Coast Guard's diversion to Houston not hampering its role on Great Lakes

Driving a stake into Hurricane Harvey’s heart has proven problematic with the storm expected to spread misery into Ohio – just in time for the Labor Day weekend.

And thus also for the start of Ohio’s early Canada goose-only hunting season, which opens September 2^nd; Saturday.

Certainly a missed goose season opener pales in comparison to what the Houston area is undergoing right and what the bayou country of lowland Louisiana will encounter over the next couple of days.

As it stands, only two of Texas’s six ports are open: Brownsville and Port Arthur. Closed still are Galveston, Freeport, Houston, Corpus Christi, and Victoria, reports the U.S. Coast Guard. In Coast Guard parlance, these ports are under what the agency calls “Zulu Status.”

The Guard has been pulling assets from all over to help in the search and rescue as well as recovery efforts in Houston and the surrounding area – an area larger than some New England states.

“Responders have encountered an overwhelming need for evacuations and search and rescue operations. The response to Harvey is drawing upon Coast Guard assets throughout the United States,” said the Guard’s Ninth District (Great Lakes Region) headquarters in Cleveland. “In the Great Lakes, this will mean that some seasonally operated units will suspend their operations at least one week earlier than anticipated.” In terms of Coast Guard assets diverted to the Houston area, the service reports that more than 2,000 of its personal are working there along with 20 helicopters and one airplane (about one-tenth of the service’s aviation fleet), and 20 marine vessels. Since beginning its assistance in the Houston area, Coast Guard personnel have affected more than 3,200 rescues of people and more than 110 rescues of pets, the service reports. Even with a large contingent in the Houston area the service remains “fully capable of responding to emergencies throughout the Great Lakes,” said Coast Guard Captain Tim Wendt, chief of response for the Ninth District. That capability was demonstrated Tuesday when the Coast Guard joined forces with its Canadian counterpart in a search and rescue operation off Cleveland. This duel duty came about when a pleasure boat with two anglers aboard was reported overdue. During the search, a Canadian helicopter located the capsized boat with one of the anglers clinging to the vessel. The victim was successfully retrieved but the other angler remains missing and is presumed to have drowned.