NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. - Airmen from the New York Air National Guard's 107th Airlift Wing delivered 18,270 bottles of water to Haiti on Feb. 8.
The 107th Airmen were settling in for the night when the call came in, and within minutes all crew members were on the shuttle bus headed for the flight line.
The mission, moving 19,000 pounds of water, would take them from their staging area at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., to Homestead Air Reserve Station, Fla., to receive their load of cargo and then into Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
The C-130 crew reconfigured the airframe from their previous mission, evacuating injured Haitians, back into a cargo hauler.
Working together loadmasters, crew chiefs and flight engineers removed litter supports, seats and installed cargo rollers. Within a couple hours the crew had converted the cargo area, checked gauges, mechanics and deemed the craft ready for flight.
Upon arrival at Homestead, aerial port members on site transported and loaded the water, already on pallets, bound and secured for the 3 hour flight onto Niagara's aircraft.
Prior to take-off load masters Senior Master Sgt. Thomas Obrochta, from Orchard Park, NY and Senior Airman Laura Kruse, from West Valley, NY, secured the pallets in place ensuring a safe controllable load.
"Everything needs to be secured for flight," said Obrochta. "If it's not bolted down, it gets strap it down," he added.
The 107th AW has supported Operation Unified Response with aircrew and aircraft since just four days after the earthquake hit leaving the already underprivileged nation in shambles and chaos.
Members of New York's Air National Guard's 107th Airlift wing have been working side-by-side with their counter parts, the Air Force Reserves, 914th Airlift Wing.
The two wings co-located at the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, Niagara Falls, N.Y. have been working together sharing , flying and maintaining the same airframe for more than a year and a half now.
Looking around at Port-au-Prince International Airport, it is easy to see the large scale of this humanitarian operation. Aircraft of all shapes and sizes, from many countries around the world can be found on the tarmac at any given time.
Both military and civilian agencies from around the globe are working side-by-side for one common goal - helping Haiti recover.