New airboat helps authorities

It s the time of year when many duck and geese hunters stake out area lakes Problem is if something happens to them in their boats those lakes are hard for law enforcement to get to until now Donnell Preskey reports It s an odd looking boat for North Dakota But the oddness of having an air boat gives the Burleigh County Sheriffs Department many advantages Lt Kelly Leben as quick as we can get this boat to the area we can deploy it and get to somebody s rescue This springs flood really showed local law enforcement how an air boat is needed The U S Fish and Wildlife Services had to bring in their air boat to evacuate residents from their flooded homes It was also used to jet people to the middle of the Missouri River to break up the ice jam holding back water Leben This spring with all the flooding on the Missouri and Apple Creek areas we had a lot of water in areas that isn t conducive to driving a boat Because with normal boat you have a prop and motor down in the water Where as with this type of boat - we re able to operate in real shallow water and don t have to worry about anything under the water causing damage It s having to move on water like this that makes the airboat so appealing It doesn t need open water - it can operate on soft ice frozen water even snow just like a snowmobile Leben We can have hunting situations this time of year where we ve had duck hunters capsize boat and we have a big body of water to search if not enough water or mud is too deep This type of boat allows us to get into areas we couldn t get into with the other type of boat The air boat will primarily be used for searching lakes like this one And getting divers to places they couldn t reach before but by helicopter The Burleigh County Sheriffs Department got the boat through a grant They ve been training on it since August