Oregon Public Broadcasting

Air Force crews from Northwest are helping out with flood relief in Pakistan. Two flights took off Monday from Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma. As Austin Jenkins reports, the giant transport planes will deliver military helicopters to the flood zone.

On the flightline at Lewis-McChord, crews prepare a C-17 Globemaster for a mission of mercy.

This whale of a plane will fly empty to North Carolina. There it will pick up a Marine Corps helicopter and crew.

Then it's on to Afghanistan where Lt. Col. Richard Poston says the U.S. has a staging area for aid efforts into flood-ravaged Pakistan.

Richard Poston: "For us to land it would have to be a major airport. So we take the helicopter in and then they load it with the food and supplies that people need in Pakistan. And then they can deliver it anywhere in the country that people need help."

For the last month, monsoon rains have pummeled Pakistan.

An estimated twenty percent of the country has been inundated and some 20 million Pakistanis directly impacted.