USTRANSCOM ready for worst of hurricanes

USTRANSCOM ready for worst of hurricanes The U.S. Transportation Command said it is ready for the worst this hurricane season has to offer, and was well prepared as Hurricane Dean moved toward Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands earlier this month.
   “Federal officials began to track Hurricane Dean as it formed in the Atlantic Ocean and started moving towards Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick J. Owens, deputy, Global Division, Operations and Plans Directorate. “FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), as well as U.S. Northern Command, which we support, began to convene video teleconferences to discuss and plan a potential response.
   “In support of USNORTHCOM, we forward-deployed aero-medical capability (personnel and equipment) to Texas,” Owens added. “We also forward-deployed a Joint Assessment Team from McGuire AFB, N.J., to Puerto Rico in anticipation of Hurricane Dean.'
   The two federal units transported specially equipped emergency response command and control vehicles to Puerto Rico by Aug. 16, and had an operational USTRANSCOM Deployment and Distributions Operations Center functioning as the storm neared on Aug. 18.
   USTRANSCOM also had emergency medical response centers in place in at three airfields in Brownsville, Texas, where medical patients could have been moved. It also had C-130 transport planes and crews on standby at Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas for any needed aero-medical evacuations.
   With two prime-hurricane-season months still ahead, however, officials believe they are ready for anything, having spent months preparing for storms in the Caribbean islands, and throughout the southern states.