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AMC delivers Hurricane Charley relief

  • Published
SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. --  Air Mobility Command began operations yesterday to support the Federal Emergency Management Agency by providing emergency relief to areas in Florida that were devastated by Hurricane Charley on Friday.

AMC Tanker Airlift Control Center was tasked by US Transportation Command to start working this support yesterday afternoon, said Col. Jeff Franklin, TACC Director of Operations. That planning started yesterday by moving 200 empty cargo pallets to Dobbins AFB, Ga., last night, so the aerial port personnel at Dobbins would be able to prepare relief supplies for airlift as they arrived on base.

Approximately 40 tractor trailers delivered the relief supplies to Dobbins AFB where the 17th Airlift Squadron from Charleston AFB, S.C. had set up stage operations with six C-17s.

We had just landed at Davis-Monthan AFB, [Ariz.] and were notified that we needed to get to Dobbins for the FEMA support missions, said Lt. Col. Mark S. Danigole, senior ranking officer for AMC stage operations out of Dobbins. So we basically turned our aircraft and were ready within an hour to take off again.

He said that three aircraft were quick-turned on the ground at Davis-Monthan and two were diverted in route from Charleston AFB, where they were currently doing their own hurricane evacuation. The sixth aircraft was returning from a mission supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The team operating at Dobbins AFB is made up of the 94th Airlift Wing, augmented by approximately 20 Airmen from Charleston AFB and Maxwell AFB, Ala. The augmentees, working directly with members of the 80th Aerial Port Squadron arrived early Saturday and began palletizing relief supplies trucked in relief by FEMA.

The C-17s began delivering relief supplies on Saturday and should wrap up the airlift portion of the relief mission with six more missions scheduled for Sunday.

In addition to operations at Dobbins AFB, AMC also delivered a Tanker Airlift Control Element (TALCE) to Lakeland Airfield, Fla., a location designated by FEMA. This mobile aerial port unit, an element of the 621st Air Mobility Operations Group stationed at McGuire AFB, N.J. will receive relief supplies and transfer them to FEMA personnel.

Lt. Col. Keith Boone, 62nd Airlift Wing Detachment commander, currently located at McGuire AFB, was notified late Friday of the requirement to move 200 pallets down to Dobbins AFB and two C-17 loads of TALCE equipment and personnel to Lakeland Air Field.

We turned a Friday night training mission into a mission to deliver the 200 pallets, he said, and we had a couple of really dedicated load masters who worked through the night Friday so the two C-17s were ready to go when the crews showed up Saturday morning to fly the TALCE down. This was a 14-hour turn time from tasking to take off.

Since there were so many bases and units involved all these moving parts had to be planned and coordinated by the TACC.

All this pivotal planning happened in the middle of us evacuating out of AMCs East Coast bases, said Franklin. The trick was to get the planes out of the way of the storm and still use them for the humanitarian support missions.

According to Brig. General Paul J. Selva, TACC Commander, Its really a team effort; its all the Airmen from McChord, Charleston, Maxwell, and McGuire, as well as, the reserve wing at Dobbins that were able to pull this all together and we simply did the coordination and put the missions out for the wings to execute. So the real credit goes to them.