PREMIERING AUG. 29TH at 8:30PM

PARATUS - A 20TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL explores the incredible story of the United States Coast Guard’s swift and lifesaving response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The story focuses on Coast Guard air rescues carried out by Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans and Coast Guard Aviation Training Center, Mobile across southern Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi in the first two weeks of the response. These men and women helped rescue more than 33,500 people from the impacted areas – the greatest single rescue operation in our nation’s history.

Introduced by actor and inspirational speaker Glenn Morshower, PARATUS features dramatic first-hand accounts from pilots, rescue swimmers and others are combined with archival footage of the operations that went on day and night. Coast Guard air crews were trained to rescue people from 25-foot seas, not from flooded city streets. They had to quickly adapt to new conditions, operating with little rest, and pushing themselves to the edge of their abilities to save lives.

“We were doing things that we never trained for,” says one rescue swimmer. “We were using chainsaws and axes to get into roofs where people were trapped.”

With no phone or radio communications from storm victims, pilots and crews looked for flashlight beams at night and hands waving out of attic windows during the day to locate people in need of help. Swimmers dove into water filled with toxic chemicals to perform rescues. Helicopter pilots maneuvered around power lines and other obstacles to lower rescue baskets. The Coast Guard’s motto, “Semper Paratus” – Latin for “Always Ready” – was put to the test at every turn.