The present flooding is far, far worse and on a much larger scale than Boscastle and Gloucester and Cockermouth - yet only one small press report of a helicopter that might have winched someone from their house....
We had a process for constantly rebriefing Gold and Silver commanders about the capabilities of SAR helicopters and their availability but Regional Liaison officers are a thing of the past, as are the SARLOs that we would send out to directly interface with Gold command.
Do the MCA have such a structure in place now??????? And I mean using people who actually understand helicopters.
If no-one knows there are helos available then no-one will ask for them.
Bristow have done liaison work with the MRTs and RNLI units near their bases but how far inland has that work progressed?
Sorry if you are bored with the tune but until the new service is as capable as the old then you might well have to keep listening to it.
Perhaps they heard that if they wanted helicopters, they'd have to deal with you, and thought better of it?