With just 14 days to go until I retire from the Coast Guard, todays 20 Years a Coastie post is about the response to the Deepwater Horizon tragedy that hit the Gulf Coast. As everyone knows, in April of 2010, the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon suffered an explosion, killing 11 crewmembers, and subsequently sank 2 days later. It then proceeded to spill an estimated 4.93 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico until a temporary cap was placed on it in Mid July, and eventually shut down permanently in September. It was the largest offshore oil spill in US History, and was a major blow to the Gulf Coast, still on the mend from Hurricane Katrina 4 years prior. That is what you probably saw on the news. Im not going to go too deep on the regional devastation, as there were thousands of hours of Media footage on that. Instead, I want to put out some praise on the response that night made by the Coast Guard and one particularly crucial Civilian Responder. The roles played by 6 helos full of my shipmates and the crew aboard the Motor Vessel Damon Bankston on the night of the explosion went to saving 115 lives. The attached video is from the Coast Foundation awards ceremony which paid tribute to their work that evening. As you will see and hear, it was as trying of a situation as they could have imagined, and they responded with excellence and professionalism. As one of our Pilots was famously quoted It was like looking into the face of the Devil. Well, this is just one more example when the Coast Guard stepped up and got the job done, Devil or not. So hats off to Scott Lloyd, Scott Austin, Kevin Fernandez, Dustin Bernatovich, Kevin Cheatham, and all the others who kicked butt that night, either in the air or back at home ensuring the missions success. And a Hand Salute to the crew aboard the Damon Bankston who optimized the idea of the Good Samaritan. Without them, there is no telling how many survivors would have been alive when we got on scene. As for the aftermath and the Coast Guards response, heres a quick recap. As per Standard Operating Procedure with something of this magnitude, the Coast Guard sent crews from around the fleet in to assist. I beleive Air Station New Orleans had about 75 to 100 Flight Mechs, maybe 30-50 Pilots, and half a dozen Rescue Swimmers TAD to assist. The Total Coast Guard responce came to 7,000 Active Duty and Reserve personnel, approximately 14% of the 50,000 total Coasties. They were operating 60 Vessels, and 22 Aircraft. Air Station New Orleans and ATC Mobile became the epicenters for daily Search and Rescue flights, observation flights for tracking oil, and overflights to determine the extent of the spill. We had Marine Science Technicians flying with us often enough that eventually, I, as the Training Petty Officer, went ahead and worked the process to get them Aircrew Qualified as Aviation Mission Specialist, a first for our District. I was also the Enlisted Flight Scheduler, and was regularly calling people at all hours of the evening to fill the flight schedule. I also monitored Training and Minimum requirements for all TAD Personnel, scheduling hoisting flights, training, and even an upgrade or two with the STAN Team in Mobile. The amount of people and resources there were no where the size of Katrina, but they came in Second in my 20 years as far as TAD Response effort. And that was just the Aviation side of the house. The Surface Fleet had thousands of people on scene, working everything from Skimming oil to Beach Patrols to looking for wildlife and Tar Balls. Former Airdales like Keith Lambonus, Roberto Lopez, and Frank MacDonald were in the area doing the kings business on the ground. They did the brunt of the work, and hats off to them for their efforts. Personally, I only flew over the area once or twice, but what I saw was enough to make you realized the News Photos did not do justice to the scope of what happened. But the News also failed to do something else. While they were spending hours on end playing up to blame, fears, and conspirators, they failed to point out that the Coast Guard, alongside 48,200 other Responders, were out there day and night, kicking ass and dealing with the fallout.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 23:03:19 +0000
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