Radiation Safety and Cleanup Preparations 2 The C-14l cargo plane, which had been unable to take off due to weathe as tied down to heavy equipment and remained undamaged. The boa ““ not as fortunate. During the night, two LCUs and two LCM-8sbrok ve from their moorings off Enewetak and Lojwa Islands and drifte ; north At first light on 10 January 1978, LCU-1552 was reported beached pijire and LCM-8295 at Aomon. Lojwa Camp personnel were able t beach LCM-8126 alongside LCM-8295 at Aomon and secured both to D bulldozers. LCM-6743 was beached on the rampat Lojwa. At about 124 hours, 4 Military Airlift Command aircraft overflew the atoll and reporte sighting LCU-1505 on the reef south of Runit and LCM-8217 on the ree south of Lujor. Only two landing craft remained operational, the LC! loaded with scrap and an LCM-6 which had been intentionally beached ; Enewetak. During attempts to put the LCM-6 in the water, the cra broached into the stern of another boat and was damagedto the extent was inoperable. High winds prevented helicopter flights from carryin volunteer crews to salvage the other watercraft. By ll January, the worst was over. At first light, Navy repair crews wer delivered by helicopter to the LCM and LCU which were aground on th northeast reef. The craft were further secured and temporarily repaired fc removal from the reef.80 An Army LARC mechanic, who happenedto t yt the atoll to provide preventive maintenance until the full LARC crew arrived, organized a volunteer crew and put one of the LARCs int operation to pull the two landing craft from the reef. This was thefirst « many times that this amphibious vehicle proved its enormous value an versatility. Damage to Lojwa Camp was minimal, demonstrating again that th decision to construct more substantialfacilities than the originally planne tents was a wise one. Food supplies had run low at Lojwa, but helicopte: soon remedied that situation. At Runit, the old personnel pier wa destroyed, but the newly constructed buildings were intact.! The total damage to base camp facilities by Tropical Storm Nadin (Figure 4-15) was estimated at less than $100,000. However, the damaget watercraft was more severe. By extraordinary efforts, including speci: airlifts of personnel and equipment, the Navy had most of them back i action the following week when debris cleanup operations resumed.82