621st tackled security chaos after quake - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

621st tackled security chaos after quake

Tech Sgt. Thomas Tully had trouble getting his head around what he would say when he stepped off the plane in Haiti.

Barely 48 hours had passed since an earthquake had virtually leveled Port-au-Prince, the capital of the island nation, and chaos reigned.

Planes from every country imaginable were at the airport, parked at different angles. Cars and people were everywhere.

“As far as security goes,” he said, “it was a nightmare.”

Tully was one of 26 Security Forces airmen from the 621st Contingency Response Wing at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., responsible for security at the airport during the first days after the Jan. 12 earthquake.

It was a tremendous undertaking for such a small team, but Tully and his fellow airmen quickly got to work.

The local police at the Port-au-Prince airport, which became the hub for relief supplies and workers flowing into the country, were used to handling up to 25 civilian flights a day, Tully said. After the earthquake, they were overwhelmed by as many as 150 flights a day.

“We came up with a plan,” Tully said. “We knew we’d have 13 bodies per shift and divvied it up.”

Working 12-hour shifts, the airmen manned the gate and entry-control point, and patrolled the five-mile perimeter of the airport and its airfield.

“Ultimately we understand it’s a humanitarian mission,” said Capt. Brian Loveless, a flight commander with the 621st who was on the team. “Our primary goal is to make sure the relief supplies are mission number one. Our job was to make the ramp safe; the foot traffic, the vehicle traffic on the flight line was a big problem, and the airport took a lot of damage.”

The key for the airmen, especially because they only had 13 working each shift, was to stay mobile, Loveless said.

“What we had to do was find the hole, find the weak spots in the perimeter, post people there and control pedestrian traffic,” he said. “The good thing about this airfield, there’s a lot of reaction distance for us. We’re able to observe, and there’s a lot of time and distance on our side so we can still react when needed.”

The experience was eye-opening, Loveless said.

“We saw a lot of suffering; injured people, dying people were brought to the gate,” he said. “But our airmen did a very good job of overcoming that and being professional and taking care of situations that they are not used to doing.”

Many of the Haitians who crowded at the gate and entry-control point were hungry and thirsty; others were wounded, and still others were hoping for jobs, Loveless said. Some of the job-seekers had typewritten resumes, while others had scribbled their qualifications on pieces of cardboard, Tully said.

“In your mind, you want to help these people, but if you help one you have to help them all,” Loveless said.

Early on, many Haitians were desperate to get on flights going to the U.S., Loveless said.

“Often times, we’re running in full kit after those people,” he said. “There have been some foot races, local nationals hiding in cargo boxes, jumping the fence, large crowds, civil disturbances at the gate.”

The airmen saw their fair share of celebrities, too, Loveless said.

“Oftentimes, when celebrities come, it creates a security challenge,” he said.

One celebrity, who Loveless and Tully politely declined to name, arrived at the airport — virtually unannounced —and started handing out $50 bills, which whipped the crowd into a frenzy.

“We understand … everyone wants to help, and we understand there’s an appropriate way to do that,” Loveless said.

Amid the devastation and suffering they saw, the airmen also found humor in their daily shifts.

Tully told the story of a truck driver whose vehicle was being searched at the gate.

“There was a padlock on the back on the door of the trailer,” he said. “One of the guys asked the [driver] to unlock the padlock. He got out, picked up a rock and smashed it.”

The airmen kept the rock and named it “The Key.”

On another occasion, as the airmen were preparing to put concertina wire over a hole in one of the perimeter walls, two Haitians jumped the wall, landing right in front of the airmen.

“It was almost like a Mexican standoff,” Tully said, laughing.

After about two weeks, reinforcements arrived.

“Follow-on forces have taken over for us,” Tully said. “We’ve fallen back and we’re doing security for our own [621st] assets. Now we have our cops focusing only on that, and the cops that have come in as follow-on have taken over everything else.”Ë