Return planned for evacuated Marines

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About 3,000 members of the Louisiana National Guard have been put on notice as part of the state’s preparations for a possible Gustav landfall next week.

The soldiers will be pre-staged at several armories so they can be quickly deployed, said Gen. Bennett Landreneau, commander of the Guard. That number could increase to 5,000, if needed, he said.

“Right now, with a storm a possible threat to Louisiana, we have called all of our soldiers in the Army and Air National Guard to be prepared for a possible alert,” said Cpt. Taysha Deaton-Gibbs, Department of Public Affairs Officer. “They know they need to be ready at a moment’s notice.”

No units had been activated as of Wednesday morning, but that could change quickly.

“We are prepping our response vehicles and equipment, so we’ll be able to take immediate action,” Deaton-Gibbs said. “We are being prepared in case further development occurs. Right now, we’re looking at ‘H’ hours. If the storm is to hit Tuesday, that could start tomorrow.”

“H” hours signify when the hurricane would hit and the Guard would be in action.

The Guard will be included in a meeting set today with the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

“We’ll start deciding at that meeting,” Deaton-Gibbs said. “It’s Labor Day weekend. We know that, and a lot of people have plans. At this point, nothing is set in stone. A lot will be decided at that meeting.”

Also, the states of Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma have pledged cooperation to send in more troops, Landreneau said.

Guardsmen are to be used to provide security at shelters across the state and in New Orleans, assist the State Police with one-way flow of traffic on interstate highways and aid with evacuations.

Members of the 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team were deployed to Iraq when Katrina struck New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, and many moved from combat duty to emergency relief work after that storm, although immediate help came from out-of-state Guard units.

Most members of the Louisiana Guard were more involved in helping south Louisiana clean up in the wake of Hurricane Rita’s landfall Sept. 24, 2005.

Guard troops were stationed in New Orleans for months after Katrina to help maintain order and assist local law enforcement agencies in the city.

“We’re coming up on the third anniversary of hurricanes Katrina and Rita,” Deaton-Gibbs said.

“We pray that Gustav won't hit us like that, but if it does we’re going to be prepared for it.”


Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/08/hurricane_callup_gns_082908w/

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IN THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM GUSTAV — You can feel it when this plane gets close to its destination. It dips, bumps and skips. The chatter on the radio turns from banter to business: barometric pressure, temperature, wind speed.

As one of 10 specially equipped C-130 Hurricane Hunters, its mission is helping forecasters know where tropical storms and hurricanes will go — and when.

HURRICANE HUNTERS ONLINE
Air Force Reserve’s 403rd Wing: http://www.403wg.afrc.af.mil/

On Wednesday, it was headed to 19 degrees north latitude, 74 degrees 18 minutes west longitude: the last known coordinates of the center of Tropical Storm Gustav, which was messily churning through the Caribbean.

The flight plan sounds straightforward: Make a series of passes through Gustav’s winds, try to locate its center and quickly get the information back to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Even today, satellites don’t get extremely accurate readings of what’s going on at the core of storms, National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read said. The sooner the center gets firsthand information from the plane, the better forecasters can predict a storm’s direction, size and intensity over hours and days. Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter flights operate around the clock when there’s a storm.

Flying in this $72 million aircraft is completely different from a commercial airliner. For visitors, it starts with a preflight warning about sudden drops.

“There have been a few people who have hit the ceiling unexpectedly,” says Lt. Col. Troy “Bear” Anderson, who headed Wednesday morning’s flight of 13 people.

Passengers strap into red fabric benches along the sides of the utilitarian cargo hold, where the unfinished ceiling is crisscrossed with bundles of white wires and tubes wrapped in pale green blankets.

The toilet is cordoned off by a green curtain. The motion-sickness bags assure those about to lose their lunches that “even veteran travelers are subject to occasional motion sickness.”

On this trip, the Hurricane Hunters flew from Homestead Air Reserve Base south of Miami instead of their usual home at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss. From Homestead, it takes a little more than two hours to reach Gustav. At first glimpse, the storm’s center appears like a comma on the radar, a crescent of green and yellow. And the first pass is mild, even though a pint of milk someone has set on the cockpit counter sloshes around.

But there’s more than the storm out there to worry about. With the plane flying at 5,000 feet, navigator Maj. Sidney Smith wants to be sure they don’t get too close to Jamaica, which has some 7,000-foot-high mountains.

That kind of rough terrain has weakened the storm from a Category 1 hurricane to a tropical storm, making its center less defined. But Gustav’s headed for the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico, where it’s expected regain strength from warm waters.

Whether that is happening yet is a question that’s unanswered Wednesday morning as the aircraft makes its second pass through the storm more than an hour later.

“We’re going to chase this one a little bit,” says Maj. Brian Schroeder, one of three weather officers onboard.

Schroeder, who is completing his training, guides pilot Capt. Dena Schulz into what he believes is the center of the storm.

“Give me left 40,” Schroeder says on his headset, “as fast as you can whip it.”

Radar shows the plane in the path of some green blotches, indicating rain.

“You’re going to nail it this time,” says Lt. Col. Valerie Hendry, the weather officer training Schroeder. Another weather officer, Capt. Tobi Baker, watches the ocean from a window at the plane’s rear.

When instruments tell Schroeder the winds have shifted from battering one side of the plane to lashing at the other, Schroeder knows: We’re at the center of the storm.

Schroeder asks that the plane position be marked, and the flight’s loadmaster, Tech. Sgt. Troy Bickham, releases a package of instruments out of the plane. Called a dropsonde (pronounced drop-sawn), it’s a cardboard tube about the length of a person’s forearm and stuffed with sensors.

For a few minutes before it hits the water, the dropsonde will relay data back to the plane, including wind direction, wind speed, air temperature, relative humidity and barometric pressure.

“Sonde’s away,” Bickham says as it leaves the plane with a thump. “Good sonde,” he says as the data begins appearing on a screen in front of him.

The wind speed and the barometric pressure haven’t changed much, so the storm hasn’t strengthened. Schroeder calls it “tropical trash,” but that doesn’t mean the danger has passed.

“It’s almost like it’s gathering up its belongings here,” Schroeder says on one of the next passes through the storm, “like it’s wanting to be a hurricane again.”

It won’t on their watch.

The plane touches back down at just after 9:15 a.m. with lightning flashing over Miami. On the way to their debriefing, the crew passes their replacements. They’re already dressed in flight suits and headed out to the storm for the night shift, ready to see what Gustav will do next.


Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/08/gustav_hurricanehunters_airreserve_ap_082908w/

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NORFOLK, Va. — Sailors stand poised to dash to the Gulf Coast if Tropical Storm Gustav makes a violent landfall as predicted on Monday.

“Navy assets are ready and able to assist with potential hurricane relief and humanitarian assistance if and when tasked by Fleet Forces command,” said Lt. Courtney Hillson, deputy public affairs officer at 2nd Fleet.

Navy ships and aircraft reacted to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, with amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima — deployed just this week on a seven-month cruise — serving as an afloat operations center from pier-side in New Orleans.

Three Hampton Roads-based amphibious warfare ships — the amphibious assault ships Bataan and Nassau and the amphibious transport dock Ponce — would likely be sent down to the Gulf of Mexico if Gustav wreaks havoc ashore, according to Lt. Cmdr. Tamsen Reese, a public affairs officer at the Pentagon.


Article: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/08/navy_gustav_082908w/

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio National Guard is sending 1,500 troops to Louisiana to help with the cleanup following Hurricane Gustav.

Guard spokesman James Sims said the deployment could begin Thursday or Friday. Units from Columbus, Newark and Coshocton will be among those sending troops.

Last week, the Guard sent a CH-47 Chinook helicopter and five crew members from a battalion based in Akron at the request of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. The crew went to help the state prepare for Gustav, which hit the Gulf Coast on Monday.


Article: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/ap_ohio_gustav_090208/

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BATON ROUGE, La. — Authorities said two suspects have been arrested for attempting to loot a supply truck loaded with food and water planned for Hurricane Gustav victims.

Three suspects fired on National Guard soldiers in Ville Platte early Wednesday morning, said Gov. Bobby Jindal, adding that two suspects were arrested by local police Wednesday night.

Jindal said the soldiers shot at the attempted looters after they were fired upon. The three people trying to get to the supplies fled the site without getting to the 18-wheeler. A National Guard spokesman said there were no reports of injuries.


Article: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/ap_looters_090408/

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The Navy and Coast Guard are recovering from Hurricane Gustav, which killed more than 100 people in the U.S. and Caribbean last week.

Navy spokesman Lt. Mike Cody said 10,724 Navy active and reserve personnel, family members, and Navy civilian employees were evacuated from bases in five states; dozens of aircraft were flown inland from Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans, NAS Pensacola, and NAS Whiting Field; and naval assets at six civilian shipyards along the Gulf Coast were secured before the hurricane’s U.S. landfall Sunday.

Naval Support Activity New Orleans, NAS JRB New Orleans, and Naval Construction Battalion Command Gulfport, Miss., were completely evacuated.

As of noon Thursday, Cody said 98.6 percent of those evacuated were accounted for. No storm-related Navy fatalities or injuries have been reported, he said.

Affected shipyards should resume full production activity by Sept. 8, Cody said. Each of the evacuated bases is also on its way to a quick recovery.

“Normal operations have resumed at Gulfport, and most aircraft have returned to NAS Pensacola and NAS Whiting Field,” Cody said. “By midday Thursday, all power had been restored to NSA New Orleans, and the commissary and exchange were being resupplied. By midday Thursday, power has been restored to vital facilities at NAS JRB New Orleans, but not to housing. The airfields are intact and they have sufficient fuel for normal operations.

“When strong storms hit, the Navy knows how to respond and is ready,” Cody said. “Commands made appropriate preparations to ensure continuous operational readiness ashore and at sea and to care for the Navy family when Gustav struck the Gulf Coast. The Navy has since moved from the response phase to recovery, maintaining operational control of its assets throughout the process.”

The Coast Guard’s 8th District command and Incident Management Team temporarily relocated from New Orleans to St. Louis to oversee hurricane response operations.

The team set up a hotline for families of Coast Guard personnel responding to Hurricane Gustav. That hotline’s operators fielded calls from family members requesting information about service members who they were unable to contact.


Article: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/09/navy_hurricane_090408w/

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Officials are planning a phased return to the Marine Reserve headquarters in hurricane-rattled New Orleans beginning Friday, a Marine spokesman said.

The planned return of personnel to Marine Forces Reserve would begin no earlier than 6 a.m., Gunnery Sgt. James Connolly said Thursday. The timeline is contingent on conditions remaining the same, and would result in most personnel returning to the area by Sunday morning.

“All of these things are fluid, but we believe we can begin sending people home,” he said.

MarForRes began evacuating its headquarters Saturday and established an alternate headquarters at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, Texas, on Sunday, one day before Hurricane Gustav roared ashore with Category 2 strength and 110 mph winds west of the low-lying city.

“Right now, our families are in a good situation,” Connolly said. “They have roofs over their heads and food in their bellies, and I think that’s how we’re looking at things.”

Marine officials said 454 active-duty Marines, 309 active Reserve Marines and 31 sailors were stationed at MarForRes when the evacuation began. About 30 Marines remained at the headquarters in New Orleans during the storm to maintain security and minimal operations.

Article: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/09/marine_gustavreturn_090408w/