Participants:
Major General Ronald Win Burkett, II, Director, Domestic Operations and Force Development, NGB J-3/4/7 National Guard Bureau Colonel Blake Heidelberg, J3- Director of Military Support, Florida National Guard Lieutenant Colonel Javier Rosales, Chief of the J-33 Current Operations Division
Host: Christina Mundy, Media Operations, National Guard Bureau
Christina Mundy: [00:00:20] Hello and good afternoon and welcome to this media roundtable on the current State National Guard hurricane preparation and response efforts. I'm Christina Mundy, a member of the National Guard Bureau Public Affairs media team. And I will be moderating today's discussion. I would like to start with having the panel members take a moment to introduce themselves. Janelle Burkett, we will start with you. [00:00:42][21.7]
Major General Ronald Win Burkett, II, Director, Domestic Operations and Force Development, NGB J-3/4/7 National Guard Bureau: [00:00:45] Good afternoon. My name is Wynn Burkett. Major General Wynn Burkett. I'm the director of operations and sustainment for the National Guard Bureau. In this role in a response, my office does not direct the response, but rather we assist the states to identify capabilities that they may need. And we will help that coordination from other states. We will continue to monitor the progress of the response and try to anticipate future requirements while keeping national leadership informed of National Guard activities. In Col Heidelberg. I'm sorry, Al. Transition team place. [00:01:30][44.8]
Colonel Blake Heidelberg, J3- Director of Military Support, Florida National Guard: [00:01:32] Okay. Thank you. Major General Burkitt. Good afternoon. I'm a Colonel Heidelberg, the director of joint military operations for the state of Florida. So it's a unique thing. But for National Guard, we coordinate all civil support to our local authorities across the state. So whenever there's a natural disaster or a manmade disaster, it's my job to coordinate the National Guard's response in coordination with the governor and director of emergency management across the state. And then, as the general said, communicate with not only MGB, but NorthCom and other civil authorities that might be supporting us during that event. Thank you. [00:02:04][32.0]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:02:07] And Colonel, regardless, would you please introduce yourself? I? Good afternoon. [00:02:12][4.5]
Lieutenant Colonel Javier Rosales, Chief of the J-33 Current Operations Division: [00:02:13] This is Lieutenant Colonel Javier Rosales. I am actually the. [00:02:16][2.8]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:02:17] The current ops. [00:02:18][0.7]
Lieutenant Colonel Javier Rosales: [00:02:18] Division chief, and I actually work for Major-General Paquette. So our role is to really be the connective tissue with. [00:02:25][6.5]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:02:25] All the states that. [00:02:26][0.8]
Lieutenant Colonel Javier Rosales: [00:02:26] Require some assistance. [00:02:26][0.6]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:02:28] You can think of us as a ordinator. When states require something and we can help find it throughout. [00:02:34][6.2]
Lieutenant Colonel Javier Rosales: [00:02:34] Our states and territories. Thank you. [00:02:36][1.9]
Christina Mundy: [00:02:39] Thank you all for your introductions. What we're here to do today is to discuss the State National Guard preparation and response efforts and Hurricane Melton and the response and recovery efforts of Hurricane Helene. And we appreciate if you would focus your questions accordingly. Major General Burkett and Colonel Heidelberg will start with an opening statement, and then we will open up the room for questions and to ensure that we allow for everyone to participate. Please ask one question and a follow up if you would like to have a follow up. And if there's time at the end, we can open it up again for questions. And a reminder to keep your mikes on mute. And when you're when you're not speaking, I do have a list of the participating media and I will call on you by name. And with that, General Abacha, you have the floor, sir. [00:03:27][47.5]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:03:28] Thank you, ma'am. And thank all of you for joining today. It's really a privilege for me to join my colleagues to talk about the response, not just in Florida, in the affected states of Helene, but the response of more than 20 different states that have provided resources and in many cases to both Helene and to Florida. I've witnessed some incredible coordination and really some Herculean efforts across the National Guard team. And so really, really happy to answer your questions and talk about our response. And with that, I'll turn it over to Colonel Herbert. [00:04:06][39.0]
Colonel Blake Heidelberg: [00:04:08] Thank you, General, and thank you. It is an honor and a privilege to be here and to be amongst so many professionals. You know, first and foremost, I'd like to give my heartfelt condolences to all those across the southeast that were impacted by these these horrific storms. You know, especially in the West Coast and east coast of Florida. And really on the general's note, I'd like to say a special thank you not only to our Guardsmen, but all the states that have really answered the call and come down to Florida, rushed really down to Florida, as you said, over 20 states that have come down to help us. And this mutual aid kind of support package that we've got to really be a force multiplier to ensure the citizens of Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and the other states, we're not only taken care of, but protected. So without their help, we couldn't do it and we couldn't be able to respond as well as we can. And then lastly, just kind of like the focus, I think we take it for granted, but the citizen soldiers and the citizens airmen that we have that support this, they make a lot of sacrifices. If you look at Florida, we've had three storms recently and it's just taking its toll. But the assistance from the other states, the assistance from the other civil authorities and Title ten being waiting right there on the wind to come in if we need them has all made a difference and allowed us to respond and hopefully keep up the standards. So thank you. And I'm honored to be here. [00:05:21][72.8]
Christina Mundy: [00:05:23] Thank you, gentlemen. And for any media that would like to know more about our panelist, we will drop the bios of the members in the chat right now. So thank you and welcome again. We're going to go ahead and open up the floor for questions. And so, please, if we can, again, one initial question and then if you would like one follow up and then we'll circle back. So let's get started. We'll start with Lita from Associated Press. [00:05:47][24.1]
Lita Baldor: [00:05:49] Hi. Thanks so much to all of you for doing this. I was wondering if you could just give us all sort of a wrap up. How many National Guard have responded and were requested in both North Carolina and in Florida? How many are there and how many active duty are in each? And then as my follow up, I'll just ask it now, follow up would be at this point, do any of you and particularly General Paquette, do any of you have any requests pending or anticipated requests for additional military aid, including active duty in your states? Thank you. [00:06:29][39.9]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:06:30] Yeah. Leader. Thank you. So I'll begin with the response to Hurricane Helene. So at one point we had well over 6000 National Guard from those states that were impacted Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia. And then we had states, 13 different states provided forces in response that elevated that number. Today, we're down to about 4600 overall in support of Hurricane Helene. There is tremendous support that's coming from Title ten forces in North Carolina. I think that number today is around 1400. But I would refer you back to our public affairs team for that exact number in North Carolina, but I think it's probably about 1400. I don't know when those numbers will go down because that's a daily assessment based on the requirements and forecasted requirements. But under the command and control of the dual status commander, Brigadier General Morrison and North Carolina, those operations are providing a tremendous amount of of response and recovery assistance. There's over 50 aircraft that are flying missions to date. They've flown over 8 million pounds of commodities into the hard hit areas. You know, close to 1700 hours flown in those aircraft. And that, you know, that does you know, there are a lot of debris clearing miles and miles of open passages now that were blocked unimpeded are now open. And so just tremendous work continues there. I'll transition to Colonel, how to work for the exact numbers that they have. But I think, in fact, when I do that now, I. [00:08:36][125.4]
Colonel Blake Heidelberg: [00:08:37] Thank you, General. So I'll kind of do the same. And thank you, ma'am, for the question. For Hurricane Helene, about 17 days ago, we ended up mobilizing just over 4000 soldiers and airmen across the state to respond to that hit that hit our Big Bend. The response went very well. We fortunately didn't need any external assistance from either our National Guard partners or Title ten during that response, while that response was going on, obviously we we sent two helicopters to catch 47 to help North Carolina and then a engineer platoon to help South Carolina. And then unfortunately, as we started to ramp up for Hurricane Milton, we pulled those resources back. We ended up mobilizing over 6000 Florida National Guardsmen and then getting support from 19 different states that are either come in or enroute coming in throughout this weekend to help us in the response for Hurricane Milton. So as I said, over 6500 soldiers. Now we expect that number to jump to about 7500, maybe 8000 will still can doing search and rescue. We rescued over 250 civilians. We've had over 31 aircraft, again, from multiple states supporting us, over 500 high wheeled vehicles. We've got about 30 points of distribution that we're operating throughout the areas of impact today. And we'll continue to shift our forces and really get engineer forces in there and start working on debris and then continue our humanitarian assistance with the pods probably for the next week or so. And then you'll see a rapid reduction as the power comes back on and the counties really become self-reliant again. But we have no further unmet needs. And the Title ten has been at our side with their team here in Florida since we invited them down and offering help. And the assistance has been there. But fortunately, with the storm taking a little bit of a shift to the south and not be in that Category five that we all feared, we didn't need that external support from Title ten. Hopefully that answers your question, ma'am. [00:10:26][108.4]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:10:27] And just I'm just going to dovetail on the back end of that. So he covered the unmet know unmet needs currently in Florida and in North Carolina, in Tennessee, South Carolina. Those activities will continue. If there is any change, then we've got great communications across all of our Title ten partners. But right now do not anticipate any additional requirements for Title ten in May. I don't want to miss the opportunity. The National Guard in Title ten. While I'm incredibly proud of the response and the support that we've been able to provide. We're just a really small part of this relief effort. There are, you know, state emergency managers and people from from all walks across this response effort that are really doing the lion's share of of the response and recovery efforts. [00:11:19][52.4]
Colonel Blake Heidelberg: [00:11:21] We're one tool in the toolbox. [00:11:22][0.9]
Christina Mundy: [00:11:27] Thank you, Lena. We have Louie from ABC news. [00:11:30][3.3]
Luis: [00:11:35] Good afternoon and thanks so much for doing this. I have a question about Title ten and the timing for Halloween response. There's been some consternation and maybe the title ten active Duty Troops did not. Deploy quickly enough. Can you give us kind of a timeline for how the request for Title ten was initiated this time around? Was it through FEMA directly? Did it originate in the state house in. In North Carolina. And when was it approved and were there were assignments available for them? Once the secretary of defense approved or authorized their use in North Carolina. In other words, was there a tasking ready for them or did they have to wait for taskings to take place? Thank you. [00:12:23][48.5]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:12:24] Yeah. Luis. So. So what? What I witnessed was in the days prior to Helene making landfall was. Was was really great communication between Title 32. Title ten. I'm sorry. Our state, our state joint Force headquarters, up to the National Guard bureau level, and then out to our DOD partners in anticipation for landfall. There were no unmet needs or forecasted unmet needs as the as the storm approached. And after it makes landfall, it takes time to to get out and do those wide area assessments and and get a much better understanding of the roads and networks that are traffic able where the where it's safe to do so. You know North Carolina's get some unique challenges over Florida in that it's very mountainous and some of that effort takes a lot longer as a result of that. But I thought that the the timing and the response and the understanding of the environment and where assistance was needed, I thought that was very timely and where the National Guard could safely get in and continue that assessment both by air and ground. I witnessed a very deliberate approach to that and a very deliberate response as we got to where we could focus on those hard hit areas in those communities around Asheville and the ability to bring in other partners to to assist with that response. Title ten was there immediately. But but that's not when they started. They were there from the from the beginning in that communication, trying to anticipate what those requirements were, the exact timing of where those mission assignments and requests and how they flew flowed from FEMA to DOD and approval at those senior senior levels. So I won't be able to speak to that is that's really not my focus area over. [00:14:35][130.8]
Luis: [00:14:38] Thank you. I understand. And can you tell us what are some of the capabilities that those additional 500. I know we haven't reached up to that number yet, but those additional 500 to get talking about capabilities in terms of communications. And I mean, was it drones? What what what capability was it that I never really got to specificity that. [00:14:58][20.3]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:15:00] So so that number, I think you're right. I think that number in the beginning was about 500. I know through coordination with 18th Airborne Corps. That number rose to over a thousand. And like I said earlier, I think that number is somewhere around 1400 today. But those were general purpose forces. They could be used on the ground to assist with the distribution of commodities. Fantastic support in helping with debris removal and clearance of those routes. And then from an aviation perspective, they provided, you know, a significant number of aircraft. There's over 50 aircraft today in North Carolina that are operating. But to continue with that wide area search and rescue and then just the wide area assessment of of of roads and routes in and additionally looking for communities or maybe just individual houses or group of houses in the mountains that still have people that are in need of support. So really deliberate dynamic response and has improved and made everything better. [00:16:25][84.7]
Christina Mundy: [00:16:28] Thank you. Thank you. We're going to go with Cory from Stars and Stripes. Try again. Corey from Stars and Stripes. Okay. Nothing heard. If you hop on later, I'll circle back and we're going to go to bed. Ellie Watson concedes.
Ellie: Hi. Thanks for doing this. I think earlier this week, the North Carolina National Guard grounded one of their crews after video surfaced of the rotor wake, kind of blowing away supplies that were needed. The guard seemed to blame the confusion between the different units, lack of communication. Do you have any more insight on that incident? And then have there been any other incidents that there weren't videos of that you know of, but that kind of show some confusion between the all the influx of support? [00:17:37][69.1]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:17:41] Well, first of all, I have not seen that video, but I am very aware of of that situation. And and no, I'm not aware of any other instances where that happened. With regard to the response for Hurricane Helene, however, I've been in the National Guard for over 25 years. I've been part of numerous response efforts, whether there are storms or fires or floods. And bringing helicopters into communities and supporting local emergency managers is is is sometimes very tricky. And and to to to use your term, I think there is some confusion in that. Not everybody knows, you know, the impact of bringing a large military helicopter into a parking lot where from the ground it seems like there's plenty of space. But from the air coming in, you've got to clear all of the obstacles. You've got to look for loose debris. There's there's a lot of things that happen as you bring a helicopter in for the first time in an area that that you haven't landed before. And so I think that it probably is easy to to characterize that as it is a confusing environment. But it's it's really I think a lot of people trying to do the right thing in a in sometimes a small space with obstacles that they don't know become flying debris as it is, a helicopter gets closer and closer to the ground. [00:19:14][93.4]
Christina Mundy: [00:19:17] Thank you. Do you have a follow on? Now. That was good. Thank you. Thank you. Carla with VOA.
Carla: Hey, thanks for doing this. I just wanted to follow up on something you had mentioned about search and rescue. Is search and rescue still ongoing? And Nancy, at this time, you'd given us the numbers. I think in Florida, it was more than 250 civilians rescued was that number in North Carolina. And then just a follow up on Luis question. Do we have the specific date where the NC National Guard started arriving in Western NC, even if you don't have the complete timeline? I'm a little confused on when they actually arrived. Thanks. [00:19:58][41.0]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:20:01] Maybe just to. Just to clarify. Carla, please. The the question about arrival in western North Carolina was that for National Guard or was that Title ten that it was difficult to hear you? [00:20:13][11.7]
Carla: [00:20:13] Yes. For National Guard. [00:20:15][1.2]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:20:15] National Guard. Okay. Okay. So search and rescue is an activity that that continues and it's ongoing. It can be, you know, 2 or 3 days to several weeks. And in this case, based on the the amount of damage in the area that it occurred in North Carolina, it's very difficult to to get to get a really good assessment of that. So I suspect it will continue until the ground routes are completely open. And and you can get to some of these hard to reach areas by ground. So the exact number of rescues I know is is well over 300. Many hoist rescues. They'll continue to do those operations. I think it's 12 to 1400 people that removed from areas of rising water to locations that were safer. I don't believe that that, you know, those numbers will go down over time and in those numbers are, in fact, on their way down. But I am not able to give you a clear estimate on when I think those activities would stop in North Carolina. And then I'll transition to Col Heidelberg to talk the recovery piece there. So the North Carolina guard, much like Florida did for Hurricane Milton, they've got a great relationship with their emergency managers. They know typically what type of resources will be needed as soon as a storm passes. Search and rescue and use of military helicopters is a very common piece of that to include ground search and rescue, high water vehicles and boat crews. So that's you know, those are always pre-scripted missions. So that is soon as it's safe once the storm passes. Those those efforts will begin immediately. So I know that that that happened beginning on the 26th, in the early hours of the 27th. As soon as the weather allowed for aviation operations, they started watching aircraft that, you know, they would launch the ground pieces and then move as far as they could until road conditions prevented. And now a go to colonel how to work for for Hurricane Milton, please. [00:22:48][152.5]
Colonel Blake Heidelberg: [00:22:49] Thank you, General. Our search and rescue started actually Wednesday night when the tornadoes touched down in southwest excuse me, southeast Florida. And we did a couple about 30 rescues there, unfortunately, from those tornadoes. Very devastating in two counties and then went into early Thursday morning as soon as the storm force winds died down, we were able to deploy around 2:00 in the morning. We've been continuing search and rescue, but really Florida's portion of that search and rescue has really transitioned to the civilians. And now we're staging for any rivers that might crest in search and rescue that might come with that mission. But it was a whole of government approach with the search and rescue. You know, in Florida, you're either in hurricane season or preparing for it. So we work with them. We had the Coast Guard, We had the National Guard. We had Fish and Wildlife. We had active duty under FEMA supporting search and rescue. And I think overall, by about 1:00 today, we're at about 330 rescues. That number will drastically stop rising based on, you know, as we've gotten into all the barrier islands and those kind of things. And now we'll just wait for these rivers to crest and then kind of repeat the process in some localized areas. I hope I answered your question, though, ma'am. [00:23:54][65.6]
Christina Mundy: [00:23:57] Yes. Thank you. [00:23:57][0.6]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:23:58] Hey, Carla, I want to circle back to North Carolina real quick. That was over 755 rescues in North Carolina. And 219 of those were done by hoist. So just to correct those numbers, please. [00:24:14][15.4]
Christina Mundy: [00:24:15] Thank you. Thank you, Carla. And Rebecca from Associated Press. [00:24:21][5.4]
Rebecca: [00:24:22] Hi. Thank you so much for having this. I was wondering and forgive me if this is an elemental question. I don't usually I usually cover DHS, not DOD. But can you clarify when either the National Guard or Title ten troops are called up to assist with a natural or other disaster like this? Who pays for that? Does that come out of DOD budget or FEMA budget to disaster relief fund or some other type of funding? [00:24:51][28.6]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:24:54] Yes, ma'am. So in a state active duty response, which you've you witnessed in both of these, the the states will will cover all of those costs for the use of their National Guard within their state. And then based on the Emergency Management Assistance Compact between the states of which National Guard is often part included in that the supported state will cover that cost of of those resources that come in to provide assistance. In the case of DOD response to FEMA. There's there's different variations of how that will how that will be paid or whether or not it's reimbursable. But I'm sure that FEMA could probably take that question out better better than I. [00:25:51][56.9]
Rebecca: [00:25:52] Okay. Thank you. And if I could just follow up with one question for Colonel Heidelberg. You had mentioned that, you know, in Florida, you're either in hurricane season or you're preparing for it. I'm wondering if you could just kind of talk a little bit about like having these repeated hurricanes. You know, you had idea you had even before that, and then you had two major ones this year. Like, what kind of stress or difficulty does that put on your guard? [00:26:17][24.5]
Colonel Blake Heidelberg: [00:26:18] Yes, sir. And it's a great question. And honestly, it does put a strain on us. But I'll also kind of counter that and say that the soldiers and the airmen, when they're out and they're responding and they're dealing with our citizens on what unfortunately is typically their worst day, it really motivates them and reminds them why they wear the uniform. So we talk about our op tempo and how it's a strain on our soldiers and our airmen, and it really takes a toll. But when they're out there helping our citizens, it kind of recharges that battery and they understand and they appreciate why they're wearing the uniform. So it doesn't hurt as much as you would think it does. Obviously, it disrupts everybody's family. It disrupts everybody's, you know, work. Our our our employers in Florida have to be very understanding. Our colleges and our school systems have to be very understanding. So Florida and whole has to look at it and approach it from a different perspective when you've got this many storms. But the guardsmen take it very well. But you know it. We're tired. I'm not going to lie. We're worn down and we would like a break. But as far as being able to respond and staying in a they're motivated by by what they get to do. And the leadership from the state really allows us that opportunity. [00:27:20][61.9]
Christina Mundy: [00:27:24] Thank you, Rebecca. It sounds like Cary from Stars and Stripes is on, and you're on the phone, right? Where you. I was going to give him another second coronary on. Okay. Okay, Well, we'll move on. I have Ellen from synopsis. [00:27:54][30.0]
Ellen: [00:28:00] Hi. Thank you all for doing this. Could you tell me if you've brought in any health care resources, if any of your medical personnel have come in to set up hospitals or support local hospitals? [00:28:12][11.8]
Major General Win Burkett: [00:28:17] Man, that is. I'll start with that and then I'll pass over to Colonel Heidelberg for the specifics within Florida. But that is certainly something that is assessed within each of the State emergency management operations centers, along with other emergency support functions within the state. There were anticipation that there would be additional nurses or health care professionals. We do look across the guard and that was a capacity that we were building in support of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. But but the state of North Carolina was able to mitigate that risk with other resources. So in this case, we did not employ them. [00:29:05][48.0]
Colonel Blake Heidelberg: [00:29:08] Yes, ma'am. For Florida's perspective, we had several hospitals, I think over 22 in the impacted area just from this last storm on the West Coast that had to evacuate or move certain patients out of them. Fortunately, they didn't need any assistance from the Florida National Guard and our medical providers. We had them. They deploy and mobilized and our mobile defense into the impacted area of pre-storm. So they're ready to immediately respond. And we did get help. We had our pair of rescue medical personnel, and then we had 24 from New York as well that joined the SAR teams that went out. So our medical providers and professionals were involved, but we weren't involved directly with any hospitals or supporting any hospitals. [00:29:46][38.5]
Ella: [00:29:49] Thank you so much. [00:29:50][0.5]
Colonel Blake Heidelberg: [00:29:51] Thank you, ma'am. [00:29:51][0.3]
Christina Mundy: [00:29:53] Thank you, Ellen. Matt with ABC news. [00:29:56][2.6]
Matt: [00:30:02] I. No question. [00:30:02][0.4]
Christina Mundy: [00:30:05] All right. Thank you, Matt. So I know Corey is on I'm getting a note that she is on, but it's a technical issue, so I'll just give it one more shot just in case she's able to. Make this happen. Okay. All right, Senator. I know she can hear us, but she's having some audio problems. I'll just go around the room one more time. Are there any other questions from reporters? All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for that and say, well, thank you for joining us today and for taking the time to, you know, let us share our words with you. And if you have any follow on questions, please reach out to the National Guard, Bureau of Public Affairs, and we'll be happy to assist. Thank you, everyone. [00:30:50][45.8]
Colonel Blake Heidelberg: [00:30:52] Thank you. Thank you. [00:30:53][0.7]
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