HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Residents have no doubt seen members of the Guam National Guard stationed at roadway intersections, guiding traffic in the pouring rain or sweltering heat, or at green waste disposal sites, providing security and ensuring that proper dumping occurs.
These are just two of the four missions the Guam Guard is performing and just two of the two dozen or so requests that have been made of them in response to Typhoon Mawar and its aftermath.
At the assembly hall of the Guam National Guard headquarters in Barrigada, a team of guard members shuffled back and forth in one section of the building, updating maps or whiteboards, or typing on computers.
This is the operations section of the Joint Task Force for Typhoon Mawar response and recovery, according to Capt. Mark Scott, spokesperson for the Guam National Guard.
“All the requests for assistance come in from agencies of the government of Guam. For example, mayors may be like, ‘We need help securing our green waste sites.’ It has a routing process. So, from the mayors starting the request, it will route through (Guam) Homeland Security and the (Federal Emergency Management Agency), get approved, and come to us as a RFA, request for assistance,” Scott said.
“There’s a lot of analysis that goes into it. Do we have the manpower? FEMA (asks), ‘Is it relevant, will it be fundable? Is it relevant to response and recovery?’ And the computer system that does all that is called DLAN – Defense Local Area Network. It’s an app that everyone’s on. The DLAN request comes through, it gets analyzed. (If) yes, we can support, then it turns into a mission assignment,” Scott added.
DLAN is used to work with GovGuam agencies; the National Guard has its own information platform it uses, Scott explained later.
Long request list
When The Guam Daily Post visited the assembly hall Tuesday morning, 24 requests were listed at the operations section – two more than Monday. Each had a priority designation and status. Several were marked completed, others were approved or pending analysis, and others still were considered “unsupported,” although some of those were tagged as high-priority requests.
“(It’s) something that we don’t have the troops, the expertise, the equipment (for),” Scott said. “A request for oxygen tanks for the shelters, for example. If we don’t have that, we just don’t have it. It would be a request for assistance that we can’t support.”
Multiple requests can fall under one mission. The four ongoing missions Tuesday, other than traffic control and green waste site security, were manning the joint operations center and a team at the emergency operations center at Guam Homeland Security/Office of Civil Defense.
“Eventually, when we move from response into recovery, we may see things like roof repair. Our engineers may be out there with FEMA-funded materials, putting tin back on roofs. But that’s later when we move from response into recovery,” Scott said.
In addition to the operations section, the assembly hall consisted of transportation, human resources, logistics, intel to watch for any incoming storms, and other sections to support troops on the ground.
About 200 Guam Guard members are responding to Typhoon Mawar.
Extra assistance
In addition to Guam Guard personnel, a joint liaison team from the National Guard Bureau out of Washington, D.C., is helping to coordinate resources the bureau can provide, according to Scott. A team from the Hawaii Air National Guard is assisting in maintaining redundant communication systems for the Guam Guard.
“That’s what we primarily came out here to do, is see what we can do to help out setting up the (Joint Incident Site Communications Capability) and (satellite communications) and voice capabilities,” said Master Sgt. Neil Fujinaga, a cyber systems operator for the Hawaii Air Guard.
“This provides additional reach-back capabilities. Right now, not everywhere there’s connection. So, this provides us satellite internet capability,” he added.
An Army coordination element representing the U.S. Army Pacific is also helping to bring in resources or coordinate assistance for the Guam Guard, Scott said. Employees from the Guam Department of Military Affairs also are responding, he added.
“Looking into the next couple weeks, we may have additional active duty people from Joint Region (Marianas), maybe even Andersen (Air Force Base) or the Marines, to come here and also help us respond,” Scott said.
“Eventually, when we move from response into recovery, we may see things like roof repair. Our engineers may be out there with FEMA-funded materials, putting tin back on roofs. But that’s later when we move from response into recovery.”
<strong>- Capt. Mark Scott, Guam National Guard spokesperson</strong>
Army personnel work with active duty and National Guard units at the assembly hall of the National Guard headquarters in Barrigada on Tuesday, May 30, 2023.
