Hurricane Ida has left a path of devastation in its wake, mostly felt by residents across the U. S. East Coast from New York to Connecticut. With more than sixty people dead, homes and vehicles swept away in flash floods, and agricultural lands left wasted, the damage has been reported to be in the billions in what is now considered to be the fifth most powerful storm to hit the United States.
While people across the East Coast have been in major need of rescuing, a town in Louisiana found that it had a whole herd of cattle that needed rescuing as well. Some cowboys from the area decided that they weren’t going to allow the cows to be left stranded after their grazing grounds were flooded by the storm. And in order to rescue the herd, they decided to use airboats to get the cattle to safety.
Lead Volunteer, Derek Billiot, shared with WGNO News, “We got about 300 head of cattle… out here that we couldn’t get out from the back pastures in the time before the storm came in, being that it was a quickly developing storm.”
This isn’t the first time that volunteer Billiot has used his airboat for rescue due to a storm. But thankfully this time, since most people managed to get out of their homes and evacuate to places of safety before the storm hit, he didn’t need to use the boat to rescue people, rather he used it to rescue livestock instead.
Since going out with his water-skimming crew, Billiot and the group managed to save at least 60 heads of cattle in the Parish Plaquemines area. While not all the cows were 100% cooperative, also since many were completely exhausted from surviving the flooding in the first place, the rescue crew took on a “no cow left behind” motto.
Unfortunately, many of the animals are stranded in mud and are trapped by the debris in the marsh. While the crew of volunteers has tried to get the cows to higher ground by coaxing them forward, a number have needed to be roped and dragged into safety.
Although this cattle drive is the doing of some good Samaritans and considered very serious business, Billiot has chosen to look at it in a humorous manner, saying “Welcome to south Louisiana,” where they do “Real rodeoing.”
Take a look at this report on Twitter that shows some of the herd that required rescuing.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, cows in Plaquemines Parish are moo-ving to higher ground thanks to good samaritans on an airboat! #cows #animals #rescue #ida #hurricaneida #severeweather @GMA @abcWNN @NewsNationNow #louisiana #cattle pic.twitter.com/Ze6yE8I4A9
— Kenny Lopez (@KennyLopez_TV) August 31, 2021
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True Activist / Report a typo
