The Louisiana-based Cajun Navy, a group that began when local volunteers with boats rescued Hurricane Katrina victims, headed to Houston to help victims of Hurricane Harvey who are stranded due to the severe ongoing rain and flooding in East Texas. The rescue boats reportedly had some trouble with looters as CNN and some local news stations noted Monday.
Clyde Cain, the founder of the group, posted a video on Facebook Monday evening with a complete update on the situation.
“Just wanted to come on here and clear up the CNN short interview they did with us over there,” he explained, “when we told them that shots had been fired at one of our boats, not exactly sure which boat it was or who it was…and it was looters, they’re out there, they’re not wanting our boats around because of course they’re looting, so no one got injured, I didn’t get shot.”
“I’ve got so many phone calls,” he added, “no one actually got shot, they shot at the boats…shots were fired so everyone’s just being very careful going around any of the areas where there’s actually stores or whatever watching for looters. They went back in there with a couple Marshals on air boats and went and checked out the situation.”
“A couple of our guys’ boats broke down,” he said, describing that looters “were trying to take the boats from them of course they were just trying to get out. Not sure if those guys are people out there pretending like they need to be rescued and then they’re robbing the boats. There’s also people that were out there on the boats and they were out there pretending to be rescuers and robbing the people. This is just what’s happening.”
He emphasized that he just wanted everyone to know that he and his volunteers were okay and no one had been shot.
“Everyone likes to take things and exaggerate it,” he said of reports going around that people had been shot, adding, “CNN I used to call it completely negative news and I usually don’t talk to them but they caught us off guard, they called, talked to them, let them know what was going on.”
CNN reported that “people started to panic, rushing rescue boats and even shooting at them if they didn't stop, one volunteer rescuer said.”
“They’re making it difficult for us to rescue them,” Cain had told CNN. “You have people rushing the boat. Everyone wants to get in at the same time. They’re panicking. Water is rising.”