BILOXI, Miss., - The Mississippi National Guard completed its 102nd flight in support of Operation Deepwater Horizon Response today.
Seven aircraft valued at about $50 million have spent 270 hours in the air transporting scientists, elected officials, emergency managers, university professors and members of the media to provide accurate and timely data.
The reconnaissance flights allow crews and passengers to pinpoint the movement of the oil and areas where the booms have shifted or broken. The information is then turned over to officials overseeing the vessels of opportunity to quickly address it.
Since May 13, the RC-26, a reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft, has flown 17 missions while accumulating nearly 82 hours of full motion video support – mostly at night.
Today, the crew flew in support of the Incident Command Post in Mobile, Ala., and assessed oil patches along the Alabama and Florida coastlines.
“This is an unprecedented amount of flying, but this is an unprecedented disaster,” said Col. Lee Smithson, commander of the Interagency Coordination Cell, which is overseeing the state’s National Guard response. “And that’s why it’s important to leverage our military capabilities with a means that actually impacts decisions.
“One of these planes can do more than 2,000 Soldiers, and we want to fight the oil as far away from our shores as possible.”
About 60 National Guard soldiers, known as Task Force Vigilant Horizon, have been activated to handle everything from imagery production and analysis to interagency coordination, operations, planning and air and water quality sampling.
“We’re a small, but very effective group. Fact is, our job is to support the effort by any means necessary to civilian agencies,” Smithson said. “And we have no intention of letting up.”
Members of the Jackson-based 47th Civil Support Team with about $3.8 million of equipment have conducted tests along the beaches and sent them to local emergency operation centers and the state Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Marine Resources, which are the lead agencies spearheading the Mississippi response. No hazards have been discovered.
The team monitored the air quality at 20 different spots along the coastline in Harrison, Hancock and Jackson Counties as part of its regularly scheduled testing this week. The CST found no abnormal readings.
To date, no hazards have been discovered, said Army Lt. Col. Stephen McCraney, deputy commander of Task Force Vigilant Horizon, which is overseeing the Mississippi National Guard’s response.
“Our operational tempo remains steady, and we regularly examine our contingency plans,” said Capt. Steven Cochran, an operations officer. “We’re going to continue flying, analyzing imagery, testing the air quality, and planning for a worst-case scenario. This oil is not taking a day off so we won’t either.”