Pacific forces rush care to disaster victims - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Pacific forces rush care to disaster victims

When two devastating earthquakes struck the Samoa Islands and Indonesia on consecutive days, killing nearly 1,000 people and leveling entire villages, Pacific Air Forces had to act fast.

The command and its joint partners in the Pacific theater rapidly mobilized equipment and personnel to conduct two large-scale humanitarian missions in late September and early October.

The hundreds of airmen, soldiers, sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen involved in the relief efforts encountered crippled medical facilities, scattered debris and populations in desperate need.

The first incident to which the U.S. military responded was an 8.4-magnitude earthquake that struck the Samoa Islands region on Sept. 29, generating a large tsunami that killed nearly 200 people and destroyed whole villages. The affected region includes American Samoa, an unincorporated U.S. territory in the South Pacific.

The American Samoa government and the Federal Emergency Management Agency asked the Hawaii National Guard to provide medical, search-and-rescue, command-and-control, and mortuary personnel.

Two Hawaii Air National Guard C-17s carrying about 100 personnel and tons of relief supplies departed Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, on Sept. 30.

“We were very proud that we were able to get our folks out the door in less than 24 hours after getting the initial call,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Charles Anthony, a spokesman for the Hawaii National Guard. “It’s particularly impressive when most of these people who went down are not even full-time National Guard members; they’re drill-status personnel. The bulk of them put their civilian lives on hold.”

The Guard team deployed a mobile field hospital and treated 117 patients during its first day in Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa.

Most of the team members remained on the scene for five days, from Sept. 30 until Oct. 4, before returning to Hawaii. About a dozen Guard members remained as of Oct. 8 to help clean up hazardous materials and keep communication lines open, Anthony said.

The deployed personnel lived in the gymnasium at an Army Reserve station in Pago Pago, but their relief work took them out into a devastated landscape.

“In terms of what it was like out there in the field, there was an awful lot of muck and debris,” Anthony said. “A lot of them were wrapping their boots in plastic and putting on overboots.”

Much of the debris was contaminated with diesel fuel and other hazardous materials, Guard officials said in a press release, which slowed down clean-up efforts.

The military personnel took all the supplies they needed to be self-sustaining during the operation.

“The whole idea is that they were not going to go down there and be a drain on any of the resources that would be necessary for the people of American Samoa,” Anthony said. “They took all the food and water that they would need [and] their own generators … to make sure they could be self-contained.”

All told, C-17s from the Hawaii Air National Guard and the 15th Airlift Wing — an active-duty wing at Hickam — flew 11 missions during the five-day operation. They brought in 198 personnel and nearly 400 tons of cargo.

The Indonesia response The second incident requiring U.S. military assistance was a 7.6-magnitude earthquake that struck near Padang, Indonesia, on Sept. 30. The quake killed at least 700 people and destroyed several thousand homes, according to numerous news sources. The death toll was expected to rise.

A team of 71 PacAF airmen from Yokota Air Base, Japan; Andersen Air Force Base, Guam; and Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, flew Oct. 5 to Padang aboard two C-17s.

The airmen were part of a Humanitarian Assistance Rapid Response Team, which is designed to deploy quickly and provide primary medical care in the wake of natural disasters.

The team included members of the 36th Wing at Andersen; 13th Air Force at Hickam; 3rd Wing at Elmendorf; and 374th Medical Group at Yokota.

Most of the airmen were medical and contingency response personnel.

The team brought mobile hospital facilities capable of treating 300 patients per day.

“HARRT augments a host nation’s medical response during times of disaster,” said Lt. Col. David Olson, the HARRT medical commander from Elmendorf. “Four hospitals in Padang are damaged — two of them severely — so we will be providing disaster relief, predominantly ambulatory care.”

The HARRT included a surgical team from Elmendorf’s 3rd Medical Group consisting of specialists in general surgery, orthopedic surgery, anesthesiology and emergency medicine.

In addition to the HARRT, U.S. military assets involved in relief efforts included a humanitarian assistance survey team, composed of personnel from various units within U.S. Pacific Command, and the USS Denver carrying Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.