TERRE HAUTE — In the wake of a natural disaster or other emergencies, stunned communities leaders can have a hard time knowing in which direction to turn to receive help.
The phones probably don’t work. Debris is everywhere, and the roads are blocked. Finding emergency shelter, food and medical care for displaced residents is a huge task.
Just ask anyone who dealt with disaster during the June 2008 flooding across the Wabash Valley and other communities in southern Indiana.
In such times, people often look not necessarily for a miracle to make things right, but for valuable help from someone who arrives at the right time, with the right equipment and for the right purpose.
For many folks, that someone is Tad Skylar Agoglia, a 33-year-old New York native who has turned his disaster recovery business into the First Response Team of America, based in Knoxville., Tenn.
And one key piece of equipment that his team brings in response to disasters is made in Terre Haute by an innovative light hovercraft manufacturer.
Agoglia and a documentary production team from Austin, Texas, are visiting Terre Haute to film footage of how the team’s new Neoteric Hovercraft will help reach more people in disaster situations that cannot be reached by boat, aircraft or land vehicle.
“What’s unique in disaster areas is that there are no boat ramps,” Agoglia told the Tribune-Star on the sunny, breezy banks of the Wabash River. “We have to go over asphalt with debris, or in heavy currents, and this boat will fly sideways and will float anywhere.”
On Thursday, members of Agoglia’s response team, a film crew, Chris Fitzgerald of Neoteric Hovercraft and other supporters converged on Fairbanks Park and the Wabash River to film the mock rescue of a person trapped in a logjam when a small boat overturns.
“We are never the hot shots,” Agoglia said during filming as he discussed his company’s purpose with the crew of an Air Evac emergency medical helicopter. “We come into your community and ask what you need.”
Agoglia first got into the business of disaster by doing clean-up. With a crane and heavy equipment, his company Disaster Recovery Solutions would move into to remove debris and clear sites for rebuilding. They were called into help with the Hurricane Katrina recovery, but in 2007, his company made a shift away from commercial success to community success.
“Our last job was in 2007,” Agoglia said. “Since then, it’s been purely humanitarian work, responding where we’re needed.”
Through his government contract work, Agoglia saw that it can take months before the correct paperwork is signed to begin clean-up. Even rescue work can be delayed by red tape.
“But when I began to see the needs that existed on Day 1, or in the first week, I just developed a team to respond,” he explained. “There is no customer for this work. There is no government work.”
One way that his team knows where to respond is by tracking storm systems throughout the country.
“We watch weather patterns,” he said. “We identify storms that are significant and will destroy communities. If we see there’s a need, we will respond.”
One of the first things that First Response Team does is open roads blocked by debris so that essential services can reach the devastated area. A tornado or flood creates a lot of debris, and water may not always be deep, but there are usually other obstacles below the surface that will not allow for safe passage of a boat.
The company also brings in its own generators, and has provided power for hospitals and nursing homes. They have pumped out the basements of flooded hospitals and set up satellite links to enable communication for emergency crews until power and phone service can be restored.
They even scout disaster areas on dirt bikes looking for places to help.
Agoglia modestly declines accolades for the good stewardship his company provides. He was honored by CNN as a Top Ten Hero “Community Crusader” in 2008.
“I grew up in a home with parents who taught me to always give when you can, and to help when you can,” he said. “I’m sharing my resources with the world.”
Indeed, he shares about $1 million in equipment with the communities that are assisted.
That’s no small sacrifice for a young man who once attended college and seminary with the intentions of becoming a priest. As he went through his 20s and built up his business, he also had plans to build a vineyard. But he found more fulfillment in helping others than in his dream of planting a vineyard.
Choosing to add a hovercraft to his equipment arsenal seemed a natural step to Agoglia, and working with Fitzgerald and Neoteric Hovercraft has been a positive step for the recovery team.
“He does the real work,” Fitzgerald said of Agoglia. “Everyone else shows up to watch when it happens, but they disappear when it’s time for the work to be done.”
Fitzgerald’s company built the custom hovercraft with emergency lights and sirens and a stretcher mount that can carry an injured person. Four people can ride in the craft at one time, and its rapid response is what makes it valuable in a rescue effort.
“You don’t have to mess around with unloading at water’s edge,” Fitzgerald explained. “And it can perform where other vehicles can’t, such as a helicopter in hazy skies or bad weather. It can hover over fast moving water and not be affected by the current.”
One of Fitzgerald’s long-time customers, Steve Stafford of the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department, assisted with Thursday’s mock rescue. He got his first hovercraft in 1993, and later sold it to the sheriff’s department when he decided to get a new one.
Stafford is a big advocate of the hovercraft, which runs on regular gasoline and is not as loud as an airboat, which cannot cover land. The hovercraft’s engine is essentially a snowmobile engine.
Stafford and Rich Nicholson of Lawrence County Search and Rescue said they most recently helped with rescues in Brown County and the Columbus area, and they have traveled to Ohio and Kentucky to help people trapped in bad locations and to evacuate medical patients.
Stafford assisted Thursday by coordinating the efforts of the Sugar Creek Fire Department and Air Evac to help with the mock rescue documentary.
As the sun set on the film crew perched along a sandy river bank beneath a railroad bridge, Stafford piloted a hovercraft to the rescue scene while Agoglia assisted “survivor” Brian Sims as he climbed dripping wet onto the hovercraft’s stretcher.
A spray of water from behind the craft caught the sunlight, and a rainbow followed the hovercraft along the river. It seemed a fitting metaphor to the First Response mission.
Lisa Trigg can be reached at (812) 231-4254 or lisa.trigg@tribstar.com.
Local & Bistate
First Response: Rescue documentary filmed on Wabash River
- Local & Bistate
-
-
Rockville correctional facility program teaches life skills
It’s hard to know who benefits the most: the inmates or the dogs.
-
AAA mag recognizes city for arts works
The nonprofit organization that uses outdoor sculpture to draw attention to Terre Haute is getting some notice of its own.
-
State pushing for convenience stores to make safety a higher priority
In 2002, after New Mexico forced convenience store owners to put sweeping security measures into place for clerks working late-night hours, the number of robberies dropped by 92 percent. Assaults, murders and other crimes at convenience stores also dropped dramatically.
Now Indiana officials are hoping voluntary compliance with similar safety standards will bring about similar results.
-
Patriotism & Honor
From his vantage point, Sonner Faught could see almost every volunteer in the cemetery.
-
Graduation turns to mourning in Clinton
Jeana Lunsford’s graduation from South Vermillion High School Saturday should have been a time of celebration.
-
School choice proponents foresee growth of vouchers
Twenty-seven Vigo County students benefited from tax-supported vouchers during the first year of the Choice Scholarship Program, and that number is expected to grow for 2012-13, say Indiana school choice leaders who visited Terre Haute Thursday.
-
Tales of obstruction meet first takeover attempts
A decade after Indiana legislators gave the state the power to take over chronically failing schools, the first implementation of the law is meeting with resistance, skepticism and questions about its costs.
-
THE OFF SEASON: Raising a flag for my father, veteran or not
My daughter, Ellen, and I stood at my parents’ graves on Mother’s Day a few weeks back and talked about how it couldn’t possibly have been so long since we lost them. My dad, for instance, has been gone for 16 years, and that is nearly unimaginable
-
3 rescued from burning residence
Quick action on the part of some first-responders is credited with saving the lives of three people in a Vermillion County fire early Saturday morning, according to the Vermillion County Sheriff’s Department.
-
He never forgot a name: Friends remember victim of fire at Garfield Towers
When Freddie Poore met you, he never forgot you.
-
Hometown boy embraces ‘Promise I Made’: Clinton native Ken Kercheval takes role in Dreams Come True production
Thanks to some help from a hometown boy in Hollywood, “This Promise I Made” is still on track to be kept in Clinton.
-
STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Many say they don’t vote in primary because of tag that comes with it
A couple of columns ago, I posed a question about why most Indiana polling places on primary election day had so few customers.
-
Police looking for convenience store robber
Police are seeking a robbery suspect following a Saturday morning armed robbery at the Jiffy MiniMart at 25th Street and Eighth Avenue.
-
Graduation ‘responsibility’: Rose-Hulman stages 134th commencement exercises
Inventor Dean Kamen gave a first-hand demonstration Saturday of how to be an innovator.
-
THE OFF SEASON: To the seniors, one last lecture before you go …
It dawned on me one day last week, as I sat at my desk in my teacher clothes and shoes, a stack of ungraded essays calling to me from a rather tall and depressing pile, that I hadn’t missed a high school graduation in 33 years.
-
Water rescuers
Emergency personnel wheel a man who was removed from a vehicle that had been driven into the water at Crystal Lake on Boston Avenue near 14th Street at about 9 p.m. Friday.
-
For many, camping outdoors is the way to beat the heat, enjoy nature
Stringing up fishing poles in the shade of American flags, households full of Hoosiers are packing into parks across the state this weekend.
-
Towns along National Road readying for next week’s miles-long yard sale
Stretching 824 miles from Baltimore to St. Louis, the National Road — known as U.S. 40 through Indiana — will soon be the host site for perhaps the longest bargain market in the country.
-
Rose grads honoring late president Branam at commencement today
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s Class of 2012 will honor the memory of Matt Branam during today’s commencement ceremony by wearing special pins with the phrase “Make It Happen; Make It Fun,” a favorite saying of the former Rose-Hulman president, who died unexpectedly on April 20.
-
Vigo County Jail Log: May 26, 2012
The following individuals were booked into the Vigo County Jail by area law enforcement on Thursday and Friday, based on jail records. Charges are recommended by arresting officers but are not final until the Vigo County prosecutor reviews the case and files official charges.
-
A fallen soldier returns home
An Army carry team moves a transfer case containing the remains of Spc. Arronn D. Fields early Thursday morning at Dover Air Force Base, Del.
-
Official touts trade with northern neighbor
A top Canadian diplomat told a Terre Haute audience Thursday his country was “disappointed” when President Obama at least temporarily rejected a proposed transcontinental oil pipeline from Alberta to Texas.
-
Caution urged for summer’s kickoff
Lane restrictions in construction zones on Interstate 70 and other highways around the state will be lifted to accommodate holiday travel for the Memorial Day Weekend.
-
Letters delivered
Several positions will be eliminated this summer at the Terre Haute mail processing facility as the U.S. Postal Service begins moving the operation to Indianapolis, a U.S. Postal Service spokesman has confirmed.
-
Companies seek Vigo tax abatements
Two Vigo County companies are seeking tax abatements for expansion projects, one of which is included as part of a county incentive package.
-
High-speed chase suspect caught in West Virginia
The suspect in a cross-country, high-speed chase originating in Terre Haute last week was reportedly in federal custody Thursday evening.
-
Second victim of deadly I-70 semi-trailer crash identified
The Vigo County Coroner’s Office has identified the passenger of a semi-tractor crash on May 16 in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 70 near the 12-mile marker.
- VIGO COUNTY JAIL LOG: May 22-24, 2012
-
Burn ban in effect for Vigo County through holiday weekend
Vigo County officials have issued a burn ban effective Thursday and remains in effect until 8 a.m. Tuesday.
-
Brazil remembers a Fallen Son
A small town seemed sadly quiet Wednesday, waiting to honor a local fallen warrior.
- More Local & Bistate Headlines
-
Obama Honors Fallen Troops at Arlington Cemetery
Raw Video: Cop Shoots Man Eating Another's Face
Raw Video: Deadly Explosion at Minn. Paper Mill
Man in Crane at Texas College Says He's Armed
Raw Video: 19 Dead in Qatar Shopping Mall Fire
Romney Promises World's Strongest Military
Beryl Makes Landfall on Florida Coast
Beryl Knocks Out Power in Florida
Obama Pays Tribute to Vietnam Veterans
Service Dogs Help Wash. Soldiers Battling PTSD
Raw Video: Memorial Day Aboard Intrepid
Japan Farmers Plant, Seek Radiation-free Rice
Raw Video: Heckler Bursts in on Blair Testimony
Air Canada Plane Makes Emergency Landing
UN Blames Syrian Forces for Shelling Houla
Raw Video: Gay Protest Blocked in Moscow
Vatican in Chaos After Butler Arrested for Leaks
Raw Video: Obama Lays Wreath on Memorial Day
Raw Video: National Mall Concert Shut Down
Biden Addresses West Point Graduating Class
J.Lo and Marc's Friendly Reunion
Justin Bieber Accused of Assaulting Photographer - Glen Walker reports
Cynthia Nixon Ties the Knot
Woman, 80, Falls Out of Skydive Harness Mid-Jump
Keira Reveals Engagement Ring
Dog runs alonside cyclists for 1,100 miles
Lady Gaga Cancels Indonesian Show After Threats
Long Story Short: Beyonce back on stage
Raw Video: Man Rescued From River in China
Celtics crush Sixers in Game 7
Alleged Lego Thief Faces Felony Charges
Has Snooki Named Her Baby?
Heat Wave Warms Holiday Weekend
Beyonce Entertains the First Family
Inspiration for the class of 2012
