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Home : News : Transcripts : Transcript View
TRANSCRIPT | Oct. 3, 2024

National Guard Bureau Media Roundtable Discussing Hurricane Helene Response Efforts

 

Participants:
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Win Burkett, director of operations, National Guard Bureau J3/4
North Carolina National Guard, Army Col. Paul Hollenack, 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team commander. 
South Carolina National Guard, Army Col. Brian Pipkin, 59th Aviation Troop Command commander
South Carolina National Guard, Army Col. Jason Turner, director of military support
South Carolina National Guard, Army Col. William A. Matheny, Jr., 117th Engineer Brigade commander
Tennessee National Guard, Army Lt. Col. Meredith Richardson, Task Force 176 commander
Tennessee National Guard, Army Maj. Hulon Holmes, MEDEVAC Detachment commander. 
Host: Julie Weckerlein, chief of media operations, National Guard Bureau

HOST Thank you and good morning. Welcome. And thank you for coming. My name is Julie Weckerlein. I am chief of media operations for the National Guard Bureau, and I am moderating this on-the-record media roundtable. Joining us today to speak specifically about National Guard efforts – I do want to say that any questions about active duty will need to go to OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) Public Affairs – but that said, as of today, more than 6,700 Army and Air National Guard members from 16 states putting those in the disaster zone and those assisting from outside the zone are actively engaged in response and recovery efforts. The response includes more than 40 rotary-wing aircraft and nearly 600 military vehicles. Guard members are engaged in high-water rescues, patrols, debris clearance, transportation of personnel and relief supplies, distributing aid to people impacted by the storm, search and rescue, route clearance missions and other tasks. Today we have here, Major General Win Burkett, director of operations at National Guard Bureau, J3/4. We also have on the line from North Carolina National Guard, Colonel Paul Hollenack 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team commander. From South Carolina National Guard we have Colonel Brian Pipkin, 59th Aviation Troop Command commander; Colonel Jason Turner, director of military support; Colonel William Matheny, commander of the 117th Engineer Brigade. From Tennessee National Guard we have Lieutenant Colonel Meredith Richardson, Task Force 176 commander; Major Hulon, Holmes MEDEVAC Detachment commander. We will provide a complete list of names, spellings and job titles in our follow up after this event. With that said, Major General Burkett will now start things off with his opening remarks. Sir, over to you.

MG BURKETT Julie, I thank you for the introduction and good morning and thank you to all of you. I really appreciate the opportunity to join with some of our states this morning to help tell the Guard story in response to Hurricane Helene. From the National Guard Bureau here in D.C., like the states we watched as the storm approached in it was a week ago today, at 11 p.m. when it first made landfall in Florida. And in the path, maybe not, the full potential of the destruction was known. And what I want to lead off with is that the National Guard Joint Force headquarters in each of these states is embedded in each of their state emergency management offices. They've got LNOs (liaison officers) that are out with those regional and local emergency managers. And so they're looking at it together and they're looking at where they can predict where maybe the worst effects may be as the storm migrates through their state. And as a result of that, are very effective in pre-positioning vehicles, personnel response capabilities, aviation assets to areas where they are safe, but close to where we think that need may occur first. And that's one of the reasons that the National Guard can get there as quickly as they do. But it's also because they're part of all of these communities. And I think what enables that quick success is the relationship and the trust that the National Guard has at the local level all the way up to the state level for those quick responses. There are so many great examples of really heroic actions and right-on-time and just-in-time support across all of the communities for Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, up into North Carolina and Tennessee. But a couple that I want to share with you because they're gaining more traction, but it's just really remarkable. In Unicoi county in Tennessee, it's the rain still coming down, and a phone call comes from the hospital to the flight facility. Captain Rodriguez in that flight facility takes the call and it's a hospital, a three-story hospital. The first floor is completely flooded. The water is continuing to rise. Everybody's moved to the third floor and they need help. It's still raining. Visibility is still poor. But a combination of Tennessee aircraft and boat crews showed up at that hospital and literally saved 80-plus people in that hospital. And I know that there's examples of that throughout all of the states that I just mentioned. And I'll leave you with one other. It was last Sunday, North Carolina was trying to figure out how they get commodities from Charlotte to Asheville. And in those early days, those early hours, those ground crews, those air crews are out helping to do, you know, life saving. But as important, doing route clearance and verifying which routes, routes are open and which are closed. And so by Sunday, there's a good indication that Asheville and those local communities are isolated and they're going to need support. In North Carolina, used one of their organic C-17s and moved 1,000 pounds from those distribution facilities in Charlotte to Asheville. Immediately sent in with this CH-47s while they’re requesting – I’m sorry, medium lift helicopters – while they’re requesting additional assets from neighboring states to start ring routes to start pushing those commodities out to those hard hit areas an isolated areas. And it's just it's a wonderful thing to witness. It's a wonderful thing to be a part of. And I'm just really, really proud of our guardsmen across all of these states to include the states that are supporting as far away as Iowa. So, Julie, I hope I didn't take up too much time. Back to you, ma'am.

HOST No. Very good, sir. Thank you. At this time I have the list of the media joining us, and I will call on reporters by name to ask your questions. You will be able to ask one question with a quick follow up if needed. If your question is state specific, please indicate that up front so the right person offers you a response. So to kick off, Lita Baldor from AP. Do you have a question?

LITA BALDOR Good morning. Just a quick question. At this point, are you requesting additional help from other states? Do you have everything you need? And is the Guard requesting any additional help from the Pentagon, from active duty? Thank you.

MG BURKETT Yes, ma'am. So the assessment of needs and that's going to be ongoing until all of the soldiers and airmen are demobilized and sent home. So it's it'll be a running assessment, running damage assessment. At some point, they'll reach a point where the people that are on duty are going to have to be rotated out because they're working around the clock very vigorously. And where those states may start to lose some of that capacity, my team and our team up here in support of the states will start looking at what we can do to augment them. You know, in the days or possibly weeks to come. So to say that we have everything we need, I don't want to say that out loud. I feel very good with the communication that we have across the states, in fact, across the entire 54. I'm very, very pleased with the communication that we have here in the Pentagon and with NORAD/NORTHCOM (U.S. Northern Command) and the capabilities that they're bringing forward. If it's determined that they're needed, they can be they can be placed into action very, very quickly. Ma’am I think a covered I think I covered most of your question, but I don't I would let the states respond to what they need, maybe specifically from Title 10. But at this point, the states have been very, very good at talking across states to get the Emergency Management Action Compacts (EMAC) in place and use resources from other states.

HOST Okay.

MG BURKETT Julie, back to you, ma'am.

HOST Yes. Okay. So next, we have Dan Lamothe from Washington Post.

DAN LAMONTH Thanks for your time this morning. I know it's busy. General Burkett, you mentioned at the top that sort of the extent of the destruction was not known coming into this storm. Obviously, nature gets a vote here. But I wonder if this sort of event prompts any kind of discussion about whether it's time – as we see more and more of these storms and the unpredictability increases – of increasing communication or pre-positioning more people or assets in advance, or if that's simply not possible.

MG BURKETT Dan I think my experience is that after the storm, you know, part of that after action review is going to be what, or a response rather, you know, what can we do differently in the future, What went really well and what do we need to examine and reflect on that didn't do so well. You know, this is said, it's a 1 in 1000 year storm, so it's very difficult to think that you're completely prepared. But, you know, all eyes right now are on North Carolina and Tennessee. And that's not to negate any of the great efforts in the other states. But this is going to be a long recovery process. And even though all eyes are on those states and that appears to be the center of gravity, the center of gravity is where the survivors home is. It's where their neighbors are. It's what they can do within their communities to build those and make them more resilient. But I think, you know, we'll go back and look at where we repositioned stuff in what we used and how we communicated. And I think that's just an evolving effort that is done in the background. Thank you, sir.

DAN LAMONTH Thank you.

HOST Next, Hailey Britzky from CNN.

HALEY BRITZKY Hi, none for me right now. Thank you.

HOST Thank you. Heather Lacey from Fox News? Okay. Luis Martinez from ABC News.

LUIS MARTINEZ Hi. Good morning. Thank you all for doing this. Quick question. I heard your answer to Lita at the top about the active duty. But why do you think the active duty was called in for this? And then I have a follow on question. Thank you.

MG BURKETT Yeah, sure. I appreciate the question. I don't, I'm not the one to speak to why they were. But I will tell you that they are an outstanding partner. They know – because these are their communities, too – they know that they've got capability. They want to lean forward. It just like everybody that I communicate with all day long, they don't want to be late. And in an effort to not be late, you're going to want to push commodities and capabilities as far forward as possible. And then you just anticipate, you know, what will be that need that you're called forward to provide. So I very much appreciate the relationship that we have with the active duty as it comes to domestic response in Homeland.

LUIS MARTINEZ Great, and a follow on question regarding capabilities. I mean, you said this is a once in a thousand year storm. But the storm, you know, I think typically we associate the National Guard with follow on with high water vehicles, things like that. And in this case, correct me if I'm wrong, but is that the scenario that we have here with those mudslides was it different? Was this scenario beyond kind of the capabilities that you normally train for?

MG BURKETT So the amount of destruction in specifically, I think, I think right now we're talking about North Carolina, had to be worse – not than what people were imagining – but you know, when the storm passes and you're able to get out and do the assessments and you realize that the lines of communication are fractured. And it's not just roads, it's communication. It's… you can't make phone calls to determine how people are, what the conditions are. You literally have to get out there and see it, whether it's through aviation assets or people on the ground. And, you know, there's nothing in the National Guard that's immune to high water crossings. I mean, we've got high water vehicles, but there's limitations and limitations on what you can do safely. And speed, you know, you can you can rush into a really dangerous environment. But I wouldn't say that it was worse than what people thought was possible. But I think you really don't get a feel for it until you get out. And that's what makes every storm and every response unique.

LUIS MARTINEZ Thank you.

HOST Yes. Thank you very much. Mr. Gains from NBC.

MOSHEH GAINS Hi there, Mosheh Gains with NBC. Just a quick one. I was just wondering if there was any if you all had any estimate of how many people may be unaccounted for at this time and how long it might take to reach folks, especially in remote areas?

MG BURKETT Yeah. Mosheh I'm going to defer to any one of the state partners on the phone because they're going to have a much better estimate of what's happening within their state and the priorities of effort within each of their, you know, local counties or local state emergency managers. So, North Carolina – would you like to illuminate on that one, please?

COL HOLLENACK Yes, sir. We don't we don't have a specific number for that right now – unaccounted. I'd say emergency management is getting after that with the local the officials in that area and as they're able to access more. So I don't think that information is available yet. We are still doing significant flight operations in support of search and rescue at this point. So as we, especially given the size of the event and the terrain, as we still continue to try to access everywhere, we need emergency management the access to make those assessments and to provide relief.

HOST Thank you. And who was that from North Carolina? Just for those folks on the phone who just spoke up?

COL HOLLENACK Yeah. This is Colonel Paul Hollenack

HOST Thank you so much. South Carolina, was there something that you wanted to add to that?

MG BURKETT Ma’am I will tell you, and Mosheh I think it's a great question, but the Guard’s focus is going to be, you know, initially on the lifesaving efforts, the damage assessments, and then it's going to transition to a commodity distribution, how they can start getting in and helping to clear routes and restore connectivity. And they're going to respond to those types of missions. And I think probably the State Emergency Management Office would be a better source for the information of those people that are unaccounted for.

COL TURNER Hey Sir this is Colonel Turner, South Carolina. So from South Carolina, and as you've already heard from General Burkett the impact to the states it's a little different. So to answer the question “unaccounted for” we assist with that, but I don't have a definitive answer either. I know early, early on, the search is a most critical component of what we do along with our civilian partners. So at the at the most safest point following the storm, that's what we do. We search for people with the intent of saving lives as fast as we can, for as widespread as we can. That number may fluctuate by state. I'm not tracking an exact number nor name or if that risk still exists in South Carolina.

HOST Thank you. And Tennessee, was there anything to add in response to this question?

LTC RICHARDSON Yes, ma'am. This is [Lieutenant] Colonel Meredith Richardson from Tennessee National Guard. So I would just say we are closely working with our county EMAs. And so our aviation crews are working diligently with them in order to reach all of the communities that may be cut off from ground transportation. Simultaneously, we are working to open up that infrastructure, whether that's through debris removal on the engineer teams and also doing, going out, doing convoy and route assessments and trying to find alternate ways to reach those ground communities. So that way we are actively reaching every member of our state.

HOST Thank you very much, everybody. Moving on to Ellee Watson from CBS.

ELLEE WATSON Thanks for doing this. Two quick ones. The overall how long do you expect the response mission to continue? You're saying days, maybe weeks. Do you have an expected timeline? And then specific to North Carolina. Can you give us a breakdown of what support the Guard in North Carolina is giving? Thank you.

MG BURKETT Yeah. So, Ellee, I'll start that and then I will transition to North Carolina. The response is going to be a determination by the governors in each of these states when they can shift life-saving, life-sustaining to recovery, and that longer term recovery. It's generally at that point that the National Guard has a smaller and smaller and smaller role to play. But the prediction by state or by area in each of these states is going to be dramatically different based on the conditions on the ground and where the governor thinks they can make that transition. But to North Carolina, please to elaborate.

COL HOLLENACK Yes, sir. I agree with you on that answer for us. We're here till the mission is done. However long that takes, we're a week into it. I don't think we've made any significant assessment of how long for now. But we're a lot of it is tied into emergency management. They track their lifelines as far as how they, when services are restored and we can get back to some semblance of normalcy in western North Carolina. To the question of what support we're providing. We have over 1,100 National Guard soldiers and airmen on [state] active duty right now, almost 400 vehicles to include 26 aircraft. We get support from ten different states. So a lot of appreciation to our other state partners who have provided equipment to people to help us. We work in force packages, over 200 force packages have been activated working out of 28 strategic locations across western North Carolina. Yesterday, we passed the million pounds of commodities delivered threshold with 600,000 pounds of that going by air. So food, water and supplies in the western North Carolina. We've rescued roughly 500, over 500, people and 150 pets through the search and rescue operations. Working through clearing road obstacles is another major effort. So trying to get access and then continue to get those ground supply routes established into western North Carolina. And that's it at the high level.

ELLEE WATSON Thank you.

HOST Okay. Thank you. Next, we have Brad Dress from The Hill.

BRAD DRESS I do not have a question at this time thank you.

HOST Thank you. Steve Beynon from Military.com? Okay. Kimberly Underwood from Signal Magazine.

KIMBERLY UNDERWOOD Yeah, thanks for your time this morning. I wanted to ask if you could highlight some of the work you are all doing to support and establish communications and network capabilities across the various states and impacted regions, whether it's emergency communication networks or systems for residents. Thank you.

MG BURKETT Kimberly, thank you for the question. I'm not tracking anything specifically that we are doing for restoring communications. I’ll please defer to the states, any of you that may have more visibility on how we're supporting that.

LTC RICHARDSON Ma'am, good morning, Lieutenant Colonel Richardson, Tennessee National Guard. So our support in Tennessee is a indirect support. So, for instance, debris removal teams that are opening up those trans [transportation] networks that allow the crews that need to work on, say, cell phone towers or that critical communications infrastructure so that way they have access to it. So we're primarily through that debris removal, we are we are allowing them access in order to restore communications.

COL HOLLENACK This is Colonel Hollenack from North Carolina. So very similar as to what Lieutenant Colonel Richardson said, supporting our civilian partners reestablishing that. We also try to bring Star Link capability to our emergency management coordinators when needed to help facilitate that communication and in some cases to the public when available.

HOST Okay. Thank you. I see Todd Lopez from DOD News.

TODD LOPEZ Hey thanks. Colonel Hollenack offered a great breakdown of what was going on in his state in terms of the number of people, force packages, vehicles and missions. Can the rest of you provide a similar kind of breakdown of what's going on in your state? People, equipment and missions? Thanks.

COL TURNER This is Colonel Turner of South Carolina. I will tell you that we have surpassed the 1,000 number of personnel in South Carolina for military personnel for National Guard. The great thing about South Carolina is that's Army National Guard, that's Air National Guard, that’s State National Guard. So we bring to bear all the components and personnel that we have in South Carolina. That was South Carolina – we mentioned it, General Burkett mentioned the EMAC – South Carolina supporting South Carolina and North Carolina with aviation support. And from a South Carolina perspective, the rescued number, the last number I was given was at 32. So that's a great EMAC perspective of how the states effectively support each other. And there's really no boundary when that EMAC comes in play. We have, we're in communication with eight states for EMAC currently. Right now we have Florida, Mississippi, New York and Michigan in support of the South Carolina National Guard. So they are flowing into the state. We will put them to work once they get here. The main effort for South Carolina right now has been debris clearing, based on the impact of the number of trees. The power companies – we work in concert with the power companies to ensure that power companies can have access to the locations they need. But clearing the roadway was the first and foremost the priority for the state. And then establishing communications. You mentioned that in one scenario, from an aviation perspective, and Colonel Hollenack mentioned that we were able to use aviation assets to transport the communication personnel to get to the towers so they could do the work they needed to do because the roads were not open. So, another great example of how South Carolina National Guard can help in that capacity. Unless you got any specific questions, there's a large composition of equipment, personnel. But we've got aviation, we've got engineer, we got logistics, we have drones, we have multiple engineer type of equipment that is on the road. So we bring to bear the equipment we have to assist the citizens. Thank you.

COL MATHENY So this is Colonel Matheny, I'm the engineer brigade commander for the 117th Engineer Brigade in South Carolina. I can talk and elaborate a little further on what Colonel Turner just gave you an overview on. We have engineers in all 16 of our affected counties, and their initial set, much like every other state, is to cut open a single lane of every road we can to allow those emergency workers to get into the affected areas and respond to 911 calls, as well as get those linemen in and communication experts in to start with the recovery of power and communications. And you've seen the pictures that are coming out of all of the affected states. But our engineers literally had to cut themselves out of their own armories just to get roads open so that they can make contact with those emergency operations centers and get a picture of what was going on initially. We finished that up late Sunday and began expanding that effort to clear right of ways so that we could have whole roads open in order to get additional aid to the citizens of our state.

TODD LOPEZ Thanks, guys.

LTC RICHARDSON Yes sir, so Lieutenant Colonel Richardson from Tennessee and Major Hulon Holmes will come on and he will touch on our aviation support, but from a ground standpoint. From Friday, while aviation was simultaneously in the air responding to the hospital, we also had personnel on the ground in high-water vehicles working with our emergency management crews, assisting with areas that we could get out to with search and rescue and welfare checks in our high-water vehicles. Since then, we have grown to on the ground side just shy of 300 personnel. We are operating in six different counties. We have a heavy engineer support just like the other states doing debris removal in order to open up that critical infrastructure. Additionally, we are working very heavily in supply distribution and commodities. We have 12 different points of distribution sites that we are manning and we are also providing bulk water distribution at shelters and medical facilities as water has very quickly become a dire need across the communities. Major Holmes, I'll turn it over to you to allow you to answer on the aviation.

MAJ HOLMES Yes, ma'am. Major Hulon Holmes, Tennessee Army National Guard, Aviation Lead. So currently we have nine aircraft that are dedicated and working operations through multiple different counties. And we have over 100 aviation personnel, both and crew members and support personnel that are helping to organize and go through mission taskings at this time. So we have two MEDEVAC aircraft that are currently on immediate medical response that anything that pops up, they'll immediately be available for and then a bunch of lift assets that are doing water movement, supply movement, any kind of equipment that is needed by these counties is currently being fulfilled by those.

HOST Thank you very much, everybody. Next, we will have John Kelly from C-SPAN.

STEVE BEYNON Hey, Steve Beynon. I think I was mute on your end. Could I have my turn if you don’t mind?

HOST Sure. Go ahead, Steve.

STEVE BEYNON Yeah, no problem. Hey general, storms like this are only going to become more frequent, severe as the impacts of climate change develop in the next couple of decades. Does the Guard have any sort of, what’s kind of the years-long outlook for how the Guard positions itself and any sort of training or preparations for that? Because you've got to juggle storm response like this here. And then at any given time, you guys have 20 to 30,000, at least Army Guardsmen deployed abroad. You've got guys all over Europe and Africa, stuff like that. So could you talk a little bit about what the future for these responses and preparations might look like?

MG BURKETT Steve. You know, I'm not capable of predicting what future storms are going to be like. I think it's very obvious that the intensity of weather patterns and the effects are certainly making a difference. And you can see it, whether it's fires or floods or storms. It certainly appears to be intensifying. Our role within the homeland in our role as guardsmen has not changed. We will continue to respond to our governors. And I am sure that I speak for all of them, that we take a great deal of pride in our ability to do that. But first and foremost, we exist in uniform to train and to prepare to fight and win in our nation's next conflicts. And every one of us takes that responsibility extremely seriously. We can respond in the homeland. And I think what's been missing in this discussion up to this point is that the Guard, you know, while I'm incredibly proud of our response and I am. The local community, emergency managers and firefighters and EMTs and law enforcement and all the first responders. They were there before the storm hit, and they were certainly there as it was hitting. And they're an incredibly big part of this recovery. And I think storms like we've seen in the last couple of years by they do continue to intensify, you know, our community's ability to build resiliency and to respond and to help each other will make us much, much stronger. The Guard will always have a role in that. But our role and in winning the next war is our number one priority.

Steve Beynon Thank you.

HOST Thank you. Liz Friden from Fox News? Okay. We have Patty Nyberg or Matt White from Task and Purpose? Okay. Brandi Vinson from Defense Scoop? Matthew Adams from Stars and Stripes.

MATTHEW ADAMS Hi. Thanks for doing this. This is probably more for the state people. What are some of the biggest challenges you are seeing? I know Tennessee mentioned needing aid and water and stuff, but what are what are some of the other states seeing at this moment? Thanks.

COL MATHENY So from South Carolina's perspective, this is Colonel William Matheny again, with the 117th Engineer Brigade, one of the hardest parts of this storm in particular is the widespread nature of the storm [inaudible] directly impacts us just as much as the civilian population and being able to bring them on as quickly as we can to assist with the recovery has been difficult. And then working those EMACS to bring in additional assets from outside the state so that we can hopefully free up our troops to get back in and do what they need to with their families in their homes.

COL HOLLENACK This is Colonel Paul Hollenack in North Carolina, I think, especially through this first week. It's getting visibility of the true needs and the location of those needs. Again, for the terrain in North Carolina, it's extremely challenging, you know, western North Carolina, where this damage is. So accessing that by air, by ground, establishing communications and then building a coherent picture so that the full force of the response can go to the right places. It continues to be a challenge. And I want to tie into something Major General Burkett said as well. While we have over 1,000 guardsmen who are providing support to our state emergency managers, we are dwarfed by the size of the civilian response who are on the ground doing that work and trying to put this together with our interagency partners, with FEMA in order to really target that response where it's needed, when it's needed.

HOST Thank you very much. Next, we will have Kristina Wong from Breitbart News. Okay, let's try Luzia Geier from German Press Agency. Okay, we'll try Ivonne Malaver from EFE News Service. Okay, Anastasia Obis from Federal News Network.

ANASTASIA OBIS None from me. Thank you.

HOST Thank you. Leo Shane from Military Times.

LEO SHANE Yes. Hi. Thanks for doing this. I know you spoke that you don't know how long this mission will last and how long the response efforts are going to be there. But do you anticipate at this point the number of troops deployed and the number of troops responding here to go up? I know that the actual demands are changing as you're going away from some of the search and rescue and into the clearing. I'm just wondering if what you're telling folks in terms of what to expect as you rotate folks in now. And if you think that number is going to go up or are we kind of at the peak at this point?

MG BURKETT Leo I think I'm kind of looking at answering your question holistically. I would anticipate the number to go up until it doesn't. And what I mean by that is if the states determine that they need more capability or they need to start replacing some of the formations that they have, then we're going to provide that and we're going to continuously look for solutions that would enable that as quickly as possible. You know, I don't want to jinx anything, but there's another system that that's making its way into the Gulf and it's not completely formed. And even if it doesn't form, if it turns into a rain event, it could exacerbate the recovery operations. And it could have some, you know, negative impacts to that. So we will continue, as guardsmen do, until the governors tell us that that, you know, all of our civilian partners have matters well in hand. Now, I'll stop there and please any of the states illuminate if you can.

LTC RICHARDSON Yes sir, this is Meredith Richardson, Tennessee Army National Guard. So we have liaison officers embedded with every county's emergency operation center that we are operating in. So we are working very closely with the county EMAs and in discussion with them, as I mentioned, they are still continuing to assess and determine what those needs are. So any time that they come up with a requirement, we are working with them in order to help anticipate needs and we're able to respond to whatever the requirement is.

COL HOLLENACK And this is Colonel Paul Hollenack in North Carolina. I'm not sure we're at peak yet and we're still developing requirements. I think in another week or so, we'll be looking at how do we rotate people out both for their own self care, as well as being very conscious of the civilian employers that we're impacting by having our National Guardsmen on active duty for an additional week or two on top of their commitment. So we'll be looking at that, too. We'll be looking at that soon as well.

HOST Okay. Thank you for that. We’ll try Patti at Task & Purpose once again.

COL TURNER Hey, one alibi from South Carolina. This is Colonel Turner.

HOST Okay. Patty, pause that for a second. Sir, go ahead.

COL TURNER Yeah, I had the camera, not the microphone. So to answer the question, to increase personnel and forces. South Carolina is continuing to increase forces. And the challenge, not only the personnel, but it's the type of equipment. And so as the response continues, sometimes that response requirement changes and you hope to think that you have the right equipment in the right location at the right time and 100% of the time we do. But with these type storms, you have to continue to bring in different capabilities to be able to support the citizens, to meet the intent and do it as quickly as possible. So from South Carolina, we kind of manage a 15-day planning period. So we try to take a 15-day planning period and then we look 30 days beyond that. But we are currently in the process of continuing to talk to our brother and sister states.

HOST Thank you for that. Patty, Task & Purpose over to you.

PATTY NIEBERG Hey. So kind of going off of that, I'm kind of curious for the helicopters from the unit, is it mostly focused on search and rescue or is it mostly bringing in supplies? And on the search and rescue, if there are any stories that you'd like to highlight, that would be great to hear.

MG BURKETT Patty, just to kind of set this up and then I'm going to immediately turn it to the States is each of the state responses would be different based on where they are in this response effort. And it will continuously evolve. I am incredibly proud as I always have been, how quickly these crews get out – and I think I mentioned it at the opening, it's still raining. The winds are still high. The visibility is poor. But the experience and the focus on safety and the crew safety doesn't inhibit them from responding and responding quickly. But over to the states please.

MAJ HOLMES Yes. Major Hulon Holmes with Tennessee aviation. So the demands continue to change, Of course, very initially, our first couple of days, search and rescue was almost primarily the only the only thing our aviation assets did. So from the first thing we did was the hospital evacuation response. The moment we cleared the hospital, the crews immediately spread out into the entire county and just started working on identifying those stranded personnel, picking people up that were floating on debris and out of trees. And we continue to work very closely with the civilian agencies that were on the ground. The civilian EMA response in those counties was very impressive. And Tennessee prides itself in working very closely with those first responder agencies and the depth of our communication network. So the taskings were coming immediately, day one, those needs for those counties. And we continue to provide services for their demands. At this current point, most of it is primarily resupply operations, but we always have those medical crews and hoist capabilities on standby the moment any kind of medical need is identified.

COL HOLLENACK This is Colonel Paul Hollenack in North Carolina. We try to maximize use of airframes. Meaning, specifically for resupply we try to use the medium heavy lift helicopters to get the biggest bang for the buck, get as much lifted as we can and using smaller airframes to do the what rescue is left and what reconnaissance needs to be done by our civilian counterparts.

HOST Okay thank you everybody. Next. I have Gina Cavallaro from Army Magazine.

GINA CAVALLARO Good morning. Can you hear me?

MG BURKETT Yes, ma'am.

HOST Yes ma'am, Thank you.

GINA CAVALLARO Okay. Thank you. I just have a quick question. Back to your comment General Burkett, about the rotations. It is a wide area that's affected across the states that are covered here. How does the rotations work and how many of the Army National Guard soldiers who come from some of these areas have been affected.

MG BURKETT Yes, ma'am. So our soldiers and airmen are in all of these communities. And I, again, would defer to the states because I know specifically in some of the states there, there were larger numbers than others. But in every event that we respond to, in addition to responding to the needs at the local levels, we're also checking on the status of our military families, and that's everybody. That's the civilians that support our team as well as the airmen and the soldiers. So I appreciate you asking that question, but I'll go to the States because I know that from Florida to Tennessee, there were there were different numbers in each state.

LTC RICHARDSON Yes ma’am, this is Lieutenant Colonel Meredith Richardson, Tennessee Army National Guard. So, yes, to your point, simultaneously as we were spinning up emergency response missions, we were also working to activate accountability for all of our air and army soldiers and airmen and families and our DA [Department of the Army] civilians that are working and employees that are working for us. So we were capturing that information. And as those needs became available, we were working diligently with our military family programs and any number of resources out there in order to get them aid. I know here on the ground, on our ground task force, we have a number of people working that are from these communities. And for us, it is it's an honor and a privilege to be working to serve our fellow Tennesseans.

COL HOLLENACK This is Colonel Hollenack from North Carolina. We tend to activate your state active duty based on force packages that are pre-planned and assigned rather than by unit, and provides us some common operating language with our civilian partners. And given how large the state is, where we're typically able to activate from a part of the state that's not impacted, right? So typically for hurricanes or the coast, we activate the mountainous area and vice versa for winter storms. For this one, a little different where we're activating from more of eastern North Carolina to support western North Carolina. We have had soldiers impacted. I can speak – there’s at least two in the state that I know of who’ve lost everything. We're providing services and taking care of them. One of those soldiers is in my brigade. One was a student at Appalachian State in Boone. And from what was reported, lost everything. Drove to Durham to his unit, volunteered for state active duty, and has been on state active duty supporting his community for the last two days. So our Guardsmen are very proud. Just like Colonel Richardson said, to serve their communities.

MG BURKETT Julie, if there's no one else that's going to respond, I will respond with, you know, this is a horrific storm. And I've been in the National Guard for many years. I wasn't here for the last thousand years storm, but it's bad and it's wide reaching. And I can tell you that many of our guardsmen were impacted by this storm, whether they lost their house, they lost their property – I'm sorry, they lost power – some of them responded anyway. Because that's what they do. And it's incredibly, it's an honor to be on a team that's made up of great Americans like that. But many of them were impacted. Loss of home, loss of power, loss of water, loss of the ability to get in and out of their communities and would need help to get to their armories. I think the Tennessee engineer pointed out that they had to cut through, cut their way out of the armories. But that's what they do. And that's the expectation that they have of each other.

COL MATHENY This is Colonel Matheny, again with South Carolina National Guard. [Inaudible] these communities are your hometowns, even if you're currently living and working elsewhere. They come back to those units that are integrated into the communities and are coming back to help their friends and family that are still in their hometowns, even if it does mean that they're leaving their families, maybe an unknown situation's many without power, some with damage to their homes.

HOST Thank you, everybody, for that. I do see that we have two quick follow up questions. First, Haley, over to you for your follow up.

HALEY BRITZKY Yeah. Thank you. Actually, Gina asked my question. I was also going to ask about guardsmen who'd been impacted. But I guess if you can just kind of elaborate maybe for the states on what support is available to them, you know, our servicemembers able to say, you know, I have a lot going on at home – or are you even hearing that? Are we seeing what we saw in North Carolina that you mentioned of, you know, despite the loss of their own personal, you know, homes or whatever, that they're still reporting for duty? Because if you just kind of narrow in on that piece a little bit more, that would be great.

MG BURKETT Haley, I'm going to have to admit, there are a lot of programs. There's programs that because they're citizens, they can reach out to FEMA national programs. There's local programs in each of the states have options for them. But they are varied. And so I don't have a short list – I should of those of those programs – but I do really appreciate the question and not to put any of the states on the spot, but if you're familiar with those programs within your state, either at the state or the national level, please, please chime in.

COL TURNER This is Colonel Turner of South Carolina. So we have we have many local and civic organizations in the state. We also get support from local churches as well. And it's a community that comes together. We also have a large support contingency from the USO. Our state has what they call a servicemember family care and that unit is active 365 days, seven days a year. And some of the services they provide are employment, behavioral health, counseling, things of that nature. And we use our chaplain corps quite extensively as well. We have placed chaplains at our points of distribution to communicate with the soldiers and offer that faith assistance to the citizens as they come to those points of distribution. So our chaplains are out there. So as [Major General] Burkett said, there are a wide variety of resources and organizations that come to bear in these states. And a lot of times you don't know where they come from. And it's kind of the group effort. Team fight one team, one fight that we keep with our EMD, state, federal partners. But those are just a few from South Carolina that we've used. Thank you.

LTC RICHARDSON This is Lieutenant Colonel Meredith Richardson, Tennessee National Guard. As Colonel Turner mentioned, we have Tennessee as well. We have a department dedicated to military family programs. And so they are really they are the tip of the spear for providing that support to those families and they can pull from any number of the other military aid or those civilian agencies that Colonel Turner alluded to. And they will make sure that they answer the needs of the soldiers, airmen that we have.

HOST Thank you, everybody. Dan, would you like to ask your follow up question?

DAN LAMONTH Sure. Thanks. I think in part it may have been answered at this point. But I guess as we're looking at overall numbers here, can you speak to any challenges you had just in terms of getting manpower up as people are juggling either emergency responder jobs or, you know, devastation in their own lives? Thanks.

MG BURKETT Dan, I think rather generically, I think the challenge initially is while you're out doing the search in rescue operations, doing that wide area assessment of the impact of the storm and where those heavy hit areas are, where those areas that are isolated so that you can start developing a short list of the capabilities that you need to respond. And that that takes a while. And I you know, and it's different. You know, this storm hit at 11 p.m. initially in Florida and then obviously swept through the states at different times. But, you know, some of that has an impact as well. But if you can't get out where there's still enough light to do those assessments, then it slows the process down. But as soon as you've got the capability to get out and really do a good assessment of your area and how far reaching it is, then you can identify that capability that you need and whether it's organic to your state or you have enough of it in what you need to reach out for assistance – that process across the National Guard happens very, very quickly.

COL MATHENY This is Colonel Massey from South Carolina. To elaborate on a few points that other speakers have made that was definitely part of the issue to begin with, was getting a clearer picture of the scope of the problem and getting the requests from the counties for what they were seeing and what they would need. I would say that we had an initial set that was well-positioned to start opening those roads and getting those assessments done. But understanding the scope of the problem was really what impacted our ability to get people on and address what those resource requests were going to be. Anticipating those is one of the things we do really well, but understanding what the counties were able to do themselves versus what they were going to need assistance with took a little bit of time.

[CROSSTALK]

LTC RICHARDSON Yes this is Lieutenant Colonel Meredith Richardson, Tennessee National Guard.  So to go along with what Colonel Matheny from South Carolina said. So we this is happening in the far eastern region of Tennessee and we have service members responding from as far west as Memphis, so that the distance right there did become a factor. And that is where for us it was critical liaisoning with these county emergency managements. And so as we were anticipating either through known logistical shortfalls or as they started doing their assessments and they started saying, hey, we think we may need this resource coming forward, we were simultaneously planning and conducting preparations in order to activate that requirement, especially if it was coming from West Tennessee. So that way we could get it here as fast as possible and into the fight.

COL HOLLENACK This is Colonel Hollenack from North Carolina. I talked a little bit about our first package structure before, I think gives us a bit of an advantage. People know they're on a state active duty force package. The equipment's identified. It's tracked monthly. So it's not a surprise when you get a phone call for that state active duty. I believe you also asked a question about how we handle first responders. Typically, we don't add them to a state active duty package or a standard one because we know that they're going to end up having to respond on their own through their own agency. So we don't want to pull them away from our state partners to fill our needs. And then we have a heavy use of liaison teams and the county emergency management offices. And that's one of the first things we get out there to help drive that information flow, to drive requirements, to bring in follow on – whatever follow on forces and equipment, people, whatever the requirements are for that area to get them back on their feet.

HOST Okay, thank you for that. I have just a few more on my list and then we'll be wrapping this up. Cybele Mayes-Osterman from USA Today are you on the line? Okay. And then, I see that we have Will Dunlop with AFP, are you on the line? Do you have a question? And then, Joe Folsome from Fox News, do you have a question? Okay. In that case, I'm going to wrap this up. Thank you, everybody, for joining us today. Please feel free to send any additional questions you have to our National Guard Bureau media desk email. You should have received our advisory in our link from that email. That is the best way to contact us at any time because the multiple people, so we avoid that pipeline, right? And we will follow up as soon as we can with any additional questions. Again, I will be sending out a list of the names, spellings and titles of those who participated today. So with that, again, thank you, everybody, and have a fantastic day.