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Volume 114, Issue 3
Message from the Chief of Staff
Thank you once again for the opportunity to serve you as your District 5NR Chief
of Staff! On your behalf, I have attended N-Train (National Training and board
meeting) in St Louis in January, the US Coast Guard Academy for ASOC
(Auxiliary Senior Officer Course, AUX-07) training for a week in April, meetings
with the Eastern Area EXCOM in Baltimore in May and NACON (the national
conference) in Orlando in August. I have also enjoyed visiting flotillas throughout
the district with Commodore Kyper and look forward to visiting more soon.
This training and these events have given me an insight into where our Coast
Guard may be heading that I want to share with you. While recreational boating
safety will always be “job one” for the Auxiliary, the Coast Guard is increasingly
looking to the Auxiliary to support them in many other ways. In order to provide
that support, we’ll have to be prepared. The response to the recent hurricanes is
just the most recent example. When the call for assistance for Hurricane Harvey
came out, some otherwise well qualified Auxiliarists could not be considered
because they had not completed the mandated training. Please stress to your
members the importance of completing this relatively easy requirement. The most
Thomas J. Dever
District Chief of Staff
U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary
5th District-Northern Region
recent requests were for Auxiliary Pollution Response Specialists and Auxiliary Facility Inspectors. Encourage
your members to keep training and to work toward these qualifications, this won’t be the last time this help will be
needed.
One of the great things about the ASOC class I’m in with the other DCOSs from around the country is the chance
to work together as a team and to really get to know one another. District 8 Central Region DCOS, Chuck
Maricle is in Houston working with many other Auxiliarists and this is what he reported on 31 August - as Tom
Mullally, DCOS for D8WR notes: “it might be an eye opener for our own AOR's. If any of your members
wonder why we take ICS classes, just look at the pictures. Here, in Chuck’s own words, the situation in Houston:
“…So what is the status?
The event stood up on August 24 and rescues are still going on. On the first 2 days we (USCG)
received over 72,000 calls for help (not a typo). This continued at a rate of 1000 an hour and now
that we are on the back end, the emergency call center was moved to Washington DC. The call
center was mostly auxiliary run and we would only let people work 30-45 minutes at a time, very
stressful effectively taking panic emergency calls.
Two response areas are operating for a total as of yesterday of 1000+ personnel from literally all
over the country.
On the air side we have been working as air controllers, comms and today our auxair members are
on board the helos as observers for SAR cases. USCG has 38 helos on site for SAR as of yesterday
plus many others from other agencies. AUXAIX is also expected to fly logistics missions moving
forward - non-stop flying.
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