Bryan Fire Department battalion chief Nicholas Pappas, 47, who helped rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina in September, was free on bond Wednesday after he was arrested in San Antonio and charged with online solicitation of a minor.

The arrest came as the result of a meeting that was arranged with what police said Pappas thought was a 13-year-old through an Internet chat room.

The teenager was actually a San Antonio Police Department vice officer.

Pappas was arrested Tuesday afternoon and was later released after posting a $15,000 bond.

Pappas declined comment as he left the jail.

Pappas was among the members of the Texas Task Force One urban search and rescue team who were dispatched to Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

He told Texas A&M’s The Battalion he was involved in a number of high-water rescues and helped evacuate a nursing home where residents were trapped on the second floor by floodwaters.