Photo By Senior Airman Jordan McCoy | U.S. Air Force Capt. Lyza Taino, a landing zone safety officer with the 36th...... read more read more
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SAIPAN, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands – U.S. Air Force Capt. Lyza Taino stood on the flightline at Saipan International Airport watching pallets of water, generators and emergency supplies move steadily onto the island she once called home.
Just over a decade earlier, she had watched another typhoon strike Saipan from thousands of miles away, unable to help.
In August 2015, Super Typhoon Soudelor slammed into the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands with winds exceeding 170 miles per hour, tearing roofs from homes and flooding entire communities. At the time, Taino was stationed at Aviano Air Base, Italy, as an air traffic controller.
For four days, she could not reach her family.
Communication lines were down. Information coming off the island was scarce. Eventually, she learned her parents’ home had been destroyed.
“I wanted to do something, and I couldn’t because I wasn’t there,” Taino said.
For the Saipan native, typhoons were a familiar part of growing up on the island. One of Taino’s earliest memories is from age four, sheltering in place and watching as powerful winds tore the roof from her babysitter’s home and sent it flying into the distance.
“It was scary,” she said. “But you can’t do anything. You just have to watch it.”
Years later, that feeling of helplessness during Soudelor would shape the direction of her Air Force career.
After commissioning as an officer, Taino learned about the Air Force Contingency Response mission while stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. A flight commander described supporting humanitarian relief operations in Puerto Rico following a natural disaster.
She immediately knew she wanted to be part of that mission.
Contingency Response forces are designed to rapidly deploy into austere or damaged locations to open and operate airfields, enabling the flow of humanitarian aid, cargo and personnel during crises and contingency operations.
Today, Taino serves as a landing zone safety officer assigned to the 36th Contingency Response Squadron at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, where she helps train Airmen to operate in degraded environments and support humanitarian response operations across the Indo-Pacific.
When Super Typhoon Sinlaku struck the CNMI in April 2026, Taino did not have to watch from afar this time.
“She was stoic and steadfast long before the storm hit,” said Master Sgt. Robert Beresford, a CR team chief assigned to the 36th CRS. “She was ready to hit the ground running in support of recovery efforts here in Saipan.”
Just four days after the storm devastated the island, Taino’s Contingency Response Aerial Port Team arrived in Saipan to support disaster relief operations.
Operating from Saipan International Airport, the team worked around the clock to receive and move critical supplies across the CNMI. Airmen slept in tents near the airfield during the initial weeks of operations while managing cargo movement, aircraft operations and supply distribution efforts.
For Taino, every aircraft arriving on the flightline carried more than cargo.
“It feels good,” she said. “It feels like I’m directly contributing back to the island that was my home.”
In less than two weeks, the team helped facilitate the movement of more than 1,416 tons of supplies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, non-governmental organizations and mission partners supporting recovery efforts throughout the CNMI.
Despite being one of the Air Force’s smallest active-duty contingency response squadrons, Taino said the unit’s close-knit culture drives its success.
“We have the smallest active-duty CRS in the Air Force,” she said. “But that makes us work like a well-oiled machine. Everybody is all hands on deck. Everybody is here to work.”
The days are long and the conditions demanding, but for Taino, the mission is personal.
Every pallet unloaded and every aircraft guided onto the airfield helps the community that shaped her long before she wore the uniform.
Her message to the people of Saipan remains simple.
“Thank you,” Taino said. “Thank you for allowing us to help and being so gracious in allowing us to be here. Thank you for being resilient. Thank you for being the same people that I left 18 years ago.”
| Date Taken: | 04.27.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 05.19.2026 23:53 |
| Story ID: | 565734 |
| Location: | SAIPAN, MP |
| Web Views: | 19 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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