Pat and Linda Joffrion moved to Orange Beach, Alabama in May of 2009.  They purchased an unfinished duplex on Marina Road and began an 18-month effort to complete their retirement home.  The duplex had a slip in the back yard capable of mooring their Carver 530 which they lived aboard until the house was ready for occupancy.  They completed all of the construction details last May, sold their Louisiana business holdings in July, and began their transition into retirement.

The Joffrion’s former home was located along Lake Pontchartrain in Slidell, La.  They moved into that newly constructed residence on June 1, 2005, just 88 days before Katrina sent them to the Red Cross for food, water, and ice.  “Money was no good in the weeks after Katrina.  There was simply nothing you could buy, no matter how much cash you had.  Roads were covered with debris that was once someone’s home,” Joffrion added.  “We had no running water or electricity for 90 days at the house.  We were fortunate that our sailboat survived the storm.  The boat was full of food, water, and diesel fuel to run the onboard generator.  We had someplace to live as we rebuilt our home.”

Retirement to them does not mean slowing down.  Instead, they are as active today as when they were when earning a paycheck, except nowadays, they work helping others.  Just last Sunday morning, they departed Jack Edwards Airport at the crack of dawn, heading to Fort Lauderdale, Florida in their airplane to help deliver Red Cross supplies to the outer islands of the Bahamas.  “There is no FEMA to assist these people that were left homeless after Hurricane Irene,” Pat said.  “Bahamashabitat.org put out an online request for pilots with airplanes to deliver food, water, and blankets to the islands that wereinundated by the storm.  Those folks out there don’t even have coconuts to eat!  The storm blew everything out to sea.  From the air, we could seefurniture, roofs, lumber, and dead animals floating in the ocean tide lines around the islands.”

The couple’s single-engine Cessna is normally kept at the main hangar of Jack Edwards Airport in Gulf Shores.   Both Pat and Linda are U.S. Coast Guard licensed charter boat captains.  Pat has been an instrument rated FAA pilot since 1984, logging over 500 hours of flight time.  Linda is a student pilot, earning her flight time as co-pilot whenever she tags along with her husband.  “I feel safe when Pat is at the controls,” Linda admitted.  “He is always planning ahead, making certain that the plane is performing properly.”

The Florida organizers crammed the Cessna to the weight limit on Sunday evening, loading tools, nails, tarps, MRE’s (meals ready to eat), and bottled water.  On Monday, August 29th, it struggled to get airborne with so much weight, but Pat managed to fly his assigned route for delivery to Governors Harbour Airport on the island of Eluthra.  “We were at gross certified takeoff weight when we left Fort Lauderdale,” Pat explained.  “We had to burn at least 30 gallons of fuel to get down to the legal landing weight.  When we touched down at Governors Harbour, we had to come in fast, and then allow the plane to sink to the pavement.”

The destination airport tower was knocked out of commission by the hurricane which mandated that Pat land his plane while broadcasting his whereabouts to other pilots in the area.  Pat followed his instructions and made a low “buzz” over a nearby church to sound his arrival.  When they pulled up to the main airport building, there wasn’t much to be seen.  Shingles were blown off the roof, an airplane was flipped upside down on the tarmac, and there were no aircraft fuel tanks.  As their plane gingerly rolled to a stop, a smiling islander waved excitedly while rolling a cargo cart towards the aircraft.

“Thank you.  Thank you so much,” the islander yelled.  “He was already thanking us,” Pat explained.  “He didn’t even know what we had on board!”  The gentlemen’s eyes lit bright as he saw the cache unloaded.  “A tool box!” he shouted while looking over his shoulders for his companions.  “And roofing nails!  You got all kinds of stuff in there Mon.”  “You have any airplane gas her?” Pat inquired.  “No Mon.  Our tanks got blown away,” the man replied with a grin.  “We got no gas, got no electricity, got no water, got no nothing!”

Pat and Linda grabbed their passports to comply with Bahamian immigration rules.  Making their way into an unlit building with boarded windows, they found the uniformed female Customs officer sitting behind a wooden table, cooling herself from the searing heat with only a small hand fan.  Sweat was pouring from her forehead as she accepted the pilot’s papers.  Not a word was spoken while she processed and stamped the aircraft paperwork.  Handing the documents to Pat, she asked that the manifest be signed and dated.  Pat scribbled his signature, but his mind was not very clear from hours of rainstorm and clouds obscuring his flight across the ocean.  He had to ask Linda what was the date.  “August 29th,” Linda replied.  “Six years to the day that Katrina hit us.”

That simple statement stopped Pat in his tracks as though he had been struck by lightening.  His drained mind immediately began to have flashbacks to life after Katrina hit Louisiana.  Here it was, six long years after anxiously waiting for Red Cross aid, and now, Pat was on the opposite end of the spectrum. 

He and Linda were delivering Red Cross aid to other hurricane victims.

Storms were continuing to build in the Bahamian skies as Pat and Linda departed for Nassau to take on more provisions.  The Red Cross location was hard to locate on the airport grounds.  No one at the facility could offer directions to the hanger of relief supplies.  “Check next door” was the answer most uttered.  When they ran out of buildings on one side of the airport, Pat fired up the plane and received taxi clearance to cross the active runway to investigate the only building on the West side.  “This has got to be it,” Linda exclaimed.  “It’s the only building left!”  As the spinning propeller churned to a stop, Pat spotted an open hangar with boxes marked by the world-recognized dark Red Cross.

A quick check-in and the plane was once again loaded to the gills with relief supplies.  “We’ll fuel up when we return,” Pat explained to Linda. “We should have enough to make it to Cat Island and back with the fuel on board.  That way, we can carry more cases of water.”  The inhabitants at the next landing strip were without drinking water.  The salty storm surge inundated the tiny island, taking all of the fresh water cisterns out to sea as the waters receded.  The loss of electricity meant that the desalination machines could not produce a single drop of fresh water.

The Nassau airport was operating at peak performance that afternoon with commercial jet aircraft coming and going at a frantic pace.  The flight tower handled the traffic as best they could, but Pat and Linda were forced to wait for almost an hour to get a takeoff order.  Pat could not shut down the engine while waiting on the departure taxiway which resulted in consumption of the dwindling supply on avgas stored in the wing tanks.  When cleared for takeoff, Pat used over 3,000 feet of runway before he could get his plane airborne.  The overloaded cargo diminished the performance of his aircraft.  The rate of climb was less than 25% of normal for his small plane.  He had to make a quick decision, and that was to make the 120 mile journey below the storm clouds while flying only 1,200 feet above the blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

The decision to fly low was a calculated risk.  Going higher would increase the time to react to an engine failure, but the stress on the aircraft from bouncing through the rising cumulus clouds could render the flight controls useless, resulting in a fatal spin into the waters below.  “It’s only an hour flight,” Pat said in an attempt to ease his wife’s concern.  “We’ll be just fine.” 

Linda was watching the flight deck, constantly checking to see how much longer it would take to reach their destination airport.  “The charts indicate that there are two airports on Cat Island.” Linda stated.  “Are you sure we are headed to the right one?  We won’t have enough gas to make it back if we land at the wrong one!”  Pat thought for a moment, and then grabbed for his wallet.  “I wrote down the idenifier last night,” Pat replied.  “The people in Nassau gave me the one we’re heading to.”  “They also told us that the Red Cross was next door!” Linda said.  Pat checked the card in his wallet and then started flipping dials.  “We’re heading to the wrong one!” Pat exclaimed.  “I’m changing course now!”

Thankfully, Linda put her navigation skills to use at just the right moment, saving valuable time and fuel.  Once again, Pat came in hot and fast to therunway.  He didn’t have much information on the airport, only that it was 7,000 feet long, and he calculated that he would need at least ½ of that to make

a safe landing.  Turning into the wind, the Cessna was not reacting to “normal” control inputs.  With so much weight loaded in the rear, the small planewanted to squat the tail down.  As he neared the approach end of the runway, Pat had to make another quick decision.  He would be landing into the wind,but on a downhill slope, meaning his tail would be sinking closer to the runway.  With full landing flaps deployed, and with steady power, the pilot eased his plane to the asphalt as the stall warning horn began to blast.

Pat retarded the throttle as the tires screeched and grunted upon contact with the runway, braking hard to make the parking tarmac.  A petite woman excitedly ran from the only building left standing on the site.  The doors and windows were open to the breeze, but not a light was shining from inside.“Bless you Lord,” Mrs. Burrows exalted.  “You are a blessing for my people.”  “We got plenty of water,” Pat professed.  “And we have blankets, tarps, and food.”  A young man came with a cart as Pat began to open the cargo doors. 

The local policeman pulled up in his pickup truck to deliver the cargo to his needy neighbors while Linda inquired about restroom facilities. “We got a restroom,” Mrs. Burrows informed her guest.  “And I got a 5-gallon bucket of seawater to flush the toilet.”  Improvising on the out islands comes in many ways after a storm.   Now it was time for Pat & Linda to improvise and calculate if they had enough fuel to make it back to Nassau, before heading back to Fort Lauderdale. 

A quick gauge of the tanks and Pat was confident that they had enough to make Nassau, with fuel to spare.  With to time to waste, the engine roared back to life as the airplane performed to the maximum with such a light weight.  Climbing to 4,000 feet took only a few minutes and the winds were favoring a quick return to Nassau, but the onboard weather system indicated severe thunderstorms pounding the capital city of the Bahamas.  The Cessna made it to Nassau,but now had to fly around pounding rain en route to the landing runway.  Descending in blinding rain is not a simple task, but with the aid of GPS electronics, Pat saw the runway lights as he initiated a hard left turn to his final approach.

Suddenly, an alarm sounded from the onboard electronics as a computerized voice bellowed, “LOW FUEL!”  All of the gas in the left wing tank drained to the end of the wing while the plane was turning at a sharp angle.  Linda jumped up in her seat to stare at the dwindling fuel gauges.  “Don’t worry,” Pat explained.  “We still have a few gallons left and we’re only two miles from the runway.”  The landing was uneventful, but to Linda, the warning coming over her headset was quite alarming.

The plane was parked, refueled, and ready to depart within minutes.  Fort Lauderdale was only a two hours flight away, but the weather across the routewould make it impossible to penetrate.  The fact of the matter was that Pat & Linda would have to spend the night in Nassau, and try to depart in themorning.  “We don’t have a toothbrush, deodorant, of clean underwear,” Linda exclaimed.  “All of our things are at our hotel in Florida!”  “No problem,” Pat assured his wife.  “We can get a hotel room in Nassau and we can buy underwear and toiletries.  Those folks we just left can’t buy nothing.”

So, the agents of mercy found a place to eat and sleep for the night and were up before dawn to get a head start back to the states.  The morning weather was better for making the two-hour trip across the ocean, but “better” was a loose term.  Lightning and thunderstorms were firing up across the route, and Pat realized that they needed to get underway as soon as possible.  With full tanks of fuel, the plane and two souls on board departed the islands to navigate around the building storms.  The voyage was stressful, but thank God, it was uneventful.  Landing in Florida, clearing customs, and a quick refueling had the duo ready to jump back into the sky, heading towards Alabama.

More storms lay across their path.  Climbing to 6,000 feet through building clouds and rain was a chore.  The small plane was being bounced around like a ball as it made its way North.  Air traffic control issued warnings throughout the first three of the four hours of flight.  Linda got her first taste of severe turbulence as the Cessna rebounded from building storm cells. 

Flying blind through the clouds is terrifying to many pilots.  It is the leading cause of airplanes simply “falling out of the sky”.  Without proper instrument training and expertise, most “casual” pilots are doomed once they enter the zone of thunderstorms.  Visions of the JFK, Jr. crash raced through Linda’s mind after her sense of vision was obscured by the driving rain and clouds.  However, Pat was trained and experienced in how to navigate through such conditions and he brought the plane safely through the violent weather without incident.

The skys cleared as the couple approached their home airport, and after flying for 17+ hours and covering over 2,500 miles in less than 3 days, they finally landed in Gulf Shores.  On the short drive home, Pat asked his wife, “Where would you like me to take you for dinner tonight?”  Her response was a reflection of her exhausting efforts of the past three day.  “Anywhere that delivers,” she replied.  “I just want to spend the rest of today on the sofa.” 

It was a grueling journey that took a toll on the couple.  But the smiles on the faces of desperate people made it all worth the effort.  Pat had one final comment, “Giving back to people in need is what it’s all about.”