Photo By Senior Master Sgt. Krystie Martinez | A U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules Aircraft, assigned to the 187th Airlift Squadron,...... read more read more
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The devastation left in the wake of back to back hurricanes Irma and Maria created a path of destruction in the continental U.S., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. In a joint effort to provide humanitarian relief and support, two teams recently came together to protect the lives and safety of those in the affected areas.
Under the direction of U.S. Transportation Command, numerous U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III and C-130 Hercules aircraft remained postured to support quick movement before and after the storms. While Air Mobility Command units nationwide were on alert to provide airlift, aeromedical evacuation and contingency response assets to federal hurricane relief efforts.
Once Hurricane Irma passed the Caribbean, response forces traveled to the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico to assess the damage and make way for relief support. However, due to the path of Hurricane Maria, it wasn’t long until those units had to evacuate the islands. Some of which traveled to MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, to regroup and remain ready for the moment Hurricane Maria passed.
One of those teams was an eight-person contingency response assessment team, from the 821st Contingency Response Group stationed at Travis Air Force Base, California. Prior to Hurricane Maria, they were assisting in recovery efforts throughout the Caribbean.
“Right now our mission is in response to the hurricanes that have gone through the Caribbean in support of various agencies around both U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Southern Command,” said Capt. Matthew Crowley, the Contingency Response Team lead. “We’re supporting the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Department of State.”
The CRT is not only supporting numerous agencies, but receiving support from both federal and state agencies as well.
With the rapid response of the Wyoming Air National Guard’s 187th Airlift Squadron, the CRT was able to make their way back to the Caribbean and travel to St. Thomas, September 21, 2017, to evaluate an airfield in preparation for humanitarian and disaster relief teams.
Capt. Jonathan Lemley, the C-130 Hercules Aircraft commander with the 187th AS, said his team went from fighting fires to immediately supporting hurricane operations.
“We’ve been on for two weeks, with a seven-person team,” Lemley said. “We have one hour to get to the aircraft, one hour to plan and research, and an hour to takeoff. Today we took off two hours from our alert time.”
Crowley also highlighted the interoperability of forces his team has experienced since the first storm hit.
“You have crews that are supporting both title 10 and title 32 assets,” Crowley said. “We’ve worked with the Puerto Rican Air National Guard, we’ve had a Travis (AFB) C-17 take us in initially to St. Croix and we’ve also gotten on Marine MV-22 Ospreys, and Navy HH-60s to move into St. Thomas on the first round. So we’ve been moving on assets not just within 18th Air Force but across USTRANSCOM.”
The impact the CRT mission has on those in need is fully understood by the team members. They ensure they are ready to deploy at a moment’s notice, no matter the need.
“We knew storms were in the Caribbean or coming across the Atlantic, so we started paying closer attention,” said Col. Justin Niederer, the 821st CRG commander and CRT commander. “Once it started forecasting the hurricane status we started to escalate our readiness.”
“My team here has been doing a great job. We were tasked to go out and asses the airfield after Irma. So we left Travis Air Force Base in California on the 7th of September, got into St. Croix early morning on the 8th, and now were waiting to get to St. Thomas to do our first airfield assessment.”
The 621st Contingency Response Wing at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, is the parent unit of the 821st CRG, and has units continuously on alert and ready to deploy anywhere in the world in support of emergency operations, such as hurricane relief, within 12-hours of notification. They are a key part of the larger Department of Defense response to support authorities in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, to protect the lives and safety of those in affected areas.
“With the goal of bringing the ability to open an airfield that otherwise may not exist at all to fully functioning within about 24-hrs, to distribute cargo and relief…is the complete objective,” said Crowley. “We go in as an eight-man team, go out with various specialties within that team, then go into an airfield to assess it for follow-on operations for air mobility operations support.
“We have an O-6 who functions as the JTFPO commander (Col. Niederer), and that translates to USTRANSCOM’s Joint Task Force Port Opening function commander.”
The JTFPO commander explained that the heavy airlift capability his team helps establish is crucial to recovery operations.
“I think the impact is huge, because really, we need to be the first ones in to make sure the airfield is safe,” Niederer said. “Until we make the call that the airfield is usable, nothing flows into it, least not from fixed-wing aircraft. So you’ll have the Marines, maybe Navy, maybe Army personnel, flying in on helicopters; but that’s a small movement capability. They don’t have heavy airlift.
“We go in, evaluate the airfield, and get it up for operations allowing C-5s, C-17s, C-130s and even commercial aircraft in some cases, to come in and help evacuate people that need to get out of the area. Until that call is made, that airfield really doesn’t have a robust capability and it really slow rolls the aid to the people that need it.”
This capability is available due to the various career fields that makeup the CRTs airfield assessment teams. From a security forces raven to a communications squadron sergeant, the diversity of this team, just like the diversity of the mission, depends on each member being a subject matter expert in their field.
“The airfield assessment team has a pretty unique mission,” said Capt. Christian Ocasio, the CRT civil engineer officer. “We are the first ones in. So, in many of the missions I’ve gone on, for example, the response to the earthquake in Ecuador a year ago, and even this right now with Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria, being first in and being part of that full picture of saying ‘Yes, Air Mobility Command can bring in humanitarian aid,’ is a bit humbling.
“Every member of the Air Force plays a role in the bigger picture, but I feel that in this team you can see that role and how it directly plays into that bigger picture. You have a chance to make a big impact.”
Since the majority of Ocasio’s family lives in Puerto Rico, he has felt the full brunt of responsibility the recovery efforts put on a CRT member.
“The last thing I heard was there were 200 mph winds,” he said. “So that feeds into the motivation of doing what I’m doing, because I can definitely feel the weight of what we do and how it helps the people who are being affected.
“Right now we're heading to the Virgin Islands, which is not necessarily Puerto Rico, that can come later on,” he said. “Even though I haven’t heard from my family, what keeps me going and focused on the mission is having faith in other first responders, other government agencies, either local or federal. They are also responding, doing exactly what I’m doing; trying to keep people safe and taking them out of harm’s way.”
| Date Taken: | 09.21.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 10.06.2017 13:37 |
| Story ID: | 250851 |
| Location: | MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, FLA., FL, US |
| Web Views: | 370 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Total Force teams prep Caribbean islands for relief missions, by SMSgt Krystie Martinez, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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