Oklahoma Wing Of 'Civil Air Patrol' Heads To South Texas

Oklahoma's Civil Air Patrol Wing is in South Texas Thursday, where they'll survey damage from Harvey.

We were able to be right here on the Tarmac this morning as the Civil Air Patrol boarded that plane and took off just before 8 a.m. Thursday morning.

The air patrol's Oklahoma Wing is headed for San Marcos, Texas, just outside of San Antonio.

They say they'll take aerial pictures of Hurricane Harvey's damage and send those photos to emergency response teams -- giving them a better idea of what communities are going through.

"Just taking a picture on your iPhone is great but where was it taken, what direction was it facing, you know, where's the trouble?" said Lt. Col. Jodie Gilbert. 

Gilbert said the team has seen plenty of disasters - from Hurricane Katrina to tornadoes here in Oklahoma.

After seeing a lot of the damage from afar, they knew they would be making the trip.

"This is what we train for. This is what we prepare for. We anticipated that this was coming so we had crews on standby and ready to go," Gilbert said. 

The pilot told us they plan to be back here in Tulsa on Sunday.