Photo By Jason Kriess | Soldiers from 1st Battalion (General Support), 168th Aviation Regiment, Washington...... read more read more
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During the Cascadia Rising exercise in June 2016, a Washington National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter demonstrated how an evacuee might be rescued from Ocosta Elementary School outside of Westport, Washington. The school is designed to withstand a 9.0 earthquake and multiple tsunamis and is the first of its kind in North America. The helicopter hovered overhead as a hoist was lowered to the mock evacuee, fastened to a harness and raised up to safety in the Black Hawk.
But that was only one evacuee.
“What happens when there's two-hundred kids waiting on that rooftop?” asked Lt. Col. Pete Hudspeth, director of logistics for the Washington National Guard. “Somebody has to get those people off the roof and that's going to be DoD helicopters or local search and rescue choppers.”
The amount of logistics and coordination that goes into a typical aviation mission can be a daunting task. One must check safety equipment, log manifests, coordinate with the Federal Aviation Administration, submit flight plans and conduct equipment function checks among many others. But the flight mission doesn't go anywhere without one important thing – fuel.
A catastrophic 9.0 earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Washington and Oregon is a very real threat that we live with in the Pacific Northwest. Such a rupture of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, or CSZ, would cause widespread devastation. Buildings would be toppled and roadways would be severed from an earthquake that could last up to five minutes.
It is a very real scenario that state officials in conjunction with the Washington National Guard specifically trained for during last year's state-wide exercise called Cascadia Rising. Managing and supplying the fuel of dozens of helicopters during the subsequent rescue missions of hundreds of stranded individuals would be high up on the list of recovery efforts. And since roads and major highways would be rendered impassable, a large resupply of fuel would need to be flown in to one of the many local or regional airports. That's why the Washington Army National Guard teamed up with the Air National Guard. During their annual training in June 2017, elements of Joint Forces Headquarters along with Company E, 1st Battalion (General Support), 168th Aviation Regiment joined with the 141st Air Refueling Wing to execute a proof-of-concept strategy that has never been done before in the state. The idea was simple: fly fuel in a KC-135 to Western Washington and transfer that fuel into an Army Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck, or HEMTT. That fuel will then be deployed with the mission of refueling helicopters and other emergency response aircraft.
“I believe that we're going to have a gap from the time we don't have any more gas to put in helicopters to the time where we'll be able to receive fuel from [other locations,]” Hudspeth said. “This fills that gap.”
He said that during Cascadia Rising someone raised the idea of flying in fuel in a KC-135 (an aerial refueling aircraft). That aircraft is maintained by the 141st Air Refueling Wing at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane. A KC-135 can transport up to 83,000 lbs. of fuel in its payload.
But the KC-135 is designed to push fuel out of the back boom into a receiving aircraft during flight. It is not designed to offload fuel into the fuel tank variant of a HEMTT. This process is not performed very often, if ever.
“There were a number of agencies that doubted whether or not it was possible,” Hudspeth said. “Now we've proven that it is possible.”
He said that in the event of a catastrophic rupture of the CSZ, much of coastal Washington will be in critical need of emergency services, services that require lots of fuel. Having a fuel supply near the affected area would drastically cut down on flight times and refuel times, shifting much of the response effort on citizens in need rather that the logistics of the response itself.
“In [using] hot refueling systems, what it does is allows faster return times, which means they can go out and rescue more people faster and in less time,” said Sgt. 1st Class Jeffery Kelly, distribution platoon sergeant.
Kelly said that between all the military installations in Western Washington, there is only enough fuel to sustain search and rescue operations for an estimated two to four weeks. After that supply is depleted, getting fuel transported in to Washington will likely take weeks. Having this capability would ensure that emergency aircraft, whether local or federal, would remain in the air performing critical rescue missions without worrying when the next supply of fuel would arrive.
“What we did here was try to verify that we can get fuel from various systems including other agencies,” Kelly said. “In case there is a disaster in the future we know that we will have minimal issues receiving fuel outside of our normal delivery system. This gives us more options.”
| Date Taken: | 06.21.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 07.28.2017 11:37 |
| Story ID: | 242944 |
| Location: | CAMP MURRAY, WA, US |
| Web Views: | 315 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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