12:14 PM EDT on Friday, September 2, 2005

By Tony Hyatt / WHAS 11 News

NEW ORLEANS — Chris Aponte is the chief of the Harrods Creek Fire Department, in a little town just east of the city of Louisville.

This week though he has been saving lives in what has been determined as the nation's worst national disaster.

"It is just indescribable," he said on Thursday night. "It is so frustrating that there are so many people to save and we can not get to all of them."

Aponte is a member of the swift water rescue team. 30 members of that team, who normally save lives on the Ohio River, have worked almost non stop since they left Louisville for New Orleans. In two days, they performed 150 rescues."We have only three boats and we have come across many people who we have taken from the homes to areas where they could be picked up by helicopters," he says. "But there have been times when there have not been enough helicopter sand we have had to leave people including small children."

Aponte says he was in New Orleans last year for the International Fire Chief Association and thought the city was great. "It is hard to believe this is the same city, all of the destruction."

14 members of the Swift water rescue team are on their way back to Louisville. 14 new members are on their way down. But Aponte adds many of them went home because their families have been worried about their safety.

"We are not in the area, where there have been problems," he told WHAS 11 News. "We have worked along an area of I-10 outside the city. But in some ways you can understand the frustration of people who have not been rescued and maybe this is why some of this is going on."

The Chief also say his crews train for this kind of operation but they are use to a more positive outcome.

"We are use to going in and saving people having everyone come out alive," he says. "We know some of these people are in attics. One of our crews on Thursday came across people on a roof and they had a dead family member with them. Again, it is indescribable."

The Swift Water rescue team was created by the18 volunteer fire districts in Jefferson County, Kentucky. They were one of the first rescue units to arrive on the scene after Katrina left the gulf.