SEMA has requested that MOWG CAP extend service until Feb. 6, 09.
Going go door-to-door and shelter support. SE Missouri and into Northern Arkansas was hit by a heavy ice storm last weekend. Up to 2.5 inches of ice blanketed the area. That is all the info I have :-\
Quote from: Senior on February 01, 2009, 03:12:02 AM
SEMA has requested that MOWG CAP extend service until Feb. 6, 09.
Going go door-to-door and shelter support. SE Missouri and into Northern Arkansas was hit by a heavy ice storm last weekend. Up to 2.5 inches of ice blanketed the area. That is all the info I have :-\
Great missions! Not everything is going to have airplanes. As FEMA gets to trust us more the better and better the missions will be.
BTW, did you mean FEMA? I'm not familiar with SEMA.
SEMA: State Emergency Management Agency, not a part of FEMA. ;)
Quote from: Senior on February 01, 2009, 03:30:13 AM
SEMA: State Emergency Management Agency, not a part of FEMA. ;)
When you use acronyms and initialisms, it's best to spell them out the first time you use them if they are not totally obvious to the rest of us. I, personally, was wondering what Speed Equipment Manufacturers Association had to do with the topic.
Arkansas Wing hasn't been tasked to do a thing
Anyone in KY Wing? I hear that they are in a bad way in those parts.
Kentucky Emergency Net (Ham-ARES) 3.960
Has been pretty active, interesting listening to the reports. Still certain counties were there is limited comms...............and message handling is a chore.
Our EMA sent the ITECS trailer down to Paducah.............Sat phones are having trouble as well as digital comms with some problems. VHF and HF still making the haul.
Indiana is on a mission to support the Red Cross in Evansville, IN (Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois borders). Currently, it is just the local squadron helping with shelter relocations.
Southwestern and southern Indiana had over 95,000 without power at one point.
Update from MOWG CAP. Email today stated that CAP involvement will be
scaled back to 2 GT. Some aerial recon but not a major part of the mission.
SEMA has had high praise for the professionalism displayed by CAP members. :clap: :clap:
All..
First this is not a RELEASE, but just anecdotal information that is out there in the public domain.
First night with power back on here in the "central part of KY" where I live. Went off-line last Wednesday morning around 1A.
Ky EM and KY NG requested CAP support on Saturday afternoon. I took the KyEM support request from my house as IC and handed off to MAJ Koob (incumbent Wing CC) yesterday. At that point I transferred to the EOC and JOC as Agency Liasion with LTC Rue who deployed there on my request Sat afternoon.
Commonwealth has already spent $45 million in support on the state. 250,000 still without power down from 700,000. 24 dead and 2 saves by National Guard related to the Winter Storm.
http://bluegrasspolitics.bloginky.com/2009/02/02/beshear-asks-obama-to-pay-costs-for-storms-first-week/
CAP is carrying Ky NG repeaters for ground troops and will receive two more retuned and programed by NTC in the morning. Also highbird support for rotary assets of the guard for their flight following.
We have been tasked by KY EM for aerial intelligence gathering of 22 counties looking for infrastructure problems on roads and power grids. Images coming across today were depicting power lines down all over the counties.
Flown multiple judge executive's offices for damage assesment and power line officials as well.
We have support from IL, and IN wings today and OH wings tomorrow (I think). We have other requests into the NOC for support and they are assisting our Command Staff at the EOC and Wing HQ.
We literally had to dig the planes out of the ice and snow. There are pictures out there and maybe some of our more productive members can produce them or I will when I can circle back around for them.
All, you can be proud of the Volunteers in CAP in this mission. They are working HARD every day and there's more to do. I have had to back out because I have to head to Tampa for work tomorrow and back Wed.
Quote from: KyCAP on February 03, 2009, 05:22:15 AM
We have support from IL, and IN wings today and OH wings tomorrow (I think). We have other requests into the NOC for support and they are assisting our Command Staff at the EOC and Wing HQ.
OLA from KYWG! -
sitting in the FOB waiting for tasking!
Quote from: KyCAP on February 03, 2009, 05:22:15 AM
All, you can be proud of the Volunteers in CAP in this mission. They are working HARD every day and there's more to do. I have had to back out because I have to head to Tampa for work tomorrow and back Wed.
(Waving "hi" from Tampa)
Here's hoping that everyone stays warm and the Form 108 monster freezes to death.
Paducah is the focal point here in west ky. I have been able to assist here and there. My wife is out of town on business and I have my 2 yr old, so my participation is greatly reduced. Air Ops is being coordinated in our new Reserve Center, which is just across the field from the FBO. The county Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in McCracken Co. is being run from my vol. fire dept. The Paducah Squadron has been helping man the EOC as a CAP liaison, off and on over the last few days. I went to a neighboring county EOC meeting Sat. morning and gave a briefing on what resources the state can provide. Sunday afternoon, our county EOC had their regular EOC briefing. I was told to sit up front. The officials from the various depts. gave a status update with their dept. I was able to do the same.
GT missions have yet to be given. It all comes down to you being able to go to your various ems and local government officials and explain what type of taskings your GT's can do. Examples based off of this disaster: man distribution centers, help with door-to-door welfare checks, radio ops at your EOC, transport emergency officials, etc. This ice storm knocked out power to everybody in 22-23 counties. This happened a week ago tonight and there are still people and businesses without power. Some will be without power for up to 2 more weeks, maybe longer. I'm one of the lucky ones. My power went out last Tuesday afternoon and came back on last Friday afternoon. Internet came back up yesterday.
This disaster has everyone working together. If you haven't contacted your local sheriff, police, Red Cross, volunteer fire dept/s, the county disaster and emergency services (DES) organizations, start now. And by local, I mean all of the counties around you, not just the one you live in. I was scheduled to attend our local county Homeland Security meeting yesterday, but this "event" canceled it. The county DES director was going to sit down with me afterwards and learn more about CAP.
Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We will survive!!
Good job everyone. We need all the good PR we can get. :clap: :clap:
I am manning the EOC in Dunklin County for the American Red Cross and also making sure everyone knows about CAP. I know we got some aerial shots that were taken and everyone seemed impressed by the work that was done.
Me here in MIWG waiting to be called...
(http://captalk.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=7149.0;attach=2960;image)
A pic from the EOC at Paducah airport. Everyone here from the ARC to the NG has been great, treating us like partners and
making us feel welcome. Ditto for all the air and ops people we've dealt with from KYWG and INWG.
At the hotel last night everyone was all smiles and thanks for the help
From a destruction standpoint, what we've seen is not as "exciting" as what we saw in MS, but as the all the trees down there were pushed over at the root ball, the ones here are broken off at the limbs. The only places we've seen any building damage is the random home or business with the bad fortune to be under a large limb when it broke.
The weather was warm enough before we got here that most of the snow and ice is gone, which is sort of surreal considering why we are here.
It clear and really cold. Getting down here was pretty hairy with white-out conditions in many parts of the state.
Glad we could come down and play.
And I met my first out of state CAPTalker today in brasda91!
^ Dang, wish you had said something.
FYI - Obama upgraded the Declaration to Disaster Area today.
http://www.fema.gov/news/event.fema?id=11088
Also, just an update. 1st AF granted Auxiliary Status earlier in the week. We have ground teams out working with the door to door welfare checks. One such house discovered a elderly lady who was scared and afraid. They were able to evacuate her to her daughters custody. Could be counted as a save.
I've attached some images from where we had to have Blue Grass Airport maintenance use a backhoe and their maintenance crews to level the ice to tug the planes into a hangar to de-ice them.
I took the first two images and Jim Combs of Blue Grass Senior Squadron took the two of the pre-deicing earlier in the day. It took nearly 8 hours to dig out in the combined efforts of about 10 CAP members and 4 TAC-Air employees.
Paducah FOB was shut down this evening, last aircrew will be out of there in the AM.
Quote from: Eclipse on February 07, 2009, 03:46:47 AM
Paducah FOB was shut down this evening, last aircrew will be out of there in the AM.
Anyone know how many AC & GTs were involved?
Quote from: Gunner C on February 07, 2009, 11:37:18 AM
Quote from: Eclipse on February 07, 2009, 03:46:47 AM
Paducah FOB was shut down this evening, last aircrew will be out of there in the AM.
Anyone know how many AC & GTs were involved?
We had 6 planes on the ramp Thursday morning, and I know that the AOBD in the FOB at Paducah was juggling at least nine at one time during flight ops, including one of ours that was flying an Army repeater all day.
Out of the FOB I was running 3 seperate teams at the peak, two IL and one from KY, but the main ground ops were out of Frankfort where the ICP was. I never got a tally on the numbers from there, but the GBD always sounded busy when I talked to him.
My numbers show at least 36 members from ILWG who actually made it down to KY in one capacity or another totaling at least 150 sorties between air, ground, and base staff.
I'd also like to personally thank and commend the admin staff from KYWG and the mission-base personnel helping them. I received my reimbursement check today. That's got to be one of the fastest mission reimbursements I've ever seen, and when you consider the scale of that operation, a 1-month turn around is impressive, to say the least.