Hurricane Sandy

[Eclipse]

I heard anecdotally that all the GIIEP systems were being held back for, or moved to, the DA.

[754837]

In ref. to the cadet in the photograph... Imagine how good he feels being involved in the recovery of a true emergency!  This, in my opinion, is one key to cadet retention; actually providing a service.  Hopefully we will see his photograph some day in the future with 3 diamonds on his collar.

[Майор Хаткевич]

My post actually had a separate underlying point. If he is most likely a new cadet, hasn't been instructed on uniform wear, what are the chances he has a 101 card? I dont think something like this would need it, but if this cadet gets hurt, who's liable?

[tsrup]

My post actually had a separate underlying point. If he is most likely a new cadet, hasn't been instructed on uniform wear, what are the chances he has a 101 card? I dont think something like this would need it, but if this cadet gets hurt, who's liable?

The bigger issue is that he does not have his curry done and therefore does not have his GES at the very least. 

He would be ineligible for mission tasking.


That could, in and of itself, be grounds for denying insurance coverage IN THEORY.

In reality if that cadet got hurt, the squadron commander that allowed him to participate in an assigned mission would be in some hot water.



However, that is if he is acting as part of a mission that has a mission number.  If the squadron he's a part of just scrounged up some food and decided to donate it, that's their own thing.


All in all, we're all reading too much into this.  (myself included)

[RiverAux]

Todays release - NE region -- there is a little mention of a ground game

NEW HAMPSHIRE – Northeast Region aircrews expect to make 16 more flights today and 20 Friday as they continue assessing damage from Hurricane Sandy, with some also looking for people possibly stranded in deep snow in West Virginia.

The flights follow 25 damage assessment sorties carried out Tuesday and Wednesday. The first aerial missions took place Tuesday as soon as winds subsided sufficiently, as aircrews photographed damage to the coastal areas of Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island, along with Massachusetts' Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Island and Rhode Island's Block Island.

CAP members also conducted flights over Maryland and Delaware in CAP's neighboring Middle East Region, which includes West Virginia.

"It's a large cooperative effort between the Northeast Region and Middle East Region," said Lt. Col. Paul Ghiron, Northeast Region director of emergency services.

The Northeast Region mobilized aircrews and other personnel before Sandy struck the northeast coast, launching two flights over Connecticut and Rhode Island, staffing emergency operations centers in each state, sending liaison officers to three Federal Emergency Management Agency regions, staffing the New York City Joint Emergency Management Center and helping the Red Cross load supplies onto trucks in New York.

"So far our response is on the order of what we did last year with Hurricane Irene," Ghiron said, "but we expect to eclipse that.

"We expect to do hundreds of sorties and obtain thousands of images for FEMA," he said.

The region's central command post in New Hampshire is pulling aircrews from all nine wings – Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont – in the Northeast Region, Ghiron said. Hundreds of members are involved in the air and on the ground, including officers and cadets providing assistance to Red Cross shelters in New York and New Jersey.

The storm's impact varied widely from state to state.

In Rhode Island, "there are whole houses completely moved and places where houses are no longer there," said the wing's commander, Col. Benjamin Emerick. "There are a lot of boats mixed in, too."

His wing has "been flying the past two days, in between the bad weather bands," Emerick said.

The Rhode Island Wing has been averaging 3½ flights a day, with multiple aircrews using the wing's lone CAP plane Tuesday and Wednesday and generating about 600-700 digital damage assessment photos of the state's storm-battered coastline, he said.

Wednesday morning, he said, FEMA's director of operations for the state received a bird's-eye view of the coastline courtesy of one aircrew.

In addition, aircrew members have used one of the Rhode Island National Guard's Geospatial Information Interoperability Exploitation – Portable kits to provide live video of portions of the flights to the state Emergency Operations Center.

The Maine Wing's aerial missions actually began a few days before the storm neared, with two flights carried out Sunday to supply 63 aerial photos of the state's coastline south of Portland.

"The state was pretty proactive," said the wing's commander, Col. Dan Leclair said. "That way, they would know the extent of the damage."

Minimal damage was also reported in New Hampshire, where the wing flew a mission Wednesday to evaluate the impact on forested areas of the state.

The Northeast Region established its Area Coordination Center after a meeting and conference call with available personnel Monday. The center opened Tuesday morning in Concord, N.H., as the storm was bearing down on the area. 

Ghiron said the Northeast Region is unusual in that it overlaps three FEMA regions – six New England states in Region 1, New York and New Jersey in Region 2 and Pennsylvania in Region 3.  The command is responsible for receiving taskings from the FEMA regions and relaying them to the involved wings to carry out.

The center is being staffed from 7 a.m.-9 p.m. daily by 10 to 15 CAP members from the Maine, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island wings. Lt. Col. Paul Mondoux, Northeast Region director of safety, and Lt. Col. Robert Shaw, the region's chief of staff and commander of the New Hampshire Wing's Hawk Composite Squadron, have been designated as the area incident commanders.

[CAPDan]

Wasnt hard to do, but I did some digging and am 90% sure I have identified the cadet, his unit and lack of GES qualification.

But as Travis has said we may be reading too much into it.

[RiverAux]

NHQ did set up Hurricane Sandy as one of the significant missions that gets its own web site: http://www.capvolunteernow.com/highprofile_missions/hurricanes/2012__hurricane_sandy/

[754837]

NHQ's Sandy site is pretty weak.

[PHall]

The lack of ground team missions is not surprising.
After the Northridge Earthquake in 1994 we had "ground team" missions for about 3 or 4 days and then they pretty much dried up.
But we ended up supporting the Red Cross for about 6 weeks.
Handing out meals from the Red Cross ERV's (Emergency Response Vehicle) and running their warehouse facility at Van Nuys Airport.
Matter of fact, that warehouse operation was just about a 100% cadet run operation with minimal senior member oversight.
Wouldn't be a bit surprised if the Hurricane Sandy DR mission ended up doing something along the same line.

[RiverAux]

Well, I'd consider Red Cross type missions "ground" missions.  We're not going to have a lot of traditional CAP ground team missions after most national disasters and I don't think many expect that to ever change.  However, other uses of CAP members for ground-based missions are certainly possible but there has been and I suspect will continue to be no national direction or policy on what those missions might be and what we should be training for. 

[Eclipse]

Anything with the word "mission" behind it has specific requirements in regards to qualifications, training, and supervision.

Working a shelter in a DA, IMO, should not be done ad-hoc as community service.  There are far too many variables and
risks to allow members to do it with zero training, proper supervision, funding, and not the least of which, liability and
personal injury protection.

The logic is quite interesting. 

A slick-sleeve cadet, or senior member with a wet ID card, who wouldn't even be allowed to observe a UDF training exercise,
is perfectly OK to have working in a hazardous area, doing Lord knows what, for lord knows who, and with no requisite supervision
under the auspices of a "unit activity".

In this case we're talking about square miles of flooded areas with downed power lines, open gas mains, who knows what in the water,
who knows what in the population, and people who may be "less then honorable" in regards to how they treat a member.  No one
who isn't at >least< GT3 should even be looking in that direction, let alone be allowed to work the zone.

While doing house-to-house searches in Mississippi, I used just about every piece of gear in my kit, not to mention having to keep
my wits about me the entire time.  We had high-birds, regular radio checks, team procedures, not to mention a who laundry list
of SOP should things go "bad".

Properly trained CAP members can be a big asset in these cases, but untrained personnel should not be involved on any level.

[RiverAux]

Properly trained CAP members can be a big asset in these cases, but untrained personnel should not be involved on any level.

Thats the thing -- our ground teams don't have any real training other than in wilderness SAR.  CERT is available but there is no requirement for it and no doctrine on how CAP teams can do CERT stuff (some of which arguably is not possible under current CAP regulations).

We have desperately needed a doctrine on use of CAP personnel in ground based disaster relief missions for decades.  The lack of it shows in situations like this. 

[jimmydeanno]

CERT training through HLS is gone in the next few months.

[Eclipse]

We have desperately needed a doctrine on use of CAP personnel in ground based disaster relief missions for decades.  The lack of it shows in situations like this.

I'd have to pretty much agree - the idea of a ready force of members who can be self-sufficient for several days on a few hours notice
has huge value, but the lack of definition of duties hurts us in getting the phones calls.

[BillB]

CAP training in ES is geared for air operations and ground teams. emphasis on TEAMS. However in disater relief, CAP operates under outside agencies as directed. The outside agency is usually the County or area Emergency Management staff. So in one respect, the CAP member working with distribution of food,water and emergency supplies is self-deployed. There are many areas in disaster relief where CAP can be useful, but rarely as a unit, but rather as needed to suppliment the paid professionals, or to supply needed manpower.
How often has CAP deployed as a unit to a disaster relief practice or test on the county or area level? From what I've observed in Florida, the few Squadrons that have an MOU with Emergency Management are the only units active in a hurricane aftermath. And it seems they have taken opart in the EM training run by the County. But even then they operate under EM or in some cases FEMA control and command.

[Luis R. Ramos]

USAF and TSU-

You have commented on the possibility of CAP members operating without Gen ES and other ES training.

I say again, that squadrons in New York City were told to allow senior members and cadets over 18 whether they were qualified in ES or not to work during this emergency.

In my opinion, as I am ES Officer for my squadron, this removes any incentive for them to train themselves in Emergency Services. But when the request comes from Group, who am I to complain? And if the request to "include any senior regardless of whether they have ES quals" comes from Group, it also probably has the blessing of the Wing.

So far, the duties assigned to my squadron members appear to be at shelters, and work that may be considered for MSA.

Take care,

Flyer

[Майор Хаткевич]

I think it's great that they allow them to do something, but without doing the research as someone has done, I doubt that cadet is 18+.

[tsrup]

USAF and TSU-

You have commented on the possibility of CAP members operating without Gen ES and other ES training.

I say again, that squadrons in New York City were told to allow senior members and cadets over 18 whether they were qualified in ES or not to work during this emergency.

In my opinion, as I am ES Officer for my squadron, this removes any incentive for them to train themselves in Emergency Services. But when the request comes from Group, who am I to complain? And if the request to "include any senior regardless of whether they have ES quals" comes from Group, it also probably has the blessing of the Wing.

So far, the duties assigned to my squadron members appear to be at shelters, and work that may be considered for MSA.

Take care,

Flyer

By removing the GES requirement you've opened the door to allow members without curry (though those would be very rare at the 18+ mark) and seniors without level 1.

This also means no requirement for any NIMS courses, or even basic knowledge of how CAP operates at that point.

I'm not going to Monday Morning Quarterback your Wing King, especially since I'm nice and cozy as far away from an ocean as you can get, and I can't really imagine what's going on.  But if he want's to accept responsibility for placing untrained members in the field, well, I guess thats on him.

[a2capt]

Then again, just exactly how much of our training does deal with unloading stuff from a vehicle and handing it to people?

Really? Is that much different than unloading supplies for an air show?

Granted you've not got agitated, hungry, freaked out people clamoring for what you've got. But it's not like they're out there alone either.

[Luis R. Ramos]

River-

To me, Red Cross type missions can be a mix.

Damage Assessment type is more akin to Ground Teams and UDF. Shelter operations are more like Mission Staff Assistants, in which you escort the Guests (as one of the administrators was telling us we should call the evacuees) from registration to designated areas. You could collect also info.

Flyer