Senior responsible officer prepares for Tropical Storm Erika

Photo By Sgt. Carlene Vera | Soldiers of the U.S. Army Reserve Puerto Rico attend a commander's update brief at the Emergency Operations Center for an update of Tropical Storm Erika.  

FORT BUCHANAN, PUERTO RICO

08.28.2015

Story by Maj. Ruth Castro 

1st Mission Support Command

FORT BUCHANAN, Puerto Rico - In June 2015, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey W. Talley, chief of Army Reserve (CAR), designated the 1st Mission Support Command (MSC) commanding general, Brig. Gen. Jose R. Burgos, as the senior responsible officer (SRO) for USAR activities on the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands.

As the senior ranking officer in the Caribbean, Burgos didn’t have situational awareness of all the activities that other Reserve units were involved in around the island that were assigned outside of the 1st MSC.

As the SRO, he is now responsible for maintaining situational awareness of all USAR units on the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, regardless of mission command alignment.

In the event of a localized emergency or Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) event, the SRO will be the initial point of contact for accountability of personnel, equipment and facilities.

“Part of the challenges I had before becoming the SRO was that I had no visibility of personnel and equipment from other USAR units,” said Burgos, “There was no direct link or clear view on command teams and full-time points of contacts for them. This made it difficult when I was getting questions from the media about Reserve Soldiers that did not belong to the 1st MSC but were stationed in Puerto Rico.”

Now, as the SRO, Burgos has visibility of all USAR activities that go on in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

This week was the first time that Burgos was able to exercise his role as SRO in preparation of a disaster or emergency. All Reserve units were represented during the Emergency Operation Center (EOC) daily commander update briefs to ensure all capabilities were noted and all personnel were accounted for before, during and after Tropical Storm Erika.

Burgos expressed that Tropical Storm Erika provided an excellent training opportunity for the 1st MSC and all other USAR units to exercise and test their contingency plans.

“We have been able to build a foundation between all of our units and allow our staff to get integrated,” he said. “We were all exposed to a situation where we not only had to respond to our current 1st MSC operations, but we also had to prepare for a possible disaster.”

The units that fall under the SRO include the 402nd Civil Affairs Battalion, 2-238th Training Support Battalion, 1-350th Logistics Support Battalion, 1/389th Training Battalion, 49th Medical Battalion (MF), 407th Medical Company (Ground Ambulance), 335th Medical Company (Area Support), 334th Medical Team (Optometry), 5th Training Brigade, and the 174th Legal Detachment.

• Date Taken: 08.28.2015
• Date Posted: 08.28.2015 16:52
• Story ID: 174613
• Location: FORT BUCHANAN, PR