Bolstering Their Support Role
Written by Christopher Prawdzik
MMT 2010 Volume: 14 Issue: 5 (August)
The New York Daily News reported May 3 a chilling reminder of what is still an obvious threat when it described a suspicious SUV in Times Square: “Cops found dozens of M-88 firecrackers, three tanks of BBQ-style propane, two red plastic jugs of gasoline and a metal locker densely packed with eight supermarket bags of fertilizer inside the Nissan Pathfinder.”
Fortunately, the bomb didn’t go off, but it illustrated a reality which a variety of first responders must understand and prepare for. Among those first responders are elite groups of National Guardsmen—members of Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams (WMD-CSTs) specifically taught, trained and positioned as crucial elements in the opening moments of a WMD event.
With 10 teams initially established in 1999, the number of 22-person teams has grown to 55 across the country. They’re comprised of individuals with 14 different military occupational skills to address a variety of special scenarios. After a WMD event or other disaster, the team deploys within three hours of notification to any incident, with its Unified Command Suite (UCS) providing communications capability as well as its Analytical Laboratory System vehicle to assess a variety of chemical and biological hazards.
The mission originally outlined by the Defense Department was pretty straightforward: “Support civil authorities at a domestic CBRNE incident site by identifying CBRNE agents/substances,” and provide support to assess consequences and provide response advisement. But the role continues to evolve, with communication and coordination becoming tantamount.
Take the beginnings of the program in 1999, add the September 11, 2001, attacks, Hurricane Katrina and a variety of local disasters, such as forest fires and floods, and their scope and purpose has evolved as well.
Lieutenant Colonel Gregory Potter, commander of the 95th CST in northern California—one of two CSTs for the state, is in a unique situation, as California has had two teams since nearly the beginning of the program’s inception. (Most other states have just one CST.)
The need for two in California was obvious, as the state’s dense population centers, varied terrain, unique threats such as earthquakes and high-profile events, as well as its long shoreline and shipping centers, simply put CSTs more in demand.
“We work in support of the first responder; we never take charge of the scene,” Potter said. “We’re going to come in and be in support of the incident commander on scene.”
With an area of coverage in northern California that covers about 450 square miles—including parts of Nevada—the 95th carries a large responsibility. “We’ve evolved from a WMD concept to an all-disasters, all-hazardous material [responder],” Potter said. “Here in California, we’re unique; we have earthquakes, so that is our focus—that is going to happen.”
The mission now includes any aspect in a disaster—from chemical and biological agent detection after an explosion or attack to a security sweep for potential hazards before an event such as Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game.
Potter noted that the CST can be the initial military presence on the ground, but switches directly into a support role as other forces start coming in.
COMMUNICATION SUPPORT TEAM
The “support” role is something CSTs take very seriously, and after years of practice and through a variety of events, such as Hurricane Katrina, it’s a role for which they train extensively.
One of the main reasons for that is the CST’s ability to communicate, not only with themselves, but to provide the crucial communication capability for all agencies, local and federal, that can potentially be part of a WMD or other hazardous event.
It’s an evolution that Lieutenant Colonel Keith Bauder, National Guard CST program manager and a former Arkansas WMD-CST commander, has witnessed firsthand.
“What I see as far as where we were back then and where we are today, with having the greater number of teams that we have, there’s been a greater look at the CSTs in working together in multiple CST-type operations,” Bauder said. “When we stood up [in Arkansas], there were only 27 teams … and those relationships weren’t built.”
It’s those relationships that provide the backbone for future operations, particularly among the various government agencies that CSTs support.
Proven by events such as 9/11 and Katrina is the absolute necessity for interoperability and communication when it comes to a CST properly supporting a mission or an agency.
Bauder notes that prior to Katrina, a product manager had created a demo-type of platform that provided satellite communication on the commercial side that worked out of a Suburban vehicle. It would allow CSTs to provide Internet access to that incident commander.
This “advanced echelon,” or ADVON, was the part of the initial CST response, which deploys within 90 minutes of notification, followed by the rest of the team within three hours to support the incident commander—whether it’s local law enforcement, fire, rescue or other agency.
The CST commander can initially advise about possible scenarios, detect the hazard levels and help the incident commander determine a course to take regarding the disaster.
As the follow-on CST forces arrive, they bring the heavier equipment, such as the UCS that is an even stronger link to other forces, agencies and individuals needing constant information and data during the course of a disaster response. The UCS provides satellite communication and also operates across Defense Department networks.
Built by Wolf Coach Inc., an L-3 Communications company, the commercial van carries an array of communication equipment to serve as a hub to link a variety of responders at a given WMD or disaster event.
Among its many tasks, the C-130 transportable UCS provides onboard power capability, a radio frequency communications subsystem, cellular and secure phone capability and an automatic data processing (ADP) subsystem that operates across a variety of DoD and other federal agencies. It’s a system that sees frequent upgrades, such as better deployability.
“Prior to the upgrade, you had a satellite antenna you had to basically assemble,” Bauder said. “Now all you have to do is push a button and the thing comes up and auto tracks and is a lot easier to establish.” One of the biggest advances is the truck’s “movement tracking” ability, which allows officials to know the exact location of a given truck.
“They can actually communicate from truck to truck across it, so the same thing you would see that some of the combat forces have in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have as well now,” Bauder said. “But ours is the commercial side, because we’re working in an indifferent environment.”
The system provides cross-banding capabilities, where CSTs can link radios from a variety of first responders, whether they be military or civilian forces. “They give you a better operational picture of what’s going on in the ground,” he added.
For the future, Bauder said they’d like to provide these capabilities at a remote location, well out of the danger zone, minimizing the chances the capability could be destroyed in the course of an operation.
“What we’re looking at doing is taking that data and being able to push the data through a central server, so that any team with the proper permission can log on and find out what’s going on and kind of get the situational awareness of what’s happening,” he said. “So if we have an event that, lets say, happens in Kansas … and then they notice something somewhere else in the country that’s … tracking the same way, they can maybe save a little bit of time.”
Other future capabilities include the possibility of moving away from hard-wired sensors to using readily available wireless capabilities.
“We’re actually building a wireless backbone on scene so that we can take our sensors and pipe that data through this wireless sensor back to an operations center on scene, and then potentially move that data back to someone else, like a scientist or another organization that may have a requirement to view it,” Bauder said. “Anytime I can send data back from the hazard site, and the soldier or airman that’s downrange doesn’t have to talk, that’s saving him air; the more air we can save for him, the longer he can stay downrange.”
In the far future, he said they’re most likely looking at robotics to actually take the place of soldiers. “If I can take an unmanned aircraft and fly it through a hazard zone and describe it with that, [it’s] going to save me time, but it’s also going to lessen the impact on any of the other responders in the area,” Bauder said. ♦