Cajun Coast Search & Rescue documentary premier July 23

Toney Wade sits in a chair with casual ease, with a sense of humor and a broad smile.
But it’s clear that behind the relaxed posture, his mind is rattling through all the things on his plate.
After all, he’s the Commander of the Cajun Coast Search & Rescue Team, a group of 18 individuals that have not only achieved a reputation for excellence, but also a slot on the Discovery Channel.
It wasn’t an easy decision, though.
“We’ve had a whole bunch of production companies come to us right off the get-go about doing a show,” he said. “In the beginning we weren’t really interested because we felt they were going to take away from what we do. But my other biggest thing was, you’re not going to come to south Louisiana and make fun of us like most of the shows. I’m not doing this.”
The Discovery Channel flew a representative into Lafayette and asked Wade to meet with him.
“We sat down and talked,” he said. “We had a search call the moment we sat down to talk, so I told him what I wanted, what we expected, and they stuck to it. At that point we got together and said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
The process began a few months later, and Wade said, “We enjoyed it. They’re a bunch of good guys, hung out with us, imbedded with us for several months. They’re all from England.”
Wade said that the group was dispatched to North Carolina, after a series of long interviews, for Hurricane Florence, the film crew in tow.
“It was a great experience,” he said. “These guys from Discovery and Lightbox Productions were awesome people, they helped make us more comfortable with the process. And when it came to doing what we do, they just stood back and watched us and after it was all over explained what the process was.”
He added, “We taught them Cajun life. They fell in love with the food!”
The two-hour documentary will air July 23 at 9 p.m. central time. A series is also in the works.
Cajun Navy 2016 also has a large role in the documentary, Wade said. “That’s a team that we work with very, very closely,” he said.
Meanwhile, Wade and the team are busy organizing an expansive mass casualty training event on July 27.
“We work a lot with officials on the state level,” he explained. “We attend state trainings all the time, but they never directly go to the point of what we do. So we thought it would be a wise idea to put together something to show our boat rescues, aquatic searches with the dogs, open area drones…everything that we can do and offer these services. A commander to the Coast Guard Search and Rescue who’s over 26 states is actually going to be here, he wants to see firsthand what our capabilities are.”
The scenario will unfold from the Myette Point boat landing, which will sub as a city. “We had a hurricane come through, a levee breach, multiple tornadoes, multiple missing persons,” Wade explained. “We’re going to go out Friday and put cards at different areas and record the longitude and latitude and dispatch (personnel.) They’ll have the coordinates, but that’s not where the card is going to be, they’re going to have to look for it when they get there. Each card will have a different scenario, and everybody can learn how these situations are handled. We still need to practice. You get out in a storm, communications are the first thing to break down. So we are going to run a situation where communications are broken down.”
There will also be open-area and K9 searches, drone teams and more.
“If anyone wants to participate, go to our Cajun Coast Search & Rescue Team page on Facebook and sign up,” Wade said. “There’s a link to register and sign a liability waiver and you’re set to go. It’s going to be a nice event.”
Sonar and dive teams will also run through practice scenarios, Wade said. “We’ve got hotels in Morgan City that are booking up quick,” he added. Wade expects the exercise to become an annual event.