Jenkins' Honor 'Richly Deserved'

 It reminds me of the basic premise in Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” – if one stays calm and collected, one can weather almost any storm.

That’s exactly what Major John Thomas Jenkins, Chief Enforcement Officer with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Marine Resources Division, did in Bayou La Batre during Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005.

Yet, even after receiving the Legislative Medal of Honor from Gov. Bob Riley and the Alabama Legislature recently, Jenkins still contends he was only doing his job.

As everyone knows, Katrina wreaked havoc in Louisiana, devastated the Mississippi coast and caused extensive damage in Bayou La Batre and in other parts of Mobile County.

During the onslaught of the storm, Jenkins, along with other members of Marine Resources enforcement and the Bayou La Batre police, braved the hurricane’s winds and rising water to rescue 32 people in south Mobile County.

Jenkins said he and his fellow officers followed protocol for the storm and had equipment positioned to use during the worst of the weather, as well as during recovery.

“About three or four years ago, we started working closer with the police departments in the area, so we staged at the Bayou La Batre Police Department,” Jenkins recalled. “Everything went like it normally would until the storm turned out to be worse than anybody thought. Bayou La Batre has a deuce-and-a-half (2.5-ton military supply truck). We made the run around, telling everybody to leave. We checked everything we could. It became obvious it was going to be a bad one, because we could just barely get around in the deuce-and-a-half.”

Jenkins, who was one of 11 nominees for the award, which was adopted by the state legislature in 1995, said the first rescue call the team received needed immediate attention. A lady and her five kids were stranded.

 “Knowing where she was and where we had been in the deuce-and-a-half, we knew there was a real problem,” said Jenkins, known familiarly as J.T. “Our officers, Scott Bannon and Chris Glover, had the boat we needed. We got them to come down. Chris got there before Scott because Scott had to wait for a tornado to pass before he could make it. We got with the Bayou La Batre police, re-checked what we were going to do and made the decision to go. I then got on the phone with the lady with the kids to try to keep her calm.

“I felt safe in what we were doing it. The problem with the deuce-and-a-half was you couldn’t stop it. We were afraid it would flood out if we stopped it. We were operating with smaller boats, so we wanted to use the deuce-and-a-half going in.”

The problem was that the water was rising so fast that it engulfed one of the rescue vehicles.

“We lost a vehicle during the storm,” Jenkins said. “We picked a church parking lot down Highway 188. We were within sight of it and there were only a couple of inches of water under it. All of a sudden, it was like a bathtub filling up from the bottom. It came up so fast that we couldn’t do anything about it. It floated us off. Scott, Chris and I had to drop our guns belts and swim back to the boat. We had to cut the winch line because there was so much pressure on it, we couldn’t get it to release.

“By the time it was all over, the Expedition was completely under water. We drove the boat over by it and could see it under the water.”

 When the rescue started the wind was about 70 miles per hour and reached 100 mph during the height of the storm.

“But we didn’t make the decision to go half-cocked,” Jenkins said. “It was well thought-out. Bayou La Batre was there. Darrell Wilson was running the deuce-and-a-half. I talked with (Marine Resources Director) Vern (Minton) to let him know what we were doing. I talked with the Commissioner (Barnett Lawley) and I let him know about the Expedition. He never backed up. One of the things he told me was that as long you’re doing the best you can, it’d all work out. That meant a lot.”

The Marine Resources team approached the house in the boat and Jenkins went inside.

“The water was chest-deep on me,” he said. “She was pregnant with a small child in her arms. There were four other children with the oldest at 7. There wasn’t any way we could put them all in the boat at the same time, so we got the mother, the infant and smallest child out.

“I just stayed there with the other three kids on the table. It took them probably 30-35 minutes to get back after dropping the mother, infant and child off at the deuce-and-a-half. The water was coming up the whole time. With the kids standing on the table, it was above their knees by the time they got back. I just tried to talk to the kids to keep them calm, assuring them we were going to get them out and back to their mother.”

That rescue is one of the reasons Lawley nominated Jenkins for the legislative award.

“I was talking to him on the radio while he was in the house,” Lawley said. “You didn’t hear a peep out of any of those kids. J.T. kept his composure and was able to relay that to the kids. That says a lot about his character. With the winds and water like they were, without question if children hadn’t been involved, they shouldn’t have been out there. The award is richly deserved.

“And the thing about J.T., he was worried about losing the Expedition. I told him that was the least of my worries.”

Rep. Spencer Collier, who represents Mobile County in the Alabama Legislature, joined the rescue efforts and helped Jenkins on one of the toughest rescues during the storm. 

“The scariest one to get out was Larry, who was in a wheelchair,” Jenkins said. “I don’t know Larry’s last name but we found him floating on a mattress. Some people we had rescued said they had seen his wheelchair and when we went in and banged on the door, he was the calmest person you’ve ever seen. He was floating around and I hollered and asked if he needed some help. He said, ‘Yeah, I think I could use some.’ We had to balance the mattress until I could get him on my shoulder and then Spencer and I swapped him from shoulder to shoulder until we got him out and into the boat.

“We had a couple of people had to get up in their attics and we had a couple of people floating around in these old blow-up swimming pools, holding onto the roof. We also saved a parrot. Just as you come across the bayou, we saw something sticking up. What it was was two people standing on top of a van, holding a parrot in a cage. We probably wouldn’t have seen them if they hadn’t had that parrot sticking up.”

Jenkins wishes everyone involved with the rescue and recovery from Katrina could share the award.

“I appreciate the recognition, but there were a lot of people involved,” he said. “Our biological section was down there throwing ice day in and day out. There were Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries people doing the same thing. A lot of people don’t realize we were there for 60 days, day in and day out. There are a lot of people who need to be patted on the back. I just can’t say enough good things about our department and the Bayou La Batre Police Department. It was just amazing how well everybody worked together.

“I’ll say again, I hope everybody realizes it was the work that everybody did, not just me."

While Jenkins was busy in Bayou La Batre, his own residence was inundated by floodwater and he was left with only the items in his personal vehicle, which had been moved to higher ground.

“That’s another thing,” he said. “Two of the first people who called me after the storm were Becky Brasfield and Robin Nummy of the Commissioner’s office to ask how they could help.

“I know one thing – I wish I had put more of my stuff in my vehicle. As to what I’m going to do now, I haven’t decided whether I’m going to stay or move to higher ground. My neighbors have been there 52 years and had never been flooded, but once you’ve been through it, you don’t really know what to do.”

After dealing with Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina, Jenkins feels Alabama is in a much-improved state of readiness for the next storm as the 2007 hurricane season begins.

“I think we had done a pretty good job, even before Ivan,” he said. “You have to give this administration a pat on the back. Within the department we plan better, and that goes back to the Commissioner. I think Gov. Riley realizes the resources the people of Alabama need. I think this administration set us up to be prepared better than a lot of other states. It doesn’t cost a lot of extra money to be prepared. For our officers it’s become second nature to know what they’re going to be doing.

“The first 24 hours is the most critical. No matter how much help people are willing to give you, you’ve got to be able to handle it on the ground for 24 hours.”

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