The importance of ocean-based response to disasters

The sea can create terrible disasters, but it can also be a broad highway for rescue and recovery efforts.

On June 20, 1877, a devastating fire destroyed much of the city of Saint John, New Brunswick. Before it stopped, the fire had destroyed more than 1,600 structures, including eight churches, six banks and 14 hotels, as well as 11 schooners. It also left 19 dead. The first outside response came not by road or rail, but from the sea, from two ships of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, the predecessor to the U.S. Coast Guard.

On Dec. 6, 1917, a munition ship in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, exploded with one-seventh the power of the first atomic bomb, killing or injuring one-fifth of the city’s population and starting more than a thousand fires. Once again, the first response came not by road or rail or air but from the sea. Two U.S. Navy ships, Tacoma and Von Steuben, had seen the explosion and immediately headed for Halifax. Another U.S. ship that happened to be in harbor, the Old Colony, was turned into a hospital ship.

After Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy both responded and both performed virtually flawlessly. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy, Photographer's Mate Airman Jeremy L. Grisham)

On Dec. 24-25, 1974, Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin, Australia, damaging or destroying 97 per cent of the housing stock. Eventually two-thirds of the population was evacuated. The first response came by air, but before a week had passed, the Royal Australian Navy arrived and provided assistance to the stricken community.

Ocean-based response to disaster has many advantages.

For one thing, roads and rail lines can be destroyed, airport runways can be blocked with debris, but the sea repairs itself.

For another, ocean based response is self-sustaining. Those who arrive by sea can assist a stricken community without creating pressure on limited resources. In Darwin, for example, the two warships’ crew members came ashore each morning, worked all day in the tropical sun, and then headed back to their ships at night.

For a third, convergence, the arrival of too many people or supplies, is less of an issue when relief comes by sea. Supply ships can drop anchor and wait until their supplies are needed, or leave if they are not.

Ocean-based response has other advantages: For example, ships can act as secure command posts. Naval ships especially have all the communications gear required to handle emergency traffic.

One needs only to look at a map of the United States to see the potential of water-based response to disaster. Most major American cities are ports, along the East and West coasts, along the Gulf Coast, on the Great Lakes and even along great rivers, such as the Mississippi.

One also need only look at recent incidents to see the importance of water. After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the Canadians, anxious to show their gratitude for past aid from the U.S., sent a team to Florida, where they helped rebuilt a school.

In New York City on 9/11, as many as 200,000 people were able to leave Lower Manhattan by water, some on the ferries, others on many other craft that saw a need and met it.

After Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy both responded and both performed virtually flawlessly.

Coast Guard helicopter teams assisted and evacuated more than 33,500 stranded survivors from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, six times as many rescues as normally done in a year, even though most Coast Guard personnel in the area suffered personal losses and there was $190 million damage to its stations. A Washington Post columnist called the response a “silver lining in a storm.”

In addition, the Coast Guard repaired or restored 1,800 navigational aids and cleaned up thousands of oil spills. When personnel were brought in from New England, Canada’s Coast Guard patrolled the Atlantic Coast and the William Alexander, a Canadian icebreaker, sailed as far as the Gulf of Mexico to fix buoys. Two technicians from the National Data Buoy Center in Stennis, Miss., joined the ship to do the repair work.

The Coast Guard response was so effective that one could almost make the case that planning for an ocean-based response is unnecessary. In fact, however, the Coast Guard had to adapt. For example, after one crew chopped through a roof to rescue someone, all teams were supplied with fire axes. In addition, new airboats from the Great Lakes were brought in because they could operate safely along flooded streets. Axes and airboats had not been part of a plan.

Aware that planning can make a difference, long before Katrina and long before the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the Royal Canadian Navy sent the frigate HMCS Calgary to Port Alberni, British Columbia, to test the potential for a naval response to a disaster. Port Alberni had been hit by the tsunami from the 1964 Alaska earthquake.

The exercise showed that much could be done, but it also showed that the results could be better. For example, the Calgary did not have the proper connections to allow it to supply the community with emergency power.

The sea can of course be the carrier of problems. Hurricanes come from the sea, as do tsunamis. But it can also be a source of relief. Surely no one doubts that there will be more major emergencies, some caused by the environment, others by those with evil intent. Perhaps it’s time we realized that no matter how severe the emergency, it is almost certain that an effective response can come by water.

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