Mobile Man Helps Clean-Up Hudson Miracle

Mobile New York City A Mobile man is helping recover the wreckage of a US Airways plane that landed in the Hudson River last week.

by Chad Petri

Published: Sun, January 18, 2009 - 9:02 pm CST Last Updated: Sun, January 18, 2009 - 10:14 pm CST

When there's a mess like this in the Hudson River, Mobile native Fred Houston is one of the guys in charge of cleaning it up.

“[It’s] pretty cool you know, always something different we're always doing stuff with that big crane,” says Houston from a phone in New York City. Houston works for Weeks Marine in the northeast. These are pictures from his cell phone. His job this week is to pull the remains of US Airways flight 1549 from the icy depths of the Hudson River.

“The wings all torn up, one of the engines fell off, lost it when it touched down, they done found it in the water we're going to have to pick it up tomorrow or the next day,” says the tugboat captain.
While pulling a plane out of the water is an unusual occurrence and Fred's family say they're thrilled he's a part of it.

“Honored happy, it blew my mind that he could be a part of something like that,” says his wife Beverly. She says it was hard to wrap her head around the recovery of a jumbo jet.

“I mean I knew he was doing it but I didn't really believe it until I seen the pictures and the pictures are what surprised me,” says Beverly. Fred says this is a slow process. He says getting this close to the plane's amazing story is a little strange.

“They're lucky to be alive, that's all I can tell them,” says Fred. Weeks Marine is one of several groups working on removing the wreckage from the Hudson River. After being lifted to barges, the plane will be cut into pieces and studied further.

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