Savannah Baird | Fort Knox News | Nov. 1, 2024
FORT KNOX, Kentucky — In the days following the touch down of Hurricane Helene at Fort Eisenhower, Georgia, neighboring military installations like Fort Knox set out to help by sending out a call for volunteers.
Three individuals from the Fort Knox Garrison team heeded the call and geared up to assist.
“All of us wanted to go down,” said Capt. Carolee Schwarzer, a general contractor for the Directorate of Public Works’ Master Planning Division. “We had all been seeing it on the news and [it’s] one of the things you always want to do, right? You’re not here to sit around in your office, you’re here to help. So, me, Anthony Holt and David Fusselman ended up getting in a government vehicle and driving down on Wednesday morning [Oct. 2].”
The team’s first priority was to relieve some of the individuals who were affected by Hurricane Helene; next, they helped establish a battle rhythm.
“Once I was there, it allowed the Fort Eisenhower staff to rotate out and take a day off after eight straight 12-hour days,” said Fusselman, Emergency Management specialist with the Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security. “[After that], the first few days were spent getting to know their installation systems and my ability to access them. Although much more severe destruction-wise, the processes were much like the ice storm that knocked out power on Fort Knox in 2009.”
Once the team was acclimated with Fort Eisenhower’s emergency response operations, they divided to best meet the installation’s needs.
“I went to the Directorate of Public Works side to get a rough estimate of the damages and what needed to come online now,” said Holt, a Business and Operations Integrated Division general engineer. “What is mission essential right now and what can wait; let’s get these mission essential things functioning.”
The first areas of concern were housing, utilities, the commissary and the hospital. Then, focus shifted to surveying areas of impact for damage and setting up financial assistance.
“Once the initial response was over and personnel were safe, [the engineers] started conducting surveys to determine the extent of the damage and what needed to be done to get their essential functions back online to resume some form of normalcy, even if degraded,” said Fusselman.
Upon receiving survey feedback, it was noted that an extensive amount of the damage came from fallen trees. The big concern, however, was with the trees still standing – kind of.
“For every one fallen tree, there were two more leaning. So, what we were worried about, especially when we were talking about mid-term to long-term planning was – we had two storms in the Gulf recently – [what] if they hit us again? How many trees are going to [fall] over and cause more damage?” said Schwarzer.
As the team moved between the emergency operations center and DPW, they were able to help with work directly affiliated with the damage they were seeing.
Holt said, on the DPW side, he worked a lot with damage assessments, and one of the ways he helped was by proactively cushioning their estimates to account for projected secondary damages.
“Whenever I was looking at some of these things, I would put a percentage anywhere from 25-50% [for damages. Then], I made sure to add an extra 25 to 35% in there on top of everything for their secondary effects and other damages that had not yet been reported,” said Holt. “A lot of these secondary affects were seen within the first five days.”
Another Fort Knox entity that assisted was the Fort Knox Army Community Service Army Emergency Relief Program.
According to Kelly Willett, ACS branch manager, an influx of AER online applications brought a need for assistance from AER programs across the Army.
Four officers from Fort Knox assisted in assessing, contacting and closing out 34% of the 1,100 applications from affected Fort Eisenhower community members who needed assistance with basic needs.
“We just dove in there as a team,” said Willett. “We had a force out there, with these AER sections, to help these service members [and] to ensure that their basic, essential needs were being addressed in a timely manner.”
According to Willett, applications were approved for up to $600 in aid funds.
“Incidents like this have a tendency to build partnerships across installations and with the outside community; it is not something you tackle alone,” said Fusselman. “Like Fort Knox in 2009, I have no doubt the Fort Eisenhower community will take lessons learned from this disaster and become a much more resilient installation moving forward.”
Visit Fort Knox News or all of Central Kentucky’s latest military news and information.