Chutefull,
Had you been able to fly you may have occasionally seen small rescue ribs taking two or three victims at a time to saftey.
But the problems with ribs are;
nasty debris unseen below the flood water.
operating a small boat in fast runing waters as is occasionally the case in these floods is hazardous.
deployment is not as rapid as a helicopter
finally the distances involved to get victims from their island to just the nearest dry land is often half a mile whereas a helicopter can take them directly to a more suitable site for onward transportation.
On Monday a caravan park was evacuated using small boat to ferry victims a short distance to a SAR heli landing site which then ferried them a mile or so to saftey. The heli carried 6 or so at a time and made multiple trips.
This would have taken hours in the rescue rib and one of the victims was a baby.
A team effort.
Mickjoebill