What Do You Do on an Average Day?

Published in

Homeland Security

7 min readMar 8, 2016

Why the United States Coast Guard is the best bang for the buck.

Coast Guard in action. Photo: USCG flickr.

The United States Coast Guard is one of the nation’s five military services that operates in the maritime environment (both domestic and internationally) with regulatory authority. Today’s Coast Guard has over 43,000 active duty and reserve uniformed personnel and operates under the Department of Homeland Security, but can be transferred to the Navy in times of war. It uniquely carries out both civil and military responsibilities at home and abroad. It operates in dangerous environments with aging assets and a very limited budget. So what does the Coast Guard do with the resources it is entrusted with on an average day?

1. Conducts 45 search and rescue cases. The Coast Guard is on watch 24X7 listening for that MAYDAY call on the radio. From Hurricane Katrina to detangling a trapped whale from a lobster trap, the Coast Guard is ready to respond.

Rescue during Hurrican Katrina operations. Photograph by Petty Officer 2nd Class Kyle Niemi

An entangled Humpback whale breechesduring a successful rescue in the Gulf of Maine. U.S. Coast Guard crews and Bob Bowman, from the Center for Coastal Studies, freed the whale after it became tangled in a lobster trap. USCG photo by PA3 BRENT M. ERB

2. Saves 10 lives. That’s about 300 lives a month. Or 3650 a year!

The Finest Hours: A book and movie based on a true story rescue that is famed at being the most daring in US Coast Guard history.

3. Saves over $1.2M in property. This could be someone’s fishing boat that feeds the people of our nation, or the retirement home that someone saved their entire life for.

4. Seizes 874 pounds of cocaine and 214 pounds of marijuana. That’s a lot of illegal substances that didn’t make it to our shores. Heck, that’s even money put back into the pockets of our citizens (if you operate a legal domestic marijuana production facility).

5. Conducts 57 waterborne patrols of critical maritime infrastructure. There are sixteen different critical infrastructure sectors in the United States and many of them are on the water.

The Coast Guard patrols chemical facilities; navigation locks and levees; government facilities; ports and other transportation systems; water and waste water systems; energy facilities; and a variety of other important assets to deter malicious actors.

SEATTLE (July 31, 2005) A 25-foot response boat from Station Seattle conducts a critical infrastructure patrol along the downtown Seattle waterfront. USCG photo by Bill Neumann.

6. Interdicts 17 illegal migrants.

117 Dominicans rescued by Coast Guard Cutter Charles Sexton

In a desperate attempt to flee their countries, people undertake dangerous and sometimes fatal attempts to cross the ocean to reach the United States. Sometimes these people are not seeking a better life, but rather to harm the citizens of our nation.

Whatever the motivation, the Coast Guard is prepared to find and transfer people back to safety.

Haitian migrants aboard a grossly overloaded sail freighter August 5, 2010. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Chief Petty Officer John Stephens

7. Escorts 5 high-capacity passenger vessels. The Coast Guard escorts ferries, cruise ships and other maritime vessels that transport large volumes of people in an effort to deter and protect. Some of the most well-known ferry systems in the US are in Washington State and New York. The Washington State Ferry System maintains the largest fleet of ferries in the United States at 24 vessels, carrying 23 million passengers in 2014. As of 2014, it was the largest ferry operator in the United States, and the fourth-largest ferry system in the world. The Staten Island Ferry in New York City, sailing between the boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island, is reported to be the nation’s busiest ferry route by passenger volume.

Enforcing the security zones around the Staten Island Ferry in New York Harbor | USCG photo

During a drill, SWAT team members disembark the Washington State ferry M.V. Salish while under sail via a U.S. Coast Guard boat Monday out of Bainbridge Island, Wash. *The Associated Press*

8. Conducts 24 security boardings in and around U.S. ports. This could be anything from a vessel needing to transit through a security zone to a new arrival in U.S. waters. The Coast Guard is ready to protect the nation by ensuring that vessels operating in and around our waterways are unable to cause disruption.

SAN DIEGO — A boarding team from U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Diego performs a security boarding of a cargo ship passing through the security zone around the USS Carl Vinson in San Diego Bay. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Henry G. Dunphy.

9. Screens 360 merchant vessels for potential security threats prior to arrival in U.S. ports. In an effort to determine if a vessel is a risk or should not be granted approval for entrance, the Coast Guard screens vessels well before they ever arrive in the waters of the United States.

The quarter-mile-long Benjamin Franklin, which is bigger than the Empire State building without its spike stopped in Los Angeles, above, on New Year’s Eve 2015.

10. Conducts 14 fisheries conservation boardings. An important mission of the Coast Guard is to enforce fisheries laws at sea. This effort is designed to protect the resources in our waters so that they do not become depleted or illegally obtained.

In 2008, the Coast Guard detected 81 incursions by foreign fishing vessels into the U.S. EEZ. The Coast Guard also participated in the 2008 multi-national high seas drift net (HSDN) enforcement campaign, Operation North Pacific Watch. Through this campaign, the Coast Guard interdicted two Chinese-flagged HSDN vessels, facilitating their seizure by Chinese officials

11. Services 82 buoys and fixed aids to navigation. You can’t safely drive a car throughout our roadway systems without signs, traffic lights, and for some GPS. The Coast Guard maintains the federal waterway system of beacons and bouys that provides those same exact things, but just on the water. The Coast Guard is currently testing new tools for eATON: using technology to identify aids to navigation and to signal what they are and their location directly to the electronic charts that mariners use.

12. Investigates 35 pollution incidents. From an oil sheen on the water to investigating the bypassing of pollution equipment (to discharge substances illegally overboard), the Coast Guard takes the lead in protecting our natural resources.

Coast Guard Sector Corpus Christi and Texas General Land Office responded to oil pollution from a beached 50-foot recreational boat near the Padre Island Canals in Corpus Christi.

13. Completes 26 safety examinations on foreign vessels.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Brian Wereda and crewmembers of the bulk carrier ship Baltic Fox inspect an immersion suit during an exam in Kodiak, Alaska, Nov. 25, 2013.

14. Conducts 105 marine inspections. The Coast Guard is responsible for inspecting vessels that are registered in the United States or foreign ships that plan on entering U.S. waters.

Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Rick Nieves and Chief Warrant Officer Dave Getchell, vessel inspectors from Sector Anchorage, Alaska, inspect welds made to the ferry Tustumena in Seward, Alaska. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Shawn Eggert.

15. Investigates 14 marine casualties involving commercial vessels.

A Coast Guard boat patrols alongside the damaged Cosco Busan after the ship struck a bridge in 2007.

A marine casualty involving a vessel in the Bering Sea resulted in multiple fatalities and complete loss of the vessel. Testimony indicates the flooding of the vessel may have been exacerbated due to open or leaking watertight doors and other compartmental deficiencies which impacted the vessel’s overall watertight integrity.

16. Facilitates movement of $8.7B worth of goods and commodities through the Nation’s Maritime Transportation System.

The crew of Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw, homeported in Cheboygan, Mich., conducts an escort on Lake Superior near Whitefish Point April 3, 2014. The Mackinaw crew worked together with the crew of Canadian Coast Guard Ship Pierre Radisson, homeported in Quebec City, as part of an ongoing bi-national agreement between the U.S. and Canada, to break sheet ice that was nearly 40 inches thick. U.S. Coast Guard photo courtesy of Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City

As important as oversight is, proper application of this responsibility is integral to realizing the benefits. For the 110th United States Congress (January 4, 2007 — January 4, 2009), DHS was required to report to 118 committees and subcommittees for legislative oversight. It is estimated that those figures have not been reduced in most recent legislative structures. The Washington Post reports that it was 120 in 2014.

The Coast Guard does so much more than this snapshot in time, but I think you get the message. So let your legislators know that you support the Coast Guard and everything it does for this great country. It probably does not matter which one you send an email or letter to since the Department of Homeland Security is required to report to pretty much everyone all the time.

Chorus from official marching song “Semper Paratus” (Always Ready)

We’re always ready for the call,
We place our trust in Thee.
Through surf and storm and howling gale,
High shall our purpose be.
“Semper Paratus” is our guide,
Our fame, our glory too.
To fight to save or fight and die,
Aye! Coast Guard we are for you!

Melanie Burnham has been a Homeland Security professional for over 20 years and is currently a graduate student attending the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security. Homeland XYZ was developed in collaboration with members of her cohort to introduce a writing platform for students to publish, and for crowdsourcing answers to difficult Homeland Security questions.

See other articles by Homeland XYZ:

What Do You Do on an Average Day?

Written by Homeland XYZ