In the past three years, Eastern North Carolina has been hit with tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding and more. Many in the community have endured some type of emergency that affected their families, homes and even livelihoods. But what happens after the emergency has passed and you’ve gotten through the worst of it? What is the next step if your home has been destroyed or flooded? That’s when humanitarian aid and emergency services come to provide relief.
Unfortunately, sometimes those services can get stretched thin and could use some help of their own. That’s when different military installations come in to lend a helping hand and Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point, North Carolina, is no exception.
The director of Mission Assurance for MCAS Cherry Point, Grant DeHaven, coordinates and assesses all installation protection and security measures to keep the community safe and installation running smoothly. DeHaven said the Cherry Point Emergency Manager, Police Chief and Fire Chief routinely coordinate with local agencies to ensure plans are in place for emergency events. Although Cherry Point is its own installation, its community extends outside of the entrance gates.
“There is something called Defense Support to Civil Authority,” said DeHaven, “Or what they call DSCA, so that is the ability of any military commander to provide support to a local community after a disaster for up to 72 hours there’s what’s called immediate response authority.”
This means upon request by a government official, the base can provide different services or equipment to help the community repair, rebuild and restore homes, community resources and lives. These requests go through the emergency manager, who is in communication with counterparts in the local community.
The requests are funneled from the county emergency mangers to the state emergency manager. If the state cannot provide support through its resources, its agents reach out to the base emergency manager to see if MCAS Cherry Point has the capability to provide support. In the instance of Hurricane Florence, Cherry Point Marines and Sailors were able to respond to those requests for aid.
“One was the local community needed to move civilians from a shelter in New Bern that was potentially going to flood,” said DeHaven. “There were about 200 civilians in the shelter and it went through the state process for support. They didn’t have any way to support it, we had a capability to bring those civilians into our shelters so we provided shelter to civilians and provided food to those civilians.”
In 2018, following Hurrican Florence’s devestation, Cherry Point Marines and Sailors pushed through the streets of Havelock and New Bern, clearing debris and aiding in removing damaged goods from destroyed homes. They roamed up and down the most impacted neighborhoods and passed out bottled water and meals-ready-to-eat to persons in need.
To stay prepared to best aid the community in the future, DeHaven, the emergency manager and leaders with the installation emergency services, review established support agreements and try to improve and generate new ones. DeHaven said following Hurricane Florence, Duke Energy realized it needed a place down in the area to stage equipment and bring down linemen to restore power. The installation worked with the company to come to an agreement that if needed, Cherry Point would host the linemen and their vehicles to aid in quicker community aid.
That is just one of the ways MCAS Cherry point stays prepared to help during future emergencies. DeHaven said Mission Assurance’s biggest point of success, and the most essential part of their preparation, is staying in communication with emergency managers from across the state and building upon past experiences to create better ways to keep our community up and running both on and off installation.
“It’s just picking up the phone with your counterpart whether it’s Craven County or it’s the North Carolina state [Emergency Operations Center] and just being able to say this is how we can support you or possibly what we need support with.”
Whether the community is impacted by floods, tornados, hurricanes or forest fires, MCAS Cherry Point’s Mission Assurance and Emergency Management offices work tirelessly year round to be ready at a moment’s notice. Cherry Point’s mission is only as strong as its personnel and those personnel are only as strong as the community.
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| Date Taken: |
09.16.2020 |
| Date Posted: |
09.29.2020 16:20 |
| Story ID: |
379482 |
| Location: |
MCAS CHERRY POINT, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
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