ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

As the nation continues to experience stronger storms and more frequent natural disasters, the demand for National Guard assistance has increased, leaders from the component said.

“In the post-Katrina environment, the goal is not to be late to need,” said Brig. Gen. Jonathan Beddall, vice director of the National Guard Bureau’s Joint Operations Center, referring to the August 2005 hurricane that devastated New Orleans and swaths of the southeastern U.S.

Nearly a month after Hurricane Ian ripped through Florida, the National Guard continues to provide support to communities that are still recovering from the powerful storm.

The hurricane, tied for the fifth-strongest hurricane to make landfall in the U.S., forced evacuation orders for approximately 2.5 million Floridians and left about one-quarter of the state without power at peak outage. The storm, which made landfall in Florida on Sept. 28, killed at least 119 people in Florida alone and was the state’s deadliest storm since the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. 

National Guard troops in Kentucky have been going from door to door in tornado-damaged areas over the weekend.

“The damage is devastating,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said at a press conference Dec. 12. His state appears to have been the hardest hit by a string of tornados that tore through several states on Dec. 10. “There is no lens big enough to tell you the extent of the damage.”

The Army needs to be better prepared for the destructive power of climate change, Lt. Gen. Douglas Gabram, the Army Installation Management Command commander, told Congress. 

“The Army takes very seriously the threats that climate change poses to our installations and facilities,” Gabram said March 26 in testimony before the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee. 

Winter Storm Uri, a major February storm, caused severe damage across the southeastern United States with ice, snow and blackouts. 

After four major hurricanes hit the U.S. in 2017, the Army used its lessons learned to update the way it prepares for a complex catastrophe, a senior Army leader said.

“We developed a template at Army North that actually [outlines] in terms of capabilities what we would deploy,” Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson, commander of U.S. Army North, said Oct. 16 while speaking on a panel about disaster response at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition.

More than 300,000 Army National Guard soldiers are prepared to respond to hurricanes and other natural disasters that may hit the U.S. this year.

“The National Guard is the nation’s first military responder,” said Army Master Sgt. Michael Houk, a National Guard Bureau spokesman. “We are the first to respond and the last to leave.”

Hurricane season in the Atlantic basin—which includes the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico—runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan is at the helm of the Defense Department’s response to the disaster in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Some 3,500 soldiers from 18 states are among responders to the latest hurricanes, supporting recovery operations in Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

More than 15,000 soldiers and Army civilians are involved in post-hurricane operations. While some units return home, there are also some new demands.

Including the Regular Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve, and Department of Army civilians, mostly from the Army Corps of Engineers, the 15,000-plus contingent is working in Florida, Georgia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in support of local, state and federal agencies.

Help is also being provided outside those areas, such as the 128 people displaced by the hurricane who are housed at Fort Jackson, S.C.