By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
MIAMI , June 22, 2012 – Putting lessons
learned from the 2010 earthquake response in Haiti into practice, U.S. Southern
Command has entered this year’s hurricane season ready to provide timely,
effective aid should another disaster strike the region, command officials
reported.
“We remain deliberately prepared,”
Southcom commander Air Force Gen. Douglas M. Fraser reported to Congress in the
lead-up to hurricane season, which kicked off this month.
“As we look at the hurricane season, we
prepared for that, not only within our own headquarters, but with our partners
in the region,” Fraser said.
Southcom’s area of responsibility, which
includes Central and South America and the Caribbean, is no stranger to natural
disasters. The largest earthquake recorded worldwide in the 20th century
occurred in 1960 in Valdivia, Chile. Mount Pelee’s 1902 eruption in Martinique
caused more than 30,000 deaths, and the 1985 Nevada del Ruiz eruption and
mudslide in Colombia killed 25,000 people. Major flooding in northern Venezuela
in 1999 left more than 20,000 dead.
Haiti has been tormented throughout its
history with cyclones, hurricanes, tropical storms, torrential rains, floods
and earthquakes. Haiti’s 7.0-magnitude earthquake in January 2010 left
thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. That disaster sparked the
Southcom-led Operation Unified Response mission in support of the U.S. Agency
for International Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster Relief.
At the peak of that mission, Joint Task
Force-Haiti included 22,000 service members -- 7,000 land-based and the rest
operating aboard 33 Navy and Coast Guard vessels, 262 fixed-wing aircraft and
57 helicopters. They reopened the heavily damaged international airport at
Port-au-Prince, repaired port facilities and delivered 2.6 million bottles of
water, 2.9 million food rations, 17 million pounds of bulk food and 149,000
pounds of medical supplies into Haiti.
The task force also provided one of the
largest medical outreach efforts in history, with humanitarian and engineering
support continuing long after the six-month disaster response in Haiti
concluded.
The mission proved to be a “tremendous
learning experience” for Southcom that underscored the importance of close
interagency and non-governmental cooperation, Army Maj. Gen. Gerald W. Ketchum,
Southcom’s director of theater engagement, told American Forces Press Service
at the organization’s headquarters here.
The response effort led to revisions in
the command’s disaster response plan, increases in its disaster-response
capabilities and expanded disaster-preparedness outreach across the region,
Ketchum reported.
Coincidentally, the Southcom
headquarters was getting a demonstration of a new computer-networking tool to
promote collaboration in the event of a natural disaster the very day Haiti’s
earthquake hit. The All Partners Access Network, initially introduced at U.S.
Pacific Command, provides a standardized platform for coordinating efforts
between the various interagency, non-governmental organization, international
and military responders. The scenario being used to demonstrate the APAN system
was a notional hurricane hitting Haiti and taking out its emergency response
command-and-control capabilities.
But based on real-life events, the
Southcom staff quickly took the demonstration live and hundreds of
organizations began using APAN to coordinate a faster and more efficient relief
response that saved lives. Southcom is now using the system as part of an
improved framework for military support to civilian-led disaster relief
operations, Fraser noted in his command’s 2012 posture statement.
Meanwhile, Southcom is collaborating
with regional partners to increase their ability to prepare for and respond to
natural disasters. Fraser described a three-part effort through Southcom’s
humanitarian assistance program, disaster preparedness projects and annual
humanitarian assistance exercises.
Last year, those efforts included
building disaster-response warehouses, wells, potable water systems and
emergency operations centers, he said. In fiscal year 2011, Southcom also
conducted 169 projects designed to increase disaster preparedness in Central
America, South America and the Caribbean.
In addition, the command supports the
Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, a regional effort to increase
disaster resilience and response capabilities among the 18 Caribbean nations
involved.
A new project Southcom sponsored in the
wake of the Haiti earthquake involves forward-staged kits that provide
disaster-response teams with essential services, including potable water,
hybrid renewable power, communications and situational awareness.
“Past experience has demonstrated that
one of the biggest challenges in providing an effective response is the ability
to accurately assess the situation on the ground after communications go down
and transportation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed,” Fraser noted
in his commander’s blog.
Pre-positioned Expeditionary Assistance
Kits, or PEAKS, developed in partnership with the National Defense University,
“enable decision makers to gain a better understanding of how best to deploy
relief efforts,” he said.
The kits underwent a joint capability
technology demonstration last year at Soto Cono Air Base in Honduras, less than
a year after the program’s inception, Fraser noted. Joint Task Force Bravo in
Honduras, Southcom’s main expeditionary organization, and members of Honduras’
military and civil-relief agencies, put the kits to the test under realistic
field conditions.
Meanwhile, Fraser emphasized the
importance of training to ensure the Southcom staff is prepared to support
USAID, the lead federal agency for international disaster response, if called
upon. This includes a joint operations course it hosts, with classes presented
by USAID.
“This recurring training guarantees that
when disaster strikes, U.S. Southern Command is ready to assist,” Fraser said.
And to ensure regional nations are as
prepared as possible for disasters when they occur, many Southcom-sponsored
exercises incorporate disaster-response scenarios or training activities that
enhance capabilities and cooperation, Ambassador Carmen Martinez, Southcom’s
civilian deputy to the commander, explained.
The Fuerzas Aliadas Humanitarias annual
exercise series, sponsored by Southcom and executed by U.S. Army South, helps
bring together regional militaries, civilian disaster management agencies and
first responders to train in disaster relief and recovery efforts. The 2011
exercise, held in Trinidad and Tobago and Guatemala, included 640 participants
from 27 nations to practice the national and international response to an
imaginary earthquake.
Martinez credited these efforts with
building partner-nation capability, noting that no U.S. military forces were
called on during last year’s hurricane season to provide support.
“I think that is the direct result of
the constant training and exercising and assisting of these nations, that they
were able to take care of things themselves,” she said. “And I think that’s a
real tribute to the host nations. But it is also a tribute to the programs that
U.S. Southern Command has conducted in the region.”
From Defense Media Activity-Navy 
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