Storm Trooper

The small Coast Guard outpost received an emergency call: a hurricane was raging, and a freighter with a crew of 12 was going down

- Tristram Korten

AT ABOUT 8 P.M. ON THURSDAY, October 1, 2015, the U.S. Coast Guard’s Air Station in Clearwater, Florida, sent word of an emergency to the team stationed on Great Inagua Island, a base in the Bahamas: a hurricane was raging in the area, and the freighter Minouche, carrying 12, was going down. On the phone from Florida, Commander Scott Phy had a question: could a chopper crew venture into the storm?

A tiny land mass just north of Cuba and Haiti with a population of 900, Great Inagua Island is one of the Coast Guard’s loneliest outposts. For two weeks that fall, the base was home to, among others, the four-man helicopter crew on duty that fateful night: rescue swimmer Ben Cournia and pilot Dave McCarthy, both 36, 28-year-old lieutenant and co-pilot Rick Post, and 32-year-old flight mechanic Joshua Andrews.

Though the team had been anticipating a fairly uneventful deployment—snorkeling, fishing, hanging out—that plan had been upturned by the arrival of the hurricane. When he got the call from Commander Phy, McCarthy didn’t hesitate to muster his crew.

THE PREVIOUS MONDAY had dawned cloudy in south Florida. The night before, forecasters just outside Miami had observed a low-pressure system 652 kilometers southwest of Bermuda. Winds were blowing at about 56 kilometers per hour, but experts weren’t concerned. Even if the gathering winds of Tropical Depression 11 became a storm, projections showed it staying far from land.