MACON, MO. -- KRCG’s Chief Meteorologist Mike Roberts has spent the past 5 months on active duty with the Missouri Army National Guard.
Here’s how a weatherman, a Jefferson City cop and a Rock Bridge High School graduate can become a successful team during a military exercise.
Captain Mike Roberts and his team played a support role for a bridge operation at the Missouri Army National Guard Training Site in Macon. Mike made sure that 8, 14,000 pound aluminum bays were ready for a helicopter flight to a nearby lake. The bays are like giant puzzle pieces that make a floating bridge for military vehicles.
“If there’s a waterway or a bridge has been blown, and they need to cross that waterway, then the bridging engineers come in and put the pieces in so the combat teams can go ahead and shoot through and fight the enemy,” Roberts said.
Columbia Rock Bridge High School 2003 Graduate Ricardo Garay takes orders from Captain Roberts. Private Garay’s job was hooking up the bays to a CH-47 Chinook helicopter.
“The best part about the sling load is that you get the helicopter flying a couple inches over our heads," Garay said. "It’s a rush.”
Helicopter pilots dropped 8 bays over a simulated battle scene on the training site’s lake. The first step was capturing enemy territory on the opposite side of the lake. Step 2 was building the portable bridge that allowed tanks and other vehicles to go across the water and defeat the enemy.
This type of exercise is very unique. There are only 18 bridge companies in the United States Army. Cpt. Kelly Messerli is a Jefferson City police officer and the Commander of the 1438th Engineer Bridge Company.
“From start to finish, we will hook all of the bays together and then there will be just a normal bridge to drive across,” Messerli said.
Captain Mike Roberts said this type of floating bridge is not just for the military. It could replace a destroyed or damaged bridge over the Missouri River during an earthquake to help transport people and supplies.
Mike Roberts will return, as your Chief Meteorologist, some time around the first of October.
Until then, Mike will spend most of his time behind a desk at a recruitment office.
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