[PAO] CAP and disaster relief.

[Alice Mansell]

Whoot, David!

That reminds me of working in JICs at national FEMA exercises in Las Vegas
and Long Beach with lots of military support many years ago.  Once in with
a PIO slot in the JIC and some CAP pre-tasked air and ground sortie, after
CAP does a good job the more work is thrown our way.  Just staying in our
comfortable CAP-only exercises means we only get called out for major
disasters and never just local or state ones, not even for exercises.

I am often tempted to say CAP should never do CAP-only disaster exercises,
but at least have a Red Cross or an ES agency observer present.  The days
of sitting on our air-SAR monopoly to justify our "ES" organizational
mission is over, especially now that our 121.5 ELT missions have dried up.

Unit PAOs can help with this other-agency relationship building as part of
their external public affairs function. They should as a best practice
coordinate closely wth their unit ES staff and get a MIO rating as soon as
possible.   One place to start is having your CAP unit join your local
airport association as a member or supportng associate and/or any other
community group involved in advising airport management.  PAOs can join
those groups as a private person or even sometimes in CAP uniform if they
are careful about federal and state lobbying laws.



On Saturday, September 7, 2013,  <kd4ios at embarqmail.com> wrote:
> I hold the EOC seat for Military Support to Civilian Authority and have
done so for multiple years, being an active participant  during hurricanes,
disaster drills and even ran the Logistics Staging Area when FL had back to
back hurricanes.  This came from contacts just as you are describing.
>
> CAP got plaudits from the truckers who transport food, water and ice.
One driver said, "Your operation is one of the smoothest and most
professionally run I have ever seen, and I've been doing this for a long
time.   I think he said 40 years, but I can't be sure
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