Oklahoma Guardsmen rescue stranded motorists and assist local communities

PERRY, OK, UNITED STATES

12.29.2015

Story by Sgt. Anthony Jones 

45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team

PERRY, Okla. – More than 130 Oklahoma National Guardsmen, many of them from the 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT), were activated on Saturday as one of the worst winter storms to hit western Oklahoma dropped several inches of ice and snow causing nearly impossible driving conditions and knocking out power to more than 250,000.

Working closely with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, the Guardsmen were strategically deployed late Saturday evening, Sunday and Monday along high traffic areas where motorists were expected to have the most difficulty. Working in Stranded Motorists Assistance Recovery Teams (SMART) utilizing High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, commonly known as the Humvee, Soldiers are more easily able to travel in the dangerous weather conditions.

So far, the Citizen Soldiers, which included members of 45th Field Artillery Brigade, have assisted more than 170 people and provided wrecker support to several motorists who accidentally slid into ditches. The Guardsmen worked areas from Guthrie, Oklahoma, to the Kansas border along I-35 and throughout western Oklahoma along I-40.

But helping fellow Oklahomans is something many of these men and women in uniform signed up to do.

Several times this weekend Soldiers were forced to react to multiple crises in the worsening conditions.

Sgt. Corey Greenwood, of Cache, Oklahoma, said his group was transporting a family to a hotel after they had been involved in a serious accident involving their vehicle being struck by a tractor-trailer, when a van lost control and flipped onto its side.

“The three of us jumped out,” said Greenwood, a military policeman with the 45th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 45th IBCT. “I climbed on top of the van and pulled the door open. Everyone had been wearing seatbelts and we got them out safely.”

Greenwood and other Soldiers were assigned to help the Highway Patrol near Perry, Oklahoma, had volunteered for the mission, exemplifying what the National Guard brings to the community.

“I like helping people,” said Greenwood. “It makes you feel needed. It’s nice to see the appreciation in people’s faces when you have helped them.

“This is something the Guard [was] founded on,” Spc. Darren Redford said. “That is what we do.” Redford, a Wayne, Oklahoma, resident is assigned to the 700th Support Battalion, 45th IBCT.

In addition to helping motorists, the Army and Air National Guard provided more than a dozen, 15 to 100 kilowatt generators to El Reno, Kingfisher, Apache, Gracemont and Oklahoma City to help local officials maintain essential services while electricity was being restored. Portable water containers, known as Hippos and Water Buffaloes, were deployed to Broken Bow, Oklahoma, to provide potable water to the citizens there.

The mission for the Guardsmen is expected to conclude later this week.

• Date Taken: 12.29.2015
• Date Posted: 12.29.2015 12:24
• Story ID: 185423
• Location: PERRY, OK, US