A Vancouver-based search and rescue team is back at home after a very intense time in southern Louisiana.

The 46-member Urban Search and Rescue Team were exhausted, but they had some results to show for their work: 119 people rescued.

Their efforts were appreciated.

"The president of (St. Bernard Parish) got up and hugged me when I came through the door," said Tim Armstrong, one of the team's leaders, upon arrival back home Tuesday. They had shipped out on Aug. 31 -- two days after Hurricane Katrina struck.

"They all started weeping, because we were the first sign of relief effort that came in there."

On one 18-hour day of work recorded by CTV News Vancouver's David Kincaid, they were doing much more searching than rescuing.

As they worked through homes in Chalmette -- a town of 32,000 on the Mississippi River's east bank about just southeast of New Orleans -- in teams of three to four, protected by armed escorts from the Louisiana State Police, they would write a code on the home.

In one case, they wrote 2D in red paint, meaning two dead inside the home.

"If they're there, you're going to get a 'respond,' right?" asked Steve Svensson. "But if there's dead in there you're going to smell it right away."

With temperatures in the 30-plus degrees Celsius range, the stench of decay was everywhere in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the resultant flooding.

To check homes, they either knocked out windows or used crowbars to pry open doors to go inside.

While dropping water levels made their job easier in one way, they still had to come face to face with the destruction of some family's life with each home they check.

"I went to the earthquake in Taiwan and I went to New York City after 9/11, and this is much worse than both of those," said team member Doug Smith, a 10-year veteran.

In some ways, it could be worse: Chalmette could be their community, like it is for Louisiana State Trooper David Flauss.

"It's nothing you can prepare for. It's your worst nightmare, plain and simple," he stoically said.

The team did meet one group of hurricane survivors turned amateur rescuers.

Resident Jim Petrie lost one loved one. "She was a little elderly. She just didn't make it. She didn't.

"But what it did, it put a drive in me to save as many people as we could," he said.

Petrie and his buddies, who are credited with helping save 250 people, were happy to accept a ride out of town. The Vancouverites saluted them as heroes.

After surveying the damage, Smith didn't hold much hope for Chalmette's survival in its present physical form.

"It's going to be less expensive to knock down the houses than to gut them, clean them and rebuild them from the inside," he said. "The entire town is going to end up being flattened at the end of all of this."

The town has gone through hard times before. The famous Battle of New Orleans was fought there in 1815, with the battlefield preserved as a national monument and civil war cemetery.

While the British certainly weren't welcome back then, Sgt. Dave Rome was happy to see the Canadians.

"I appreciate the international effort, I really do. It just shows when America needs help, there's people out there who are willing to help us too," he said.

One man's family

Richard Warnock was one of the team members down in Louisiana.

"I was kind of like scared for him," his daughter Lindsay said. "I saw it on the news and it was so scary down there and all the bad things."

Kellie, Richard's wife, said: "I was excited that they could go, but a little nervous about what he would be seeing down there, because you hear all the horrible stories and the bodies that are floating and you know that's going to affect them in some way."

The only way for the family to stay in touch while he was gone was by e-mail.

"I do know the area they went into there were no other rescue teams there. They were the first ones there and I know a lot of the people in the town were very surprised that the first rescue team that came was from Canada," Kellie said.

Besides the suffocating heat, "the alligators are there and or course the snakes," she said. "They've been briefed on which snakes to watch out for and he says he's seen a few in the water."

Lindsay said this about her dad: "He always says to me that he's safe and they're doing good work down there. I'm really happy, it's like, 'my dad the rescue hero,' so it's good to know that."

Afterward

Ray Holdgate, chief of USAR Vancouver, told CTV Newsnet on Tuesday evening his men were very tired but in good shape.

"I don't think they'll sleep well tonight, but we have a debriefing planned for tomorrow," he said.

Many things saddened them. They lost an elderly woman to dehydration and saw sights ranging from ruined homes to abandoned pets, he said.

Conditions were "appalling. Complete devastation," he said, noting the floodwaters were almost four metres deep in places.

While they learned important lessons that could help their work in the future, "their main objective was to help people, and they accomplished that in an overwhelming way," Holdgate said.

With reports from CTV News Vancouver's David Kincaid and Michele Brunoro