teamed up with Texas Task Force One and took on the role as the DUCKS the day before.  The TTF would run their smaller boats into the neighborhood streets and bring the evacuees to one of our boats in a central location.  We could hold more people at a time and would take them to the drop off point which became further and further away as we worked deeper into the grid.  I found this to be very efficient.  Again the number of evacuees shrank as most people chose to ride it out.  Working with TTF was very enjoyable as we knew several members including Eddie Mathison.  Eddie is a HFD Captain and works with our duty crew on his off days.  We knew some of the other members by face only.  I met some Ft. Worth FD members on the TTF.  One of which (Landon) works with a fellow North Texas alumni, Rick Mckinney.  Rick and myself are loyal Mean Green fans and follow the team almost as a religion.  We encountered a resident on our path to the drop point that was an ex-marine and was going to ride it out.  He had already begun re-roofing his house and fixing his fence in chest deep water.  Although we told him mandatory evacuation would occur in a few days, he was steadfast in his mission.  We called him the "Hoo-Haw" man because he would yell "Hoo-Haw" everytime we came by.  Ofcourse we yelled it back in force and mimiced the arm raise he put with it.  After getting back to the staging area, we packed, took on fuel and made the trek home.  We got back to Houston early Tuesday morning. 

 

 

I have to say that everyone we met were very appreciative for our presence and our efforts including those that decided to ride it out.  It was only occaisionally that I was happy we had an armed officer aboard.  But it was no where near the norm of all our encounters.  We tried diligently to talk them out.  It was a 50-50 chance.  Myself and Pete Haskins began a bet for each encounter if they would leave or not.  And whoever coaxed them to go, they won a point.  We were pretty much dead even by the end of the day.  But, we had to have mitigation from Mike Huffman ever so often who was our referee.  It helped to pass the time and ease our minds.  We would encounter countless people walking here or there in the water.  Some folks as deep as their neck and some swimming.  They would not go with us.  One group of two was going to feed a dog.  We tried to pick up one guy who was wading his way to the Health Center (which was closed and empty and flooded like the rest of the area).  He needed to get his stitches out and proceeded to lift his knee out of the putrid water and show us a rather large bloody bandage.  There were several occasions in which residents would not leave because a loved one had passed away and they chose to stay until their body could be recovered.

 

 

By it was all said and done, our efforts and faces made it to several media outlets: Inside Edition, ABC13 Houston, FoxNews, CNN, Yahoo News, to name a few.  It was surreal for my family to call me when I got back and say, I saw you on TV.  My mother stayed glued to the TV.  I guess we got a feel for how some of the soldier's families feel.  They were all nervous I was headed to the roughest areas with reported violence.  But, I never felt in danger the whole time.  Only once in the distance did we hear shots.  99% of the people we encountered were very appreciative and grateful of our presence and efforts including those that wanted to stay and ride it out.

 

After several days of being couped up with the same three people on a boat would make you think that nerves would run thin.  But it was very much the opposite.  A camaraderie and bond developed between us that can not be described any way other than unique.  We passed the day with humor to keep our minds off the sites and tragedy we passed at each corner.  We worked very efficiently as a team and accepted our role with determination.  This was an experience and effort that I am honored and proud to have been a part of.  Even though it was a small part in the grand scheme of the efforts still ongoing. 

 

My thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by this devastating storm as do my condolences to those that have lost loved ones.  It will be some time before the City of New Orleans returns to anything resembling normalcy.  After what I witnessed, I do not see how the city will ever be the same.  But there is a bigger picture that includes Mississippi and Alabama and other parts of southeastern LA that need our prayers.  Volunteer and donate at any chance given to you.