United States Embassy, Santo Domingo 24 September
The next morning, the team leadership arrived at the U.S. Embassy to begin assessing the most pressing needs. It was the first of what would be regularly scheduled daily meetings with the Country Team. Assembled at the meeting were the various organizations within the Embassy, as well as representatives from other government agencies and NGOs supporting the relief effort. The Country Team was just beginning to come to grips with the sheer magnitude of the disaster and its impact on the island. Coordinating the military response was the U.S. Navy Commander assigned as the Military Liaison Officer (MLO). Assisting, but playing a less substantial role, was the Embassy Defense Attaché Office (DAO).
At the meeting, members of the various organizations introduced themselves. With a dizzying array of acronyms and titles, the team leadership began to sort out who were the shakers and who were the movers among the group. The meeting began with an assessment of the situation and the Embassy established its priorities of effort. Despite what appeared to be a confusing situation, everyone quickly rallied around the challenge and began efforts to bring relief to the beleaguered people.
After Georges passed over the Dominican Republic, 438 people were confirmed dead or missing with another 155,000 people believed to be homeless. Water damage left many of the island’s roads impassable, which left people isolated in villages without the most basic necessities. 70% of bridges in the Dominican Republic were destroyed. The island’s agriculture and tourism system suffered greatly with 55% of the agricultural system lost, partly from mudslides, flash floods, and swollen river valleys. 90% of all the plantations in the area were destroyed. Rice, bananas, and cavassa plants, the most prevalent food sources on the island, were hit hard. Large pastures for animals were destroyed, as well as poultry farms and other livestock areas. The damage to farmland and agriculture would total out to about $434 million. Damage and repairs to houses and public buildings reached over $400 million.
For the DAST team, immediate priorities were getting the aid piling up in warehouses at the airport out to those areas of the country that needed it the most. With the only American rotary-wing assets inbound, the DAST became a focal point of the Embassy’s relief efforts.
The “Night Stalkers” Arrive, 25 September
Just 72 hours after Hurricane George swept over Hispaniola, D Company 160th SOAR arrived with two MH-60 helicopters. At the airport, DAST team members awaited their arrival. Coordination with the airport for the necessary support had already been arranged by the team. Touching down at Santo Domingo Airport, the two groups enjoyed a brief reunion, reunited with the pilots and aircrews that they previously worked within Panama just a few weeks earlier. After securing the aircraft and equipment, the pilots and aircrews traveled back with the team and settled into the Jaragua hotel.
At the evening ops meeting, the lead pilot was briefed on the situation. The immediate mission was to start ferrying tons of relief supplies from the airport out to designated locations throughout the country that were hardest hit. The concept of operation was straightforward, in addition to the aircrew, two Special Forces soldiers would fly onboard to help distribute the aid and provide security for the aircraft and crew. The team would rotate every day and fly as many sorties as possible given fuel and other flight restrictions. Operations would begin at first light and be conducted during daylight hours only in order to prevent unnecessary risk to civilians on the ground. Locations for the next day’s missions would be briefed to the aircrew that evening after the daily morning Embassy huddle.
Over the next two weeks, the team delivered hundreds of thousands of tons of relief supplies throughout the country. During those initial days, most of the relief supplies were shuttled out to locations by the 160th aircrews, no other military aviation assets were yet present in the country. That is with one exception, a French military helicopter from Martinique had also arrived to support the relief effort, along with a small contingent of French military personnel.
In an interesting media spin, one evening, the local news broadcast a segment showing the American MH-60s delivering relief supplies. However, the reporter attributed the deliveries not to the Americans, but to the gallant French military! Another lesson for the after-action review, get ahead of the media and tell your story. It seemed ironic that the Americans were delivering the bulk of the relief aid in those first critical days after the hurricane, but with typical French élan, they had managed to garner all the credit.
Most of the flights to relief areas were uneventful, the aircraft would land at a designated Landing Zone, be met by local relief workers or government officials, and off-load the supplies without incident. That was not always the case, in several instances, the helicopter was rushed by desperate people trying to grab whatever they could. The Special Forces soldiers and crew chiefs did their best to contain the chaos, but at least on one occasion, they had to take off without completing their delivery due to security concerns.
On several occasions it was noted that only local “government officials” arrived to secure the delivery and rumors began to circulate that corrupt individuals were hoarding the relief supplies, doling out the aid to family and friends first, and then gouging the locals for whatever remained. This was brought up during the Embassy huddles. The Embassy sent clear messages to the host nation’s government: get this under control or jeopardize the legitimacy of the relief effort.
During one of the morning Embassy meetings, the team leadership was approached with an urgent request. The Embassy was obligated to account for all American citizens in the country, a daunting task even under the best of circumstances. The Country Team had received a report of several missing American citizens who were believed to have been hiking out in the mountains prior to the storm. Their whereabouts remained unknown, and the Embassy wanted to try and locate them. The only information as to their location was a report that they were last seen hiking somewhere in a 100 square kilometer area of a mountainous and heavily vegetated region near the Haitian border.
At the meeting, there was a groundswell of support to use the Special Forces to search for the missing individuals. After explaining that without a more accurate search location, it would be very difficult for a handful of men to effectively search an area that large. Quite literally it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. The team leadership also asked if it was the intent to pull one of the only two helicopters delivering relief aid out of operations in order to attempt to locate these missing individuals? After some more thoughtful deliberation, it was decided that without more information it would make more sense to continue delivering supplies, at least until there was more definitive information as to the location of the Americans.
Those American hikers would later be found safe and unharmed a few days later. Interestingly, for some working in the Embassy, they seemed dismayed at the team’s response to not jump at attempting a rescue. The perception was “you are Special Forces, you can do anything, right?” It became important for the team leadership to manage expectations.
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