A CAP First
New agreement with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers takes effect with Arkansas flooding
By Jennifer Stewart Kornegay
Nonstop (and in some spots, record-breaking) rain at the end of 2015 overfilled many rivers and sparked an outbreak of flooding that stretched from parts of the Midwest all the way into the Deep South. As it often is, Civil Air Patrol was called in to help assess the situation, and in Arkansas the work marked the first missions conducted under a new agreement between CAP and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“From the outset, it was all very positive,” said Tony Hill, chief of the emergency management office for the Little Rock District Corps of Engineers. “We definitely plan on using them again in the future. The coordination was great, and the crew we worked with was very accommodating and responsive to our needs, and the response time for this flood event was excellent.”
Thanks to CAP’s quick work, the aerial crew was able to catch the crests along the Arkansas River, which was critical, giving Hill and his team the exact information they needed during the time-sensitive event.
John Desmarais, director of operations at CAP National Headquarters, explained how the agreement came about. “The Corps provides a lot of disaster response, and we have worked together on missions before, but we found out that on Corps property, they can’t use FEMA funding to support themselves,” he said.
That sometimes stood in the way of CAP rendering valuable assistance. “We realized that there was more we could do with them and for them, but we needed an official agreement to do it,” Desmarais said.
The new, national-level agreement allows the Corps to provide funding through CAP-USAF to CAP, and when CAP supports them, it’s carried out as a federal mission. “This allows us a way to operate nationwide in a standardized manner that streamlines things, meaning we can now get our support to them more quickly,” he said. “It opens up more avenues for us to do missions.”
The official agreement benefits both parties, and on CAP’s side, it will only enhance the response time that so impressed Hill, as Lt. Col. Chuck Bishop, who was an airborne photographer on the Arkansas mission, noted: “The Corps personnel we worked with were very pleased with the results and especially pleased with the speed in which we responded,” Bishop said. “We’ve worked with the Corps through FEMA in the past, but not directly. The agreement made things run faster and smoother once we got the initial approvals.”
The Arkansas mission included three sorties to take aerial photos that surveyed conditions on different sections of the Arkansas River, beginning upstream and following the water down. “On New Year’s Eve, we got the request from the Corps to do aerial photos and assessment of flooded locations,” said Capt. Phillip Robertson, Arkansas Wing director of operations. “The sorties included areas where the waters had crested or were about to, so they could get a big picture on where the most damage was being done and where damage was expected.”
Four CAP members split duties using one plane for the sorties, totaling 6.8 hours of flight time. “The mission clocked 62 man-hours with the photo uploading and plane prep,” Robertson said. About 500 photos were provided to the Corps.
And CAP delivered the photos fast. “They got the photos back to us in just a few hours,” Hill said. “That was incredible and helpful.”
The techniques and tools CAP uses made it easy for Hill to share the photos with other organizations. “I know FEMA, the state of Arkansas and the EPA, in addition to us, used those photos, and we’ve already seen benefits from the photos collected; they’ve helped our engineers with a hydrologic modeling project that is being conducted on the river,” Hill said.
The new Corps agreement brings another bonus. “Wehad a member of Corps personnel go with us on our last sortie,” Robertson said. “That was really helpful.”
Bishop echoed Robertson. “Having the Corps member with us let us better see exactly what they wanted. It gives us a good blueprint for next time,” he said.
Water, Water Everywhere
Arkansas was not the only state fighting floodwaters around the holidays. Nor was it the only state to rely on CAP’s expertise and capabilities for assistance with damage assessment.
In Missouri, a close working relationship with the National Guard meant CAP aircrews out of Kansas City and Branson were up in the air taking photos 30 minutes after the initial call. “The Missouri National Guard and CAP have a great partnership,” said Col. John O’Neill, Missouri Wing commander. “We work through the National Guard during natural disasters.”
The crews followed flooding in the southwest section as it traveled all the way across the state. “We moved with the crest of water. We were doing damage assessment for local authorities, and then did a few sorties with the State Emergency Management Agency and Missouri Highway Patrol, checking the river after the crest for vehicles that had gotten swept up in the flow.”
They found two cars, both fortunately empty. While CAP members in Missouri are no strangers to flooding, this event was different.
“The majority of flooding that happened in the St. Louis area was the Meramec River that feeds into the Mississippi River, and it is usually the Mississippi itself that floods, so we had water in areas we’ve not seen before. Interstate 44 was underwater for several days, and that’s really unusual,” O’Neill said.
The multiple missions included 46 members providing more than 415 hours of service during 26 sorties, which resulted in 3,400 photos as well as hyperspectral images taken with CAP’s ARCHER (Airborne Real-time Cueing Hyperspectral Enhanced Reconnaissance) system — a custom-designed system of imaging hardware and software that allows an operator to program into an onboard computer the “spectral signature” of an object. That was useful in these missions, as it allowed the photographer to document the crest levels as well as see water levels through trees.
In Oklahoma, the massive amounts of water broke rain- fall records for December and led to flooding in the eastern part of the state. CAP’s Oklahoma Wing stepped up to give the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management the aerial photos it needed to get a handle on the damage.
“We worked closely with the Office of Emergency Management and used aircraft and aircrew based in Tulsa and Muskogee to survey and document flooding and associated impacts along the Arkansas and Illinois rivers,” said Lt. Col. Aaron Oliver, the Oklahoma Wing’s director of operations and incident commander on the mission. “We also documented the impact on the Lake Eufaula area.” All told, the wing provided images of flood impact in an area covering about 12,000 square miles.
Mississippi was also hit hard by days of heavy rain, and the Corps of Engineers tasked members of the Mississippi Wing with gathering aerial photos of where the mighty Mississippi River had already flooded and other spots that were at risk. “The primary objectives were to identify actual flooding areas, as well as survey the levee system to help determine their structural integrity,” said Col. Mallory Woodcock, Mississippi Wing commander.
More than a dozen members participated in the mission; over two days aircrews flew five sorties, accumulating over 11 hours of flying and capturing more than 1,100 high-definition photos for the Corps of Engineers. In addition, the wing supported the U.S. Coast Guard by looking for a person who had fallen from a barge into the river during the flooding.
Originally published in April-June 2016 Civil Air Patrol Volunteer magazine.
