PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. – When Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast one year ago, U.S. Northern Command responded by supporting civil authorities with the insertion of tens of thousands of military personnel, search and rescue missions, humanitarian operations and delivery of water, food, ice and first aid supplies.
Building on this experience, the command has significantly improved its disaster relief processes and procedures without degrading the effectiveness of its primary mission of defending the homeland. Since Hurricane Katrina, USNORTHCOM has hosted or participated in more than 140 conferences and exercises.
“We’ve worked hard to take lessons observed and make sure they are lessons learned and mistakes not repeated,” said Adm. Timothy J. Keating, USNORTHCOM commander.
USNORTHCOM has the ability to deploy, in 24 hours, assets such as medium and heavy lift support helicopters, fixed-wing search aircraft, communications support packages, patient movement capability, a Joint Task Force for command and control of Federal military forces, a forward surgical team, and a Deployable Distribution Operations Center.
USNORTHCOM is currently integrating full-time Defense Coordinating Officers and their staffs into each region of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The command also hosted a three-day Federal Coordinating Officer-Defense Coordinating Officer Conference in April.
New procedures in place to reduce the command’s response time and improve communications and damage assessment include pre-scripted (but not pre-approved) mission assignments to support FEMA, in collaboration with the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security.
As for communications improvements, the command now owns a satellite terminal, 100 cellular phones, 300 satellite phones and more than 40 laptop computers for distribution to first responders in a disaster.
New procedures were tested in May during Ardent Sentry, a bi-national exercise with Canada Command focusing on defense support of civil authorities, as well as homeland defense. The exercise gave federal, provincial, state and local authorities the opportunity to work together across a full spectrum of training opportunities to better prepare participants to respond to national crises.
Also in May, USNORTHCOM hosted Hurricane Preparation National Media Day at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., to demonstrate the command’s disaster relief capabilities.
USNORTHCOM’s mission is to conduct operations to deter, prevent, and defeat threats and aggression aimed at the United States, its territories and interests within the assigned area of responsibility and, as directed by the president or secretary of defense, to provide military assistance to civil authorities including consequence management operations.