Puerto Rico Deployment

If you are not aware, I recently returned from a 16 day deployment to Puerto Rico. The Caribbean was devastated by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands were direct hits, and as a result, were in devastating states of emergency. All of the islands lost power, fresh water was cut off, roads and transportation systems were destroyed, communication ability was completely eliminated, and access to health care was erased. First of all, after being immersed in this atmosphere, all I can say is to don't believe the mainstream media. They may be accurate on some accounts, but they make mountains out of mole hills often. Yes, the devastation was probably as bad as they were saying it was, but NO, the response and efforts to help the residents was not horrible… it was alive and very active.

I am a Commissioned Corps Officer for the United States Public Health Service. As such, we are considered military and one of the seven uniformed branches. We are 24/7 deployable. We don't fight battles, we fight disease and disasters on deployments. If we aren’t deployed, we are stationed across the country protecting, promoting, and advancing the health and safety of our Nation. I am on a National Incident Response Team. What that means is that we are considered Tier 1, and the first to typically be called to deploy. We have advanced training and requirements beyond the basic Commissioned Corps officer. This often means we deploy as a member of the Incident Command Center in the heart of the disaster.

Like I said in my previous post, I was on call for deployment during my moose hunt (although I was mission critical to the hospital because I was covering for other officers that were potentially deploying); I had to stay connected and available. Luckily, I wasn’t called in off the hunt, however, a couple days after returning, I was notified of my need to assist in Puerto Rico. I knew the call was likely coming because my mission critical status was expiring, so I had a couple days to get prepared. I packed for the most extreme conditions. Luckily for me, I’m a back-country hunter so I have all the needed gear and survival items to live in an austere environment… I’m just not used to functioning in a hot environment. We were pretty much left to guess what we needed to take with us though (because you couldn’t really get something there that you forgot to take). For the most part, I took everything that was truly needed. Of course, I learned what best to take after I got there, but I’m better prepared for a similar environment next time.

This deployment was not a typical deployment. The destruction was greater than any disaster our government has dealt with, the demand for people and resources was the highest is has ever been, the location was unique due to being an island in the Caribbean, the politics were odd since Puerto Rico basically functions independent of the United States, and the baseline infrastructure and health care system was questionably unacceptable prior to the hurricanes striking. All of these issues compounded on each other and made every step of the deployment and recovery efforts even more difficult… this was uncharted territory.

Being in Quality, I am acutely aware of inefficient processes, needs for performance improvement, and identifying system issues. Again, the sheer magnitude of everything made many steps in the deployment process difficult to execute perfectly. With that said, the start of the deployment was a little frustrating for me. I was scheduled to deploy on a Thursday, however, Wednesday afternoon, I received my itinerary to fly out Wednesday night. I was eventually able to get this changed to the correct date. I departed on Thursday morning, but when I was in the airport, I received an email stating that my itinerary was delayed until it could be appropriately approved. I was already checked in, so I figured this wasn’t possible to delay… and I was right. I flew the entire day, updating the proper individuals of my location changes. When I arrived in Atlanta around 11 (Atlanta is where everyone stages prior to flying into and out of Puerto Rico), I headed to the pre-specified meeting area. To my surprise, there was nobody there to meet me. After waiting for 30 minutes, I called the phone numbers I was given in case I needed help. I got in touch with a guy who said to sit tight while he figured out how to get me. I then waited another 30 minutes before I called him back asking about an update. He said that no one was available to get me and that I needed to take a cab to a specified hotel, check in as PHS, and sleep in the next day. So I did.

I got up early the next morning to discover that nothing really started moving until 8AM. At 8, I asked officers I passed where I should go and I eventually found the conference room that was making flight arrangements. I gave them all my information, got tested for respirators, and was updated on the conditions in Puerto Rico. Flights were very difficult to get in or out of Puerto Rico. There was about 150 of us waiting in Atlanta to get to Puerto Rico. They were trying to charter a plane that would take responders back and forth on a consistent basis, but that contract wasn’t solidified yet. They would try to get us on a plane with space as it became available, so we were told to be ready to leave with a 30 min notice. Until then, we were instructed to “relax” before the hard work began. This is when I got a true sense of what people mean by a HURRY UP AND WAIT mindset for deployments. I was hurriedly put on a plane to get to Atlanta, only to find out I may be sitting there, on call for five days or so until I could get to Puerto Rico.

It’s hard for me to sit around, so I looked for ways I could help. I came across an old acquaintance who turned out to be overseeing the Service Access Team there in Atlanta. Their job was to receive dialysis patients from the islands and make sure they got the care and hospitality they needed… basically case management with a daily living component. They were thrilled to have me as help because they were apparently short staffed. In short, I was tasked with temporarily helping with oversight of the Federal Coordination Center, where we received the patients at a hanger on the local military base. We would coordinate their arrival, assess their situation, medically screen them, gather their belongings, get them what they need, and provide transportation to their temporary living situation with further instructions on how to get the care they were sent here to receive. It was quite the experience and I’m glad I was able to lend a hand.

At about 11PM on Saturday night, we were told that we had to be ready to fly at 6AM the next morning. They were able to get a bunch of seats on a FEMA flight that was heading down in the morning.

The next morning came and to our surprise, there wasn’t a bus at the hotel to pick us up. Apparently, the staging hotel switched and we were forgotten in the switch. Luckily, a logistics guy saw us waiting and he was headed to the other hotel. We bummed a ride from him and caught up with where we were supposed to go. They put us on a bus stuffed with a couple Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMAT). We ended up waiting there for three hours until we finally boarder our plane.

Lucky for me, I got an exit row! The flight was only 3.5 hours (nothing compared to flying from Alaska). At this point, I regretted not having a window seat too. To be honest, I was surprised to see San Juan from above in such good shape. Growing up in Iowa, I know what the aftermath of a Tornado looks like, and for some reason, that is what I expected here. That was not the case. In fact, most buildings didn’t have a single broken window. It wasn’t until I landed that I realized this wasn’t indicative of the real situation at hand… and the newer buildings are the ones that escaped most of the damage.

We deplaned and I immediately noticed the smell there. It was an old, musty smell that I would soon get used to and forget about. Of course, it was hot. It was also very humid. Just getting back from camping in freezing temperatures, this was quite the uncomfortable change. I also noticed the damage to many planes, hangers, and especially all the surrounding trees. Most trees were knocked over and absolutely none of them had leaves or fruit. After all the bags were taken off the plane, it started raining a little bit. Lucky for me, I had an umbrella in my backpack; others just stood under the plane wing. We stood on the tarmac for a while waiting for direction. It was clear our command center did not expect us at the time we arrived. A handful of vans and buses eventually showed up to take us to the convention center. I was surprised to see that we had an escort of law enforcement that would stop traffic for us and make sure we were escorted safely and quickly.

After about 15 minutes, we arrived at the conference center. This place was HUGE! It was packed with thousands of people from all over… military, humanitarian people, heavily armed security, stranded residents, responders, powerful politicians, and more. There were multiple loading docks set up with hundreds of cots for responder barracks. Hundreds of meetings rooms filled all three floors, each completely packed with one group or another contributing toward the relief effort. Armed guards with automatic rifles across their chests were at every access point and checking IDs. I have no idea how the convention center was able to keep up with maintaining that place well enough to accommodate so many people, for so long, every hour of the day. But thank goodness for this building still being in one piece because it was critical to the centralization and coordination of the response effort.

Once we got in the conference center, there was more confusion. We got off the buses and no one really knew where to go or what to do. We found our way to the Incident Response Coordination Team (IRCT) room where Health and Human Services had the Command Center set up. It was clear they weren’t really expecting us. We didn’t know who to talk to or what to expect. We asked around and nobody really took us in and helped us make sure we got what we needed or where we needed to go. We eventually talked to enough people to figure out what positions we would hold in IRCT and where we would stay for the night (luckily, they had a hotel room available for each of the new IRCT personnel).

We were told to go get our bags and to wait out front for a van to get us. After trying to locate our bags for a while, we took our stuff and went to the front of the building to wait. We ended up waiting close to three hours for a shuttle to take us to the hotel. At about 8PM, we were finally picked up. Unfortunately, the guy didn’t know how to get to the hotel and tried to get directions from our phones (which of course didn’t work). The combination of possibly being lost in Puerto Rico, driving on roads with no street or traffic lights, dodging fallen debris, and avoiding the countless bad drivers… we weren’t feeling too safe.

We finally made it to our hotel. Once we got there, we met a guy from IRCT who assigned us a room. When I got to my room, I immediately noticed it was already used. There was a trunk of gear in the room and the towels were used, but there was no luggage or evidence it was being slept in. After returning to the front desk to get my room situation figured out, I was told that all the rooms we had reserved were taken. I was told I may have to go to a different hotel or back to the Convention Center to sleep on a cot. Luckily, they worked out a deal and I was placed on the top floor, in a penthouse room (which wasn’t anything special compared to the other rooms… perhaps better access to water, that leaked from the ceiling).

I finally set my bags down at about 11PM. I still had to train for my position in IRCT tomorrow, so I called my trainer to let them know I was finally settled. I met her in the lobby and we discussed my responsibilities. The directions weren’t very clear, and not being in IRCT at the time muddied the waters a little bit. Regardless, I knew that on-the-job training would be the most beneficial anyway, but I still absorbed as much as I could… despite the long day of travel.

Our training session took about an hour and I was back in my room by midnight. I quickly unpacked everything, showered, and hit the hay for an early morning and my first day in IRCT. (Yes… I was shocked to have a warm shower. Apparently, the hotel had a generator that powered the whole place. They also had “clean” water, although our safety officer recommended nobody drink it.)

The shuttle left the hotel at 6:15 and 6:45 every day. I woke up early enough to eat the breakfast buffet at 6:00. It was rather simple (eggs, toast, bacon, and potatoes), but I was just happy to not have to eat MREs. Oh, also, I now have a new favorite juice… Passion fruit juice! That stuff is ridiculously good!

I jumped on the early shuttle and got to IRCT a little before 7AM. Everyone got settled and I briefly spoke with my Section Chief about what I needed for my position as the Unit Cost Lead. Apparently, I was placed in this position because they caught wind of how well I was with Microsoft Excel. Typically, my position is within Operations as a Group Supervisor. Unfortunately, Group Supervisors were not really being utilized yet at this deployment due to the large number of teams in the field and their constant movement. If group supervisors were to be utilized like normal, we would have needed about 15 of them to match with field teams. As a result, I was stuck inside for most of the deployment, helping keep everyone organized, efficient, and accountable (or at least I tried).

The first day in IRCT for me was rough. I can only imagine how similar my experience was in IRCT to what others experienced. I had no idea what I was doing really, despite the attempted midnight training session by someone who didn’t even understand Excel. I tried getting clarification on exactly what I needed to do and how I could help, but my section chief was too busy the entire day to even sit down and talk to me about expectations. Regardless, I found work (mostly Excel related) and extended an offer to help wherever I could. I was actually placed at the front of IRCT, and everyone that came into the room talked with me first (thinking I was placed there to great people, like a glorified receptionist) expecting me to know the answers to where they should go or who they should talk to. Although it wasn’t my responsibility, I quickly learned everyone’s name in IRCT and what their role was… so I could answer questions like, “I feel sick, who can I talk to?”, “We were flagged down by people needing medication and water, who do I give this request to?”, “I control all the helicopters in the air and need to ask IRCT some questions.”, “Will you please give ___ a message?”, “I represent the attorney general and he wants to know when we can expect bodies to be moved.”, “Have you seen Mojo?”, “Where can our team get water?”, and MANY more questions. Really, my official job was to track and monitor all costs associated with the deployment, as well as coordinating the arrival and demobilization (return home) of responders. There were also many duties as assigned.

Basically, once I got assigned my position and I realized I wasn’t leaving IRCT, the hours, shifts (at least 12 hours from 7-7), and days started to blur together. The cycle of waking up, eating breakfast, going to the Convention Center, working in IRCT all day, heading to the hotel, eating dinner, doing my day job work, talking with Danielle and Ashton, and then going to bed became normal.

** I tried come up with a good way to organize the remainder of my thoughts and experiences. I don’t remember what happened on which day and in what kind of chronological order. As a result, I’m going to brain dump everything and separate it all by topic. Feel free to pick and choose which one you care to read about. **

Inbound/ Outbound Flights

I was routinely in charge of organizing the incoming and outgoing charter flights, and making sure appropriate individuals arrived and left on those flights. A part of that responsibility was being at the airport on the days our charter flights arrived and left. Basically, I was in charge of making sure the confusion that happened with me when I arrived, didn’t happen to others.

I coordinated with our transportation lead and security escorts to make sure we had the right people in the right places before we went anywhere. Each charter flight had close to 150 people coming in and going out of Puerto Rico. We had to take role call and check off everyone. It was a very hot and chaotic process being out on the tarmac with 150 people coming off the plane, gathering their bags, and then having 150 people load their bags and then getting on the plane. I eventually developed a process that consisted of bus assignments, roll call orders, and double checks that resulted in a smooth accountability process.

We eventually learned to not fill every seat on the charter plane. We learned the hard way after an occurrence where the pilot would not fly until we lost weight on the plane. This resulted in randomly selecting individuals to get off the plane (keep in the mind the charter only flew twice a week) and the pilot randomly selecting bags to not fly as well. This meant people were not flying that should have been. The people that stayed didn’t have their bags and bags arrived without people, also, people arrived without bags because a handful were randomly selected to stay in order to make weight.

We had a couple responders who got separated from their bags and had to hurriedly be sent to the Virgin Islands. They were told by IRCT that they would get their bags as soon as possible, but it took ELEVEN DAYS to reunite them with their bags. Can you imagine living out of your carry on that is supposed to have enough stuff to last you 24 hours? Now try doing it on a destroyed island with no access to buy any of your needed items.   

Wrong Position

A couple days into the Puerto Rico IRCT duties, my section chief confirmed my position and discovered that I was not supposed to be doing what I was assigned. I was supposed to be a part of operations and placed as a supervisor of a field medical team. After the two section chiefs talked, they decided to leave everything the way it was, and not switch positions.

Quality Improvement

My day job focuses on quality and performance improvement. It was difficult for me to see so many process drops and inefficiencies. I took pride in improving many processes and making them more efficient while I was in IRCT, but there was one process that backfired. I won’t go into too much detail or pointing fingers, but I actually got in trouble for attempting to improve a process.

I witnessed countless people requesting to be demobilized home on a certain date in the future. When that date came, they weren’t on the fly list due to them not being recorded appropriately or being forgotten, mostly as a result of 20 different ways a demobilization date could be requested. I felt bad for these individuals and it appeared the broken process was destined to continue. As a result, I created a master list of everyone’s desired demobilization date (Excel powered of course). It was a great collection of data, but unfortunately, duplicated an already existing inefficient process that someone else was already overseeing. When it was discovered that multiple lists existed (including mine), I was scolded and told to stop updating mine, and that the others would be used as reference. Unfortunately, I know for a fact that there were names and dates on my list that did not make the other lists when I was told to cease.

The irony in this is that a couple days later, IRCT Command criticized the current demobilization date collection and awareness process and requested it be revamped, more accurate, and hassle free. I’m not sure what was done to ensure this.

Food and Water

I was fully expecting to eat MREs for every meal while I was on the island. If you don’t know what an MRE is, it’s a Meal Ready to Eat (MRE). They are made to last forever, come in a pouch packed with a couple thousand calories, contain a way to warm your food, and are specifically made for moving military. I’m happy to say I didn’t eat a single MRE.

Food was readily available (although variety and depth was unsurprisingly lacking). The convention center served three meals a day. There were two concession stand type areas where they served the same food, one on the third floor ($12) and one on the first floor ($5). The top floor gave you larger portions and included more items in the price. The hotel had a restaurant that served breakfast and dinner. There was also a pizza place across from the hotel (ate there one night) and an Asian place next door to the hotel (ate there about six times; BEST mandarin chicken I have ever had). I had a ton of snacks and food that I brought from home too, so I was well off.

Water was available. Again, I was prepared to be thirsty. I actually brought water treatment tabs and hydration packs that were not needed. The island had no way to test the city water, but they claimed it was safe to drink by the time we got down there. No tests = no recommendation.

Bottled water was our source of fluid. There were times when it was scarce and hard to come by in the convention center, but that didn’t last too long. To top it off, the hotel gave me two small bottles with every cleaning.

Communications

AT&T was the service to have on the island. All Verizon service went down for a while until AT&T said that everyone could use their towers. This initially limited it to five-minute calls, but they soon lifted that as well. Very few areas in Puerto Rico actually had cell service available. In fact, if you drove through San Juan, you would see a shockingly high number of cars pulled over on the side of the road in many places. People were driving into town to find coverage and use their cell phones. Since we have Verizon, it was difficult to send or receive texts or calls. I know many of mine failed and I didn’t receive a handful from other people (Sorry for not calling you Mom).

Most field teams were given a satellite phone. You would think that these would work perfectly anywhere… wrong. We actually had extreme difficulty getting the sat phones and G2s to work consistently.

Along the same lines as communication, Spanish was the language to know. I can speak and understand French, and that didn’t help during this deployment (I now regret not choosing Spanish growing up). Most residents know both Spanish and English, but there were a large number that only knew Spanish. This was detrimental to me being as helpful as others outside of IRCT.

Fortunate/ Lucky/ Undeserving of Accommodations

I felt an immense amount of guilt while in Puerto Rico. Here I was, in IRCT to help with the recovery effort of residents that lost everything in the hurricanes, have unmet medical needs, no place to stay, nothing to eat or drink, cannot escape the heat and weather, unable to get basic living items, and have no way to communicate beyond the distance their voice can carry. Meanwhile, I’m in an air conditioned building, sleeping in a clean bed with a clean body every night, able to get food and water when I want it, and have the ability to connect to anyone via Internet or cell phone. I couldn’t help feeling ashamed or a need to also experience the hardship of the people I was there to help.

Our hotel was right next door to a grocery store. This grocery store opened at 7AM every day. Every morning at 6AM, we could see a huge line of people that wrapped around the block, waiting to get in to eat at their deli, hoping to fill their water containers, and wanting to pick through newly stocked items.

Many of our responders were also placed in tough situations, however, comfort of the responders really depended on where they got placed in the field. Some stayed on cruise ships that were fully staffed (multiple ones arrived as the deployment extended, due to hotels being sold out), some stayed in beach front resorts, while others had to camp in unconditioned tents, or even sleep in hospitals. Accommodations were extremely variable.

Political Leaders

There were many political and high-ranking officials at the convention center. President Trump visited the island but he did not visit the convention center. Vice President Pence did visit the convention center, and briefly spoke as well. I did not get to hear his speech as we were dealing with a tight deadline to get responders where they were needed.

The Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) was present for most of the time I was in IRCT. This guy is pretty much every responder’s ultimate boss, so his presence was a big deal. We saw him daily.

I got to meet the current Surgeon General as well, Dr. Jerome Adams. He was on the island for about a week and in and out of IRCT often. At one point, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with him one on one about everything from our families to the current situation in Puerto Rico and how awesome Alaska is. The next day I got him to pose for a picture with myself and a fellow NIST member, CDR Verni. To top it off, Dr. Adams was also staying in our hotel and one night I saw him wondering around the restaurant by himself. I was there with a fellow officer from Alaska and I jumped on the opportunity to see if he wanted to eat with us. Lucky for us he was happy for the invite. We had a great dinner... He’s actually a really cool and down to earth guy. He has only been the Surgeon General for a couple months, so hopefully his new position doesn’t change personality.

I had the privilege of meeting a former surgeon general as well, Dr. Antonia Novello. Dr. Novello is a Puerto Rico native and as such, was on the island to try and help where she could (side note, there was A LOT of “important” people with connections trying to pull strings to help their family and friends as much as possible). I met Dr. Novello when she came in to IRCT asking to get assistance with something. Apparently, she didn’t like the answer she was given, and I was in the path of her wrath. Luckily, I charmed her and we had a good conversation about the current situation in Puerto Rico. She left happy with IRCT, but still upset with whatever answer she received prior to talking to me. The reason I tell you this is because I saw her a couple more times over the course of the week, and she remembered my name (although I forgot hers) and even kissed my cheek upon one of the greetings. I told Danielle she better watch out because I got old Surgeon General’s hitting on me. Side note – Dr. Novello is actually a convicted felon. Look it up!

Sickness in IRCT

Apparently, everyone that went to Puerto Rico to help out eventually came down with allergy like symptoms with a border line sinus infection differential. It was odd. Nobody really knew what it was or why, but it seemed to impact everyone. Some people hypothesized that it could be the intense amount of mold that is spreading on the island. Others thought that all the downed trees and plants released their pollen while at the same time, irritants and pollutants were stirred up. Whatever the cause, it resembled my annual, spring allergy initiated sickness, and knocked me on my butt for a good 48 hours. Luckily, I packed a lot of good medications with me and I was able to kick it.

The threat of sickness got to the point where they were sending people home with known weaker immune systems. The poor air quality and moldy environment throughout the island was a complication waiting to happen. There were a couple people that were upset over the decision, but we didn’t want to take our focus off the mission by having to care for people we brought to help the mission (if avoidable).

Costs and Money

Things in Puerto Rico were naturally more expensive than the states. It’s an island… items cost more on islands that have to ship them there to be purchased. Unlike a typical disaster in the states, you can’t knock on the neighbor state’s door and ask for ambulances, food/water, or other resources. I say this because the emergency response really brought this to light. With the combination of the isolation and expense of getting items, this response effort will likely cost our nation BILLIONS of dollars. It will single handedly be the most expensive natural disaster response in our nation’s history.

And speaking of cost, very few places actually took credit cards as payment. Due to connectivity being down in many places, credit cards had no way of being processed. Cash was king (US Dollar). This posed problems for responders who had government credit cards that needed to be used to acquire resources. I think there will be a lot of reimbursements being paid as well.

Transportation

As I mentioned earlier, driving in Purto Rico was rough with no traffic lights, debris, and bad drivers. In addition, 2/3 of the island was cut off to driving due to the inability to drive on roads that were no longer there. This meant getting supplies and responders to the other 2/3 of the island relied heavily on air transportation, and slightly on boats. Helicopters (black hawks) were the method of choice. The helos were flying around the clock, dropping items, picking up patients, supplying nourishment, returning responders. For an island of 3.5 million people, even nonstop helicopters can’t possibly keep up with the demand of 2/3 of the population.

Small planes were good for runways that were clear enough to accept them. On about the second day of the deployment, there was a small plane accident on the strip right next to the convention center. A handful of people in IRCT witnessed the crash as well. I never heard what the outcome of the crash was or if there were any injuries or fatalities.  

Flying in and out of the island was difficult too (mentioned elsewhere here). Luckily IRCT landed a charter plane that would fly to and from Atlanta on Monday and Thursdays. Commercial flights into the island were easy to book, but off the island proved difficult due to the number of people that wanted to leave.

Unprofessional Encounters

I met many people during the deployment, but the one person that stood out the most was a girl I will rename as Jill. Jill was in IRCT. She was not the typical incident command personal. She was tall, had long blond hair, big chested, extremely muscular, and she wore a bright red t-shirt everyday with the sleeves rolled up (everyone else was in a specific uniform). Apparently, she was a kick boxer and owned a consulting company where she teaches different nations how to prepare for emergency responses. Jill was assigned as a section lead in Operations. The reason she is so memorable is not only because she physically stood out, she had a personality that made her extremely unique.

Jill was a distraction. She was extremely unprofessional, rude, attention seeking, had a my-way-or-the-highway attitude, belittled and bullied people, was very loud, loved attention from guys, and overall thought she was some hot $H!T. She annoyed me from day one. I couldn’t believe she was allowed in IRCT, let alone allowed to act like that. The thing that made her behavior worse as the days went on was that nobody said anything to her the entire time, thus enabling her. She didn’t just annoy me, many people were uncomfortable by her presence and apparent uninhibited reign over people.

One day she yelled across the room to try and get my attention. She asked me something and my response wasn’t the answer she wanted. Seeing that I disagreed with her in front of her influential peers, she retracted to her aggressive, bullying tactics to get me on the same page as her. Jokingly, she pulled out a switch knife, walked across the room at me and mentioned that she would cut me. Now, this act wasn’t received by me as aggressive and I was never scared of her actually using the knife. I know it was her way of aggressively kidding around, however, no matter what the situation, this type of behavior is absolutely unacceptable.

Shortly after, I asked my service chief how I file a formal complaint. She asked me what I wanted to report. After telling her about the encounter with Jill, she immediately told me to send her an email with the details and she would make sure Jill was on the charter flight back home that left the next day. That is exactly what happened too.

USNS Comfort

If you do not know what the USNS Comfort is, check out this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USNS_Comfort_(T-AH-20)

The comfort arrived in Puerto Rico while I was there. It was immediately utilized and functioned as the referral facility for complicated cases and the receiving hospital for any facility that had to emergently evacuate. This actually happened shortly after it arrived too. A functional hospital lost all generator power and they had to transport all patient as fast as they could, including those on ventilators and lifesaving equipment.

Another Hurricane

Hurricane Nathan decided to throw a curve ball into the mix. This hurricane started along the east coast of Mexico and was headed through the gulf directly at Louisiana and Florida and through to Georgia. We had to send a few IRCT folks home to protect their homes ahead of this hurricane. We were also worried that it would shut down our Atlanta operations for a little bit, and thus delay our charter flights coming in and out of Atlanta. Luckily the hurricane fizzled out and didn’t hit the US too hard to impact operations in Puerto Rico (or damage the states).

Any End?

The withdrawal of our resources is going to be difficult in Puerto Rico. Yes the devastation was massive, however, there is a questionable baseline status for the infrastructure and medical system. Puerto Rico claimed bankruptcy in May and as such, has little to no resources to contribute. The medical system in Puerto Rico is dismal. All good providers have been driven out of the country. The combination of all of this is where the withdrawal of responders will be difficult.

How do you remove an efficient system of medical care (although meant for short term) that would result in people suffering and dying? Is this OK if that level of suffering and dying is the same level it was before the hurricane met? Even though that level is inappropriate and below the standard we are accustomed to meeting and handing off? How can you measure that level?

That is the problem we will face with withdrawing. Medical care will be worse upon responders leaving, but few know and understand how it was prior to the hurricanes. Of course, the local government and media will likely spin it like we withdrew too early and don’t care about Puerto Rico, but that’s the nature of the beast when it comes to disaster response in some areas.

Furthermore, all the focus is on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Imagine what the other islands in the Caribbean are like… and they don’t have a resource like the United States to come and help them.

Returning Home

Leaving Puerto Rico was difficult due to commercial flights being completely sold out. The charter only left twice a week. As a result, many people either had to leave after or before their orders expired (I was a couple days beyond). The other thing about the charter flight was that it worked well for IRCT’s priority of ensuring good mental health of the responders.  A welcome committee was on the runway to welcome us back home. Unfortunately, a “recovery” day in Atlanta was mandated for all responders leaving Puerto Rico. We were all required to participate in a group debrief, information sharing, and mental health counseling session the day we arrived. A couple responders had to be emergently demobilized and escorted home due to suicidal/ homicidal tendencies.

The 24 hour hold over initiative was good in thought, but it upset a lot of people who would rather relax at home than in some random hotel. I was not happy about it because my itinerary was scheduled to leave Atlanta very late the next day. Traveling for 12 hours and losing four to time zones just didn’t make sense to have me travel so late when I could spend the day doing this. I asked for an exception and it was granted, resulting in a new itinerary to travel during the next day instead of night.

Randoms

Here are a bunch of random things that happened that I don’t have enough content to make its own section… There were bats everywhere at night; I was shocked to see so many iguanas, which in fact are allowed to be hunted now on the island because there are so many; there were only two washing machines in the hotel and they didn’t work good (I finally got to use them on my last day there, I had to wear a wet/hot uniform home); the AC was not turned on in the plane during the two hour boarding process (like sitting in a parked car with windows up).

Here are a couple things that happened that I can’t go into details about… we were overseeing a 250 bed hospital with 500 patients in it; the highest nurse to patient ratio at a facility was 18 to 1; an entire hospital lost power and had to be evacuated within three hours; IRCT had to go on lockdown a couple nights due to security concerns; a cholera outbreak occurred; flooding happened with every rain including hospitals, medical stations, and the convention center where all the hundreds of people were staying on cots; we depleted the supply of water for helo drops a couple times; dams were failing and the Army Corps of Engineers were here to address; power outages/ surges occurred daily; dead bodies were stacking up thick (not because of the hurricane, but because of the normal death rate and no place to put them); I heard “I Heard” at least a thousand times.

Pics and News

Not many people knew I deployed to Puerto Rico. Prior to deployment, I was instructed to not make my whereabouts known for security purposes, especially on Facebook. Along the same lines, I was told to stay off social media and avoid taking pictures. I didn't ask questions, I just followed orders. I later find out this same message wasn't relayed to everyone. I continue to see many officers posting statuses and pictures on Facebook. 

Here are a handful of pictures I was able to collect from my friends, as well as a couple snapshots from me. 

Our charter plane to Puerto Rico. 

All aboard!

Puerto Rico from above. 

Standing buildings in San Juan. 

Is it safe to deplane on the tarmac and just stand there without anyone telling us what we can and can't do, and where we can and can't go?

The transportation method of choice on the island. 

This is the brains of the medical missions... IRCT. 

Commander Frank Verni, Vice Admiral Jerome Adams (the Surgeon General), and me

You can't really see it, but this is the line that circled the parking lot of the grocery store next to the hotel every morning. 

Rescue animals being evacuated.

This is the Samaritan's Purse cargo plane. It was HUGE. Look them up!

The Pent House floor of our hotel... gutted from rain damage. 

Here is an example of a $5 breakfast. This is four bites for me :)

Luxurious cots many responders had to sleep on. 

Line 'em up. 

This is one of three receiving docks. It contained about 500 claimed cots. 

Initial briefings upon arrival to the Convention Center.

A flooded and totaled hospital. 

More water damage. 

Trees no longer had leaves or fruit. This is part of what's left of the rain forest. 

More examples of the bare shrubbery. 

The USNS Comfort at dock. 

One of a few shots aboard the USNS Comfort... bunk patient beds. 

Typical field, tent accommodations for medical teams. 

Inside a portable, federal medical station. 

If a building didn't have roof damage or leaking, it was extremely fortunate.

The fueling station never slept. 

Me briefing new arrivals. 

The outside of a federal medical station. 

Multiple federal medical station tents. 

Generator power. 

Water bladders.

A Colosseum we converted into an acute and chronic care facility. 

I said it at the beginning of this post and I'll say it again, I didn't realize how inaccurate the mainstream media really was until I was immersed in it. They make mountains out of mole hills, and emphasize the wrong important points to focus on. Yes there are challenges with such a unique disaster in an isolated area, but our responders are doing ridiculously good work, while basically being politically handcuffed by red tape. For legitimate news and updates on the situation in Puerto Rico, check out the following links (also, I'm not sure what kind of details I can share from being privy to operational decisions. I will leave most of that to these approved video releases):

US Health and Human Services Video Updates: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrl7E8KABz1HiKK08T2Lu6X3xSSny9C4z

US Health and Human Services News Releases: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/hurricane-response/index.html 

FEMA Video Updates: https://www.youtube.com/user/FEMA/videos?view=0&flow=grid&sort=dd

** FINAL NOTE - I would like to reiterate how huge this disaster is/was. I am not pointing fingers, judging, or placing blame on anyone for the inefficiencies, or causes of frustration I voiced. I want everyone to understand that in any situation you prepare for, there is always a saturation point for how something can be handled. Puerto Rico's magnitude initially exceeded this, and that is when things start falling between the cracks. This will be a great learning experience because we learn the best when we face something for the first time, especially from the failures that occur. Then, we hope that something this large doesn't happen again.

Also, it feels awkward when people thank me for the service and helping in Puerto Rico. My goal isn't to receive that praise, it is merely to share my experience. I understand their sentiment and appreciate it, but similar to staying in the hotel in San Juan, I feel undeserving. I say that because I am forever in debt to our armed brothers and sisters that risk their lives fighting for and protecting our freedom. I am proud to serve our country in times of need, but my service is dwarfed in comparison. I am forever humbled and more in debt to their greater sacrifices. **

Filling the Freezer

There is little that makes me happier than a freezer full of meat that we harvested and prepared ourselves!

Danielle wrote about our successful caribou hunt in the summer entry (although that was fall). That guy took up a small portion of the available freezer space. I needed to fill the rest of it with a moose to give us a couple years of quality red meat.

I drew an any-bull tag in an area I have successfully hunted in the past. Logistically, it is fairly difficult to get to, requiring the use of a large jet boat to ferry ATVs across the river, leaving the boat tied to shore, and riding in 20 miles to hunt from camp. Luckily, we knew what to expect so planning wasn’t too difficult.

Brandon and Deanna have been wanting to come up and experience an Alaska hunt so they decided this was the year do it. Luckily it worked out in their super busy rodeo and parenting schedule! My friend Kevin was also interested in this hunt after I told him stories about the number of bulls in the area last time. He committed to coming as well, making the hunt a party of four.

We planned to hunt the last 10 days of the season when the bulls are the most active and responsive to calling. The only thorn in this plan was my commitment as a deployable United States Public Health Service Officer. Unfortunately, early in September, hurricanes Harvey and Irma swept through the Caribbean and gulf. As an USPHS officer, I am 24/7 deployable. I am also on a Tier 1 team that gets initial calls to deploy to disaster areas. In early September, it was decided by my department that I would be considered mission critical (meaning I would not be allowed to leave for deployment) in order to allow other coworkers the opportunity to deploy, at which time, I would cover for them while they were gone. If that occurred, I had the potential of being called in from the moose hunt to cover their deployment (luck for me, and unlucky for them, this did not happen), although I had to work remotely and stay connected at all times while in the field.

Day 1

We had everything pretty much packed and ready to go before noon. Kevin came over and we loaded up the wheelers, wagons, and remaining gear in his enclosed trailer, hitting the road around 1PM. We drove three hours before stopping for gas and Thai food, and then drove another three hours before getting to the parking lot of the boat launch. It was still light out so we walked around and checked out the area, watching chum salmon shoot up little creeks.

Without much to do, we decided to go to bed relatively early. Brandon and Deanne slept in the cab of my truck, Kevin slept in the cab of his truck, and I slept under the topper behind Kevin’s truck. It was a loud and cold night, but we got plenty of sleep to rest up for a big day of setting up camp.

Day 2

We woke up a little after sunrise. It was a brisk, cold day, but it wasn’t raining… so that’s always good! We got ourselves dressed for the day, ate breakfast, and planned our approach at unloading everything. We decided to make six boat trips, to take three ATVs, three meat wagons, all of our gear, and us across the river.

This was the first big test for the new boat, and it handled it beautifully! The only problem with loading and unloading everything was a board that broke due to using rotted wood. That board turned out to be of little use anyway and it didn’t hamper our efforts at all.

After everything was on the other side of the river, we anchored and secured the boat for a possible ten days, and left it behind. The ATV ride in was rather uneventful. There were a couple of deep water and mud holes, but nothing too difficult. Unlike last time, we knew exactly where we were going so we didn’t take any side trails or exploratory trips looking for a good camping spot. We went straight to our planned camping spot.

Once we got to where we camped last hunting trip, we noticed it was overgrown with brush and unused since then. We decided to check out a neighboring campsite that was established and used frequently over the past few years. It turned out to be vacant and we made ourselves at home. This spot was AWESOME. It was tucked deep into the only patch of substantial trees for miles that survived the recent fires. It had plenty of open, flat space, a fire area, chain saw cut benches, a makeshift toilet, plenty of places to hang meat, and a short walk to a very good look out area.

As we were setting up camp, I noticed a grouse fly over the trees and land somewhere in the distance. I grabbed the .22 and Deanna and we went looking for it. I quickly found it perched in the tree, pointed it out to Deanna, and she dropped it… drawing first blood for the hunt.

After we set up camp, it was early evening already. We decided to hang around and not venture out too far. Brandon, Deanna, and I would walk west quite a ways along a ridge to get a good view of the lower flat land, and Kevin would hang out near the trail overlooking the area close to camp.

We checked out another camping spot on our way, and it too was vacant. Lucky for Deanna, a small moose shed was on the ground nearby and she picked it up as a souvenir. We walked a little further to the highest point on the ridge (about a mile away from our campsite) and sat down to get comfortable for the night.

Not much was moving at this time so we familiarized ourselves with the area. Less than an hour after sitting down, I noticed a moose walking into view as if it was coming from the ridge our campsite was on. It was actually coming from the east side of our campsite, down the ridge, and into the flat land (Kevin was on west side). I could immediately tell it was a bull with a descent rack. I told Brandon and Deanna that it was time go. I had a few items to pack up but told them to get a head start and I would catch up to them. I packed up, threw on the pack, and we began to walk briskly back to the campsite.

We had a ways to go, and I was in good hiking shape, so I passed Brandon and Deanne and began to jog. Once I closed in on where Kevin was, I was sweaty and tired. The first thing I noticed was that Kevin had company. We was watching the bull with three other people. Apparently, while he was glassing, a dad and his two daughters rode up and also started glassing there. The bull just happened to come out at that exact time.

It was a nice bull. Two brow tines on each side and probably upper 40s for width. As far as we could tell, it was not a legal bull to take under harvest ticket requirements though. That didn’t matter for my tag since I could shoot anything with antlers, however, our main goal was to fill Kevin’s harvest ticket first, and then my any-bull tag.

By the time Brandon got to us, and I had enough time to get my spotting scope out, we couldn’t get a good look at the bull. Brandon and I decided to hike after it in hopes to get a glimpse, and if it was legal under harvest ticket requirements, make a pass at it.

Brandon and I made a B-line for the moose. The terrain here is very open, but there are a handful of trees and brush you can position yourself behind to stay out of view from a lot of things. We had an idea where the bull was at and where it was headed, so we made our way that direction, purposefully staying downwind from it.

Unfortunately, we later found out that the bull went the opposite direction as soon as we headed toward it. We couldn’t see him moving, but Deanna and Kevin said they saw the whole thing and had no way of notifying us otherwise. We only spent an hour stalking the ghost bull, and came across another smaller bull and cow during our hike.
On our way back, we stumbled across a large hare. Luckily Brandon had the .22 with him and placed a perfect head shot. We now had a grouse and rabbit waiting for us at camp.

We decided to fry up the rabbit, and leave the grouse hang for another night. I was surprised at how tasty fried hare is! It was so good!! We supplemented it with a little cowboy stew made of sheep meat, and hung out around the fire for little bit before we hit the hay early after a long day of riding and setting up camp.

It was a cold night. We had a propane stove with us, but we wanted to reserve its use for a day we were potentially confined to the tent due to bad weather, or below freezing temperatures. Everyone stayed warm that night except Deanna, who I think would be cold even in Mexico.

There were a lot of owls that night who apparently didn’t like us camping there. They would not shut up and would land on the tent stove pipe… that was a first for me.

Day 3

We woke up early eager to hunt. Brandon, Deanna, and I would sit on the ridge to the east of camp, and Kevin would sit on the ridge far west of camp. We left before light to be in a position once it was light enough to see. As the sun rose higher, the flat land below become clearer. We eventually began to see moose appear. The dawn hours is a very active time for moose, especially if the weather is calm and cold. This was one of those mornings.

We didn’t see any large bull moose, but we did spot a couple small ones. Most of the moose we saw were cows or very far east to the point where we couldn’t tell their sex or size. It was a good morning for getting a feel for where the moose were and what they were doing in the area (which we later found out, there was no pattern or reason).

While we were watching the moose, Deanna went back to camp to get something. She later returned with a story of a squirrel who was in our food container. The little stinker was helping himself when Deanna caught him stealing red handed. Apparently, Deanna yelled at it, but he just kept munching. It took her hitting it with her coat to get it to stop. Even after she swatted it, it kept trying to get back to the food, and wasn’t scared of her. She had to literally chase it up the tree while beating it with her jacket to get it away from our food stash. Talk about a crazy squirrel! Deanna then secured our food before coming back out to the ridge.

Once the morning movement slowed down, we headed back to camp. Our plan for the day was to ride the ATVs and explore as far as the trail would take us onto military land. We packed, fueled up, and headed out.

It wasn’t more than 10 minutes into the ride before we came across a small bull next to the trail. To our surprise, it was a legal spike/ fork bull (meaning on one side of his head, he had either a single point, or a rack that was split into two points). This is considered a legal bull due to genetic inferiority. Unfortunately for us, we weren’t prepared to shoot the bull, and it quickly ran for cover before we could get more organized and attempt to harvest it. We tried to track it down in the trees, but that proved unsuccessful.

We had a fun, long ATV ride the rest of the day. We made our way through many mud holes, lots of trees, and swamps. At one point, we came to a dead end because the “impact zone” the trail ended at marked a huge plot of land with possible undetonated explosives in it. There was a trail that potentially went around this area, but it was getting late in the day and we did not see any sign that would make the ride a promising one. So instead, we turned around in hopes of getting back to camp prior to 5PM, when the start of the dusk moose movement started.

On our way back, Deanna, Brandon, and I decided we would try to hike a ridge in the distance that would potentially provide a good scouting area. It looked promising from the ATV trail. We parked our ATVs and Kevin rode on toward camp. 

It was about a quarter mile hike to the base of the ridge, and a short climb up. There was a heavily traveled trail at the base of the ridge that made it appear like a moose highway. Unfortunately, we realized why moose travel along the ridge base, because the downed trees at the top of the ridge were HORRENDOUS. There were trees everywhere on the ground (remnants of an old forest fire). We had to high step over trunks, balance beam walk, jump over, duck under, and break many bushes and trees to move a couple feet.

After an unnecessarily long time hiking a couple hundred yards, we decided to finalize a scouting spot. Unfortunately, there were no good places to glass from up there. As a result, we only sat down for five minutes before we gave up.

We rode back to camp to join up with Kevin. He was glassing from the ridge east of camp, so we decided to sit west of camp for the night. While watching the flat land below us, we noticed a hare that kept popping out along the same spot on the ATV trail. I told Brandon about it, and he knew what he had to do… he’s a good shot 

Around this same time, we noticed some movement near the camp on the far west ridge. We soon realized we had neighbors now. There were actually four young kids and six adults in front of the camp. It wasn’t long before they loaded up in their ATVs and headed our direction. On their way by, they stopped and talked to me. We chatted for a while. They wanted to know how long I have hunted this area, how long we were camped there, what our plans were, if we knew of other hunters in the area, etc. I asked them the exact same questions like we were sizing each other up and setting our expectations. After a little while, the conversation took an awkward turn for the better. I mentioned that I knew of a family that owned the cabin on a lake about 10 miles away (this was my boss’s family… the only connection I know of that lives anywhere close to the area). That is when one of the guys said that the cabin was their uncles. I then asked if they knew my boss, to which two of the guys said, “That’s my sister!” What a small world! I met my boss’s family out in the boonies in the middle of a moose hunt. Cody and Josh were nice, and we didn’t mind having them as hunting neighbors.

They were in a hurry to get the kids home before dark so they jetted off. We only saw a few cows that night and nothing legal. We decided to clean the rabbit, and then head back to camp.

On the menu for that night was rabbit and grouse with rice. It took a while to cook, but man was it delicious! Unfortunately Deanna wasn’t feeling well so she went to bed early and missed the feast. Lucky for us… more food!

It was one of the best nights for eating around the fire too because we had dinner and show. We sat around the warm glow, scarfing down our fresh meat while the northern lights came out to say hi. We weren’t sure they would come out while hunting, but they graced us with their presence, and Brandon got to experience their beauty, albeit faint and along the horizon.

Day 4

We decided to try something different this day. Kevin would setup for the morning sitting on the ridge east of camp, and Deanna, Brandon, and myself would ride the ATVs east along the path of the ridge as soon as enough light came out to allow us to see a few hundred yards clearly.

This proved to be a very effective plan. We saw about 12 moose along our ride. Only two of those moose were bulls, and neither were harvest ticket legal. We ended our ride at the trail right before it turned away from the ridge. Again, we decided to try to hike up to the ridge to get a better view spot. This time, it worked out in our favor and we were able to navigate easily to a descent lookout area.
From our glassing spot, we ended up seeing 9 other moose. While glassing, I was also cow calling. Shortly after starting to call, I had a bull moose respond, grunting in the distance. I ended up calling back and forth with him, eventually getting him to come out in the open. Disappointedly, it wasn’t a monster bull like I was hoping, but a small 2x2. Never the less, I continued calling to him in hopes to get him to come in real close for Brandon and Deanna. Lucky for us, he did just that. He wasn’t too happy to find out we were fakes, and it took some good “GO AWAY”s to get him to leave.

Shortly after the small bull trotted off, we heard two rifle shots in the distance, toward Kevin’s area. I then got a text message from Kevin to come get him, he shot a spike/fork!

We gathered our stuff and jumped on the ATVs. On our way to get Kevin, we passed the small bull we called in to us earlier. We could now shoot it since Kevin got the first bull already. Unfortunately, it sounded like Kevin had to hike a really far distance to get his moose, and that meant a potentially very long night… and a bad idea to shoot another bull with one already down that could take a while to dress.

We finally met up with Kevin a couple miles from camp. The first thing we noticed was that he didn’t have any shoes on. Apparently, Kevin thinks that in noisy environments, taking boots off to stalk an animal makes it a lot quieter (this may be true, but I have never heard of it before… and will never try it myself). He told us that he saw the bull with a cow about a half mile away from camp at first. At this point, he walked along the ridge for a short while, until it turned in to a treefall nightmare. At this point, he was close to the moose, and I decided to take his boots off to be quitter in the trees. Regrettably for him, the moose were a little spooky and moved away from his location. They weren’t in too big of a hurry, but continued to walk in the opposite direction, in open grass. By the time Kevin got to them, and could stay somewhat hidden while getting into a shooting position, he had walked a mile and a half in his socks, through wet and stick ridden terrain. He must have tough feet because there is no way my feet could have survived that!

Kevin asked us to give him a ride perpendicular to where his boots were and drop him off so he could walk back up the ridge to get them. He would then head to camp to grab his ATV and dressing gear, and meet us back at his moose. In the meantime, we now knew it wouldn’t take long to field dress the downed moose since we could drive the ATV to it. We decided to go look for the small moose I called in earlier, but it was a little too late… he was already gone.

We made quick work of the moose. Kevin has a method of cleaning and cutting with a Saw-Zaw that proved very fast. The moose was bagged and back in camp before we knew it!

On the way back to camp, we spotted a grouse on the top of a lone, scraggly spruce tree out in the grassy area. We pointed it out to Brandon, who knew what he was tasked to do. Since the approach was so exposed, he couldn’t get too close or he risked spoking the bird. Because of this, he decide to go towards a tree that was about 50 yards away to setup for a shot. A 50 yard shot on my .22 is a very long shot, especially for a person unfamiliar with the gun. You can imagine the hollering and amazement that erupted after he dropped the grouse with a single shot, with a perfectly placed bullet through the neck. Man I wish I got that on video.

After getting back to camp, we setup a meat pole, hung the meat, ate a warm lunch, and then took a nap. We woke up for the evening dusk, moose movement. All of us sat on the ridge to the east of camp that night. We didn’t see many moose at all, but right at sunset, a small bull came trotting out in the distance, grunting and looking for love. We got him to come relatively close, and he was definitely harvestable, however, I decided not to pursue him due to it being close to dark, and knowing the exhaustion that would follow a late night after cleaning two moose in one day. This meant that after today, any moose with antlers would be pursued.

Day 5

It rained fairly good overnight. When our alarms went off, the rain magically stopped, allowing us to come out and get ready for another day of hunting. Our plan for this day was to repeat the plan from yesterday. Although Kevin already shot his moose, he wanted to stay close to the gut pile in case a brown bear decided to feast on the carcass.

On our way out of camp on the ATVs, we noticed fresh bear tracks headed down the trail on the ridge to the flat lands. These were new from early in that morning, but not too new that we got to see what made them.

This was not a good morning to hunt. The moose did not like the rain overnight. Although it was not actively raining anymore, moose were not moving that much. We saw significantly less moose this morning, and none on the ride to our new ridge look out.

Once we setup on the ridge, we only noticed one moose, a lone cow way off in the distance, but slowly walking west, toward our direction. As we sat there longer, we heard ATVs in the distance. They were slow moving, but coming along the same trail and direction we came from earlier. Once I saw them, I could tell it was Cody and Josh with their friend. As they approached the ridge where we were, they took the trail south and rode away from us. They rode a couple miles, and they soon noticed the same cow we had been watching for a while. They stopped and watched the cow for about 10 minutes (they knew it wasn’t legal, but wanted to make sure it didn’t have a bull with her). They soon gave up, got on their wheelers, turned them on and rode about 10 feet, stopped and turned the wheelers off, pointed to their right, grabbed their guns, and shot a beautiful 3x3 bull.

We were shocked! We could not see this bull as he was walking along the south side of the tree line, hidden from our view. They saw him right where he would have shown himself to us, but they were in the right place at the right time, and not us. Good for them! I definitely would have shot that bull, however, I had an any-bull tag, and they could only shoot harvest ticket bulls such as this one.

We sat there for quite a while longer as they cut up the moose out of sight. It was a cold, windy morning and very few moose were out. We decided to call it a morning and explore a little. We rode further east into some areas I have never been before. All trails seemed to lead to dead ends, and no moose were seen, so we soon returned to the main trail back to camp.

On our way out, Cody and Josh left their kill and rode further south to continue hunting. They likely didn’t want to carry the moose with them as they rode deeper away from their camp to hunt.

We decided to check out the moose they left and show Brandon and Deanna the rack. On our way, a group of hunters from the local commune were coming out with another kill. As soon as they passed us, we got a good glimpse of the rack. It was immediately obvious that the moose was NOT legal to shoot. The rack did not have 3 tines and it was not 50” or wider. This was upsetting, especially because it proved true the rumors I heard, that this commune often does this.

I tried calling in the Fish and Game tip line to report them, but unfortunately, I think my service was too poor because it could not connect appropriately. We later brainstormed and decided to not report them right away anyway. It was possible we were the only people to see them taking their moose back to their commune. If they had someone call or visit them, it would be obvious that we reported them. If they knew we reported them, and then saw that my boat was the only boat anchored on the shore next to their commune, they may feel inclined to enact some bush justice on the boat…. And that was not something we could afford. Instead, I decided to report them after we left the field.

The rest of the day was more of the same. Nothing moved, including at sunset. This made for quite a boring and cold afternoon. It was nice being able to sit by a warm fire after such a slow day though.

We grew fond of the area at the end of the trail to the East camp. Kevin had yet to come with us to sit there and call, so that was the plan for the next day.

Day 6

It was another one of those perfect mornings for hunting. The skies were clear after a calm night, the temperature was cold, the wind barely moved, and the sun was likely going to make an appearance. Like usual, we woke up before sunrise, gathered our gear for the day, and began riding as soon as it was light enough to see a couple hundred yards. I was leading, Brandon and Deanna followed, and Kevin was in the rear. Surprisingly, we didn’t see any moose toward the beginning of the trail. Fortunately for us, that changed as we got to the end where we were planning to sit for the day.

As we rode close to where the trail splits, I noticed a couple moose in the distance in front of me and to my left. I stopped the ATV to put my binoculars on them. They were a couple miles away, but I soon noticed a large and wide rack on one of the moose. I pointed it out to the others and we got excited because it was perfectly in front of the hill we planned to sit on. We didn’t watch it for long because we wanted to get a closer look, so we rode up further to the moose.

Upon stopping a second time, we tried locating them again.  We noticed a couple other moose in the same area as before, now on our left, but I could not find the bull I saw earlier. Kevin then mentioned that he could see him and pointed to the other two moose I thought were new to the area. After looking at those moose, I noticed one was a bull, but a smaller one. It turns out, the bull I initially saw was different than the bull Kevin initially laid eyes on. The bull I saw was hidden behind some spruce trees somewhere, while Kevin’s bull was out in the open. Regardless, we had bulls in the area.

As our focus was to our left trying to locate the larger bull, Brandon gets our attention and tells us he sees another bull to our right. He points him out to us, and yes indeed, another bull, larger than the small one in view to our left, was slowly strolling east along the tree line to our right. Thank goodness for Brandon being alert and checking out everything around us instead of just focusing on the bull in view and the one that was hidden behind trees.

I made a quick decision. This bull to our right was bigger than the smaller one to the left, and knowing another bull of unknown confirmed size was still in the trees somewhere, we would pursue the bull to our right. We now had a mission.

We rode as fast as we could on our ATVs to try and get in front of the bull. We knew he was headed in a perfect direction because this east trail ended soon and cut south, directly in the path of the bull. It was only a mile to where the trail took a 90 degree turn. Instead of riding south, we decided to park the ATVs at the corner and walk the trail south. Deanna stayed at the ATVs for the stalk. She was still sick and coughing was an unpredictable occurrence that would potentially blow a stealthy approach.

We lost sight of the bull as soon as we started riding the ATVs again, so we weren’t too sure where he was or where exactly we could intercept him. The terrain here was mostly chest-high grass (my chest, not a normal person’s), with a few bushes and trees arranged in a row type pattern perpendicular to the southern trail. We would leap frog between the rows of trees and bushes, looking through the grass where we thought the bull would be heading. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the bull where we thought he would be. As a result, we decided to walk further south along the trail to the large, grass field beyond the rows of bushes and trees. This is where I found him!

I got the attention of the other guys and let them know I found the bull. He was located in the middle of the grass field, just beyond a small row of thick, high brush. We would gaze at him in our binoculars, through the spaces between the thick brush branches. He didn’t look like a monster, but he wasn’t a small bull.

The bull acted like he knew we were there. He looked in our direction, but I doubt he could see us due to the grass and brush between us. We sat and watched him for a good thirty minutes trying to decide what to do. Kevin likely wanted me to take my boots off and walk up to him  Distance was hard to judge with so much vegetation between us, but getting closer would be difficult (via the south trail) due to him looking at us and slowly walking directly toward us. The problem with our location was the thick brush. I couldn’t shoot through it, so I had to get in a better position around it. The guys wanted me to army crawl, to the edge of it, but I wasn’t feeling that approach. Instead, I decided to have Kevin watch the bull through his binoculars and let me know when to move or stop. After a couple of these, I decided the brush was low enough to be able to shoot over. I attempted to range the moose, but for some reason, my range finder was not returning a distance. I’m not sure if this was due to only the top half of the moose being visible, the sensor being dirty, the weather, or what. But it resulted in me having to guess the distance, something I’m notoriously bad at (of note, Danielle kicks my butt every time on distance guessing games). I estimated the bull to be about 200 yards away.

I set up my shooting tripod and got the rifle ready. As soon as the bull presented a broadside shoot, I squeezed the trigger and let a bullet fly. WHOMP, the first bullet connected. The bull flinched, but didn’t run. I quickly reloaded and let a second bullet fly… no impact. I let a third bullet fly… no impact. The bull still didn’t move. Confused, I reloaded the clip and sent three more rounds flying… all three misses. At this point, I was pissed; I was also out of bullets. Lucky for me, Kevin brought his rifle with him on the stalk. I swapped out rifles, walked a few more steps out into the opening completely away from brush and grass, and sent another bullet in the bull’s direction. This one made contact as well. The bull then turned and slowly walked in the other direction. After about 25 yards, it stumbled and fell.

I was furious with myself. I sight my gun in religiously and know how it should shoot. It was not shooting as I expected. This however was completely my fault. It turns out we later got a range on the distance and I completely underestimated the distance to the bull. It was actually 300 yards away. At that distance, my bullet drops nine inches. That’s nine inches I didn’t account for. In addition, the guys told me they think I was hitting the brush I thought I was shooting over since it was moving after every shot. The combination of both of these means I was very lucky to even make contact with the first shot. This was completely irresponsible of me and could have resulted in a wounded animal, something I try my best to avoid (not in this case apparently). I hate the killing aspect of hunting so anything but a clean, quick kill (or the potential of not making one) tears me apart. The guys told me to not be so hard on myself, but that’s just how I’m programmed.

I left Kevin with his rifle, mounted on the tripod with instructions to drop the bull in case it got back up. Brandon and I then walked back to the ATVs. We gave Deanna the thumbs up as we approached, and then briefly recapped the stalk. We gathered ourselves and then jumped on our quads to ride up to Kevin. Thankfully, he didn’t have to shoot the bull again.

On our way toward the bull, we noticed he had a herd of cows with him, about 6 to be exact. All of them were confused that the bull wasn’t moving. A couple of them were actually really mad at us for being there and acting somewhat aggressive toward us. They eventually ran off, but not after hanging out for quite a while.

I led the way off path over the grassy bumps. It turns out the bull was only about 50 yards off the trail, which made for a relatively easy ride and recovery. I later joked with Brandon that he didn’t get to experience the fun of packing out a 100+ pound quarter of bone-in meat on his back for a long distance.

My ritual of giving thanks to my harvested animal and God was a little disrupted due to the people with me (I rarely have anyone with me when I shoot something), but I still managed to kneel, zone them out, and complete my emotional prayer in their presence.

We cleared the brush and grass in preparation for measurements, pictures, and field dressing. The bull had two tines on each side and measured 43” wide. It was actually a little wider than I expected, and the body was surprisingly thicker than expected as well. The good thing about having Kevin as a hunting and fishing partner is that he is a great photographer. He can make a minnow look like a whale and a mouse like an elephant. See the pictures below to see what I mean.

Although I rarely have people around when I harvest an animal, it was a welcomed change. Three people to assist with holding legs, pulling hide, opening bags, and transferring meat was a game changer. My approach to cutting up moose was fairly different from Kevin’s. It took us a little over two hours to cut him up (about twice as long as Kevin). The weather was perfect too so we didn’t really have any urgency to dress the moose quickly.

One aspect of hunting bulls in many areas of Alaska is the requirement to keep proof of sex attached to the meat until it is cut up and processed. This typically means leaving the penis or testicles connected to the meat of a rear quarter. That way if a law enforcement officer were to ask to see the meat, you can prove that the meat was harvested from a bull. The reason I mention this is because it is relevant information for the funny situation that occurred (and I know I will get a good laugh about it when I read this in 40 years).

(Skip this paragraph is you get easily offended or are a young reader) So here is what happened. I decided to leave the penis attached to the rear, right quarter. Brandon and Kevin were pulling and lifting the quarter as I cut around the hip and tried to separate it from the carcass. I finally freed it from the hips, and Deanna grabbed a game bag to lay on the ground. The guys lifted the quarter onto the game bag, while I reached around the quarter to pull the game bag up the meat like putting a sock on your foot. Well this movement is done in a hurried fashion due to the extreme weight and awkwardness of the meat. In my haste, I didn’t realize that my face was directly over top of the penis and when I pulled the meat bag quickly up the side of the meat, it snagged the dangling penis, shooting it upward, and it smacked me square in the face with a loud SLAP. Yes, I was slapped in the face by a moose penis… a first for me. We had about a 10 minute belly hurting laugh, and they continue to remind me of “the slap” to this day.

After we had everything removed and cleaned, we loaded the meat wagon and headed back to camp. We now had to make a second meat pole to hang our spoils. It didn’t take long with all of us working together, and before we knew it, we had my moose meat hung and covered next to Kevin’s.

The clouds started to roll in and it looked like it was going to potentially rain. Brandon started a fire while I cooked us a warm, late lunch. By the time we downed our food, it was about 2PM. We were all exhausted, so we decided to climb into the tent, turn on the heat, and take a short nap. Shortly after we got in the tent, it started to rain.

Our intentions were to take a quick nap and then hunt the evening movement hours for bear. Turns out we were more tired than we realized. None of us woke up before it was dark outside. By that time, it was bedtime, so we all just rode out the night, sleeping/ rolling around in our cots. Most of us were restless by the time our alarms went off at 6AM; 16 hours is a lot of sleep!

Day 7 and beyond

We awoke to ice everywhere. Although it rained overnight, everything that fell ended up freezing. Most nights prior to this one got below freezing as well, however, I think it got significantly below freezing on this night due to definite ice forming, as well as the ice being relatively thick in the puddles of accumulated water.

We decided as a group that we would head home this day. Ideally my meat would have hung for another day to become more dry on the outside, but we were anxious to get back to civilization. We were in no hurry to head home though.

Kevin still had bears on his mind so he ate breakfast and headed for the ridge. Everyone else lazily prepped breakfast and started packing up stuff. Once Kevin came back, we decided to see if we could bag more grouse and hares. Deanna stayed to pack while the guys went exploring in the trees to see if we could add any small game to our bounty. We ended up bringing six grouse and two hares with us from the small side hunt next to camp.

Before we started packing, we thought the return trip would take two trips out since we now had two moose we also had to get back to the trucks. The more we thought about it, the more we figured it could be done in one trip. In order to do this, we would have to condense everything we took in on three ATV meat trailers, to two of them. The third trailer (Kevin’s) was the biggest. That would be the trailer to haul out both moose in. With enough rope, ratchet straps, and bungee cords, it all fit!

We bid farewell to our campsite and headed out on the ATVs. With the exception of my trailer tipping within the first 200 yards, the ATVs and trailers rode surprising well. On the way out, we stopped a couple times to shoot grouse and add them to our stash. We also found an old, military ammo box along the trail that we picked up. It contained a trail cam in it. I decided to keep it and try to see if I could find the owner later. (After investigating the pictures and asking Coleen’s family about the guy we suspected was the owner, we located him and returned the camera).

Once we got to the boat, I was relieved to see that it was still there in one piece! I had a little anxiety leaving the new boat tied up to the shore of a river that rises and drops drastically with rain, but it proved to be no big deal at all.

The first load for the boat was the meat. We literally had a boat-load of moose meat! The Sea-Ark handled the moose meat and river current with relative ease. After unloading the meat, we then shuttled back and forth until all trailers, ATVs, and gear were back on the parking lot side of the river. The meat was then laid out in the back of our trucks, and the trailers were loaded in preparation for the long drive home.

It was about dinner time now, so we stopped at the first bar we could find for some burgers and beers. That was exactly what everyone needed. We then hit the road again. It’s a good thing I had a couple energy drinks with me or else that meal would have made me extremely sleepy, despite the 16 hours of sleep the night before.

We ended up getting home around 2AM. Danielle was waiting for us with open arms. She had the garage clean and setup ready to hang meat. We quickly hung the meat and left the rest of our stuff in the truck to unpack the following day.

I won’t go into much detail from here, but that is precisely what we did…. Unpacked, put stuff away, and filled the freezer. There literally was not an inch of free space available after the moose was added. I think it may be time to get a third freezer… YIKES!

The start of our ATV ride was hugging the river bed to avoid private land (the trees). 

Brandon and Deanna are ready to ride... Brandon was swimming my clothes!

Farewell boat. I hope to see you again in 10 days. 

Not the best picture, but this was a great lookout point on the way in to our hunting spot. You could see for miles!

We came across a couple love birds on our ride in. Did you know that Tundra Swans have mates for life!?

A nightly fire was a welcomed guest in our camp. It was perfect for kicking the chill from the day. 

This is Brandon frying the hare he killed earlier in the day. We didn't have the best cooking equipment but we made it worked... and holy smokes does fried hare taste amazing!

This isn't the best picture, but you can see how we slept in the tent. Both sides had bunk cots and in the middle was the stove. 

Sand Hill Cranes were flying everywhere just about every morning! The odd thing was seeing the birds so close. Typically when they are flying, they are nearly in the clouds. This picture was taken on the ridge to the east of camp. 

Close up Cranes. 

These are the flat lands below our camp. We had a pretty good look out spot where we could see for miles. The background wasn't bad either :)

I'm not sure what mountain this is, but we became good friends... seeing each other every day. 

Brandon and Deanna glassing from the ridge east of camp. 

Kevin attempted a stock on the first spike/ fork we were unprepared for. I think he scared the moose because he had his boots on during this stalk. 

Look at the top of the tallest, skinny spruce tree to the right. You can see the outline of a grouse sitting on top of the tree. Brandon was sent to bring the bird back to camp. 

Got him!

Kevin and Brandon were on a mission here to find a couple grouse we spooked into the grass. We never connected with grouse that were in the grass. They always flushed before we could see them, and shooting a flying bird with a .22 rifle is impossible. 

This cow was walking the ATV trail toward us as we were riding in her direction. You can't tell from this picture, but she has a calf directly behind her. 

There's the calf! These guys weren't very scared of us. It took us yelling at them for a while until they finally spooked off the trail and allowed us to ride by. 

Brandon and a prized hare. 

This is the back of the bull moose I called in. He came from deep in the trees in the background of the picture. 

Just a little guy looking for some love. 

Getting closer now. 

You could tell he wasn't happy that he was lied to (me cow calling). He knew we weren't moose, but he still seemed interested in getting closer. 

Brandon and Deanna are to the left, and the bull moose is to the right.

Brandon and Deanna are checking out a moose in the flat lands below us. We are at the ridge toward the end of the east trail. 

Looking for more moose. 

More Cranes EVERYWHERE!

Here is Kevin's spike/fork. 

Look at that spread!

Brandon and Deanna needed a picture too :)

My bull (without Kevin as a photographer)

My bull (WITH Kevin as a photographer)

My bull (without Kevin as a photographer)

My bull (WITH Kevin as a photographer)

Brandon and Deanna's trophy shot.

I was able to load everything into the meat wagon and on the ATV. 

Ice on the tarp after it rained overnight.  

The Jays LOVE moose meat. This guy was helping clean the skull plate of my bull moose. 

Jay close up. 

And this guy was helping clean Kevin's bull moose skull plate. 

Jay close up 2. 

Kevin loaded up and ready to ride out. 

Brandon and Deanna loaded up and ready to ride out. 

My machine loaded up for the ride out. 

Deanna went fishing after we got back to the boat. She wrestled and landed a chum salmon!

This video is kind of long. I started recording the bull moose I called in once he was close and I didn't care if he spooked. You can't really see him during the first part of the video, but toward the end he comes in to better view. You can hear me cow calling and if you listen closely, you can here him grunting occasionally too. 

Another short video of the bull moose that was called in. 

Here is Deanna catching salmon by hand!

THE REST OF THE PICTURES ARE FROM EITHER KEVIN OR DEANNA AND ADDED AFTER THIS BLOG WAS INITIALLY PUBLISHED: