AST, NSF support Presidential Inauguration

Published Jan. 31, 2013
By U.S. Coast Guard - Atlantic Strike Team

WASHINGTON D.C. -- The U.S. Coast Guard - Atlantic Strike Team, stationed here, worked behind the scenes of the parades and high profile public addresses that comprised the 57th Presidential Inauguration in Washington, D.C., Jan. 14 through 22, 2013, to ensure the event was a resounding success.

The AST is one of the three teams in the National Strike Force that exists to provide federal on-scene coordinators with timely and proficient assistance in oil, chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear response missions. Sector Baltimore requested the AST provide a 12-person response team and a liaison officer for the Incident Command Post.

The NSF team consisted of nine AST members, two Pacific Strike Team members and two Gulf Strike Team members and deployed along with the AST's 48-foot Hazardous Materials Response Trailer and 10-ton support truck.

The team's mission was to augment Sector Baltimore's emergency response options and provide the Sector Commander with site safety, emergency stabilization, weapons of mass destruction sampling, chemical identification, air monitoring, technical decontamination, radiological isotope identification and level A exclusion zone entry capabilities in case the need for these specific skill sets arose.

The AST conducted WMD sampling training and set up and recovered a technical decontamination line while staged at the Incident Command Post in preparation for possible chemical or radiological decontamination requests.

The HMRT garnered its share of attention. Many USCG members stopped by and asked for a quick tour of the trailer's interior. Petty officers demonstrated radiation gear capabilities and air monitoring equipment during their visit.

"It's always a good thing when no deliberate event triggers the need for strike team assistance during special activities like this," said Lt. Joel Ferguson, AST operations officer, "We were proud to play our part in support of Sector Baltimore during the inauguration."

Another AST twelve-person response team was on standby here to deploy in support of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency while the AST led the deployed NSF team in D.C. The AST's liaison to the EPA's NCR Incident Command Post was its Executive Officer, Lt. Cmdr. David Reinhard, who stated, "The amount of expertise the EPA fielded was significant. The coordination and pre-positioning of relevant National Contingency Plan special teams ensured the Federal Government could effectively respond to all eventualities."