Parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida were declared disaster areas because of direct storm damage. Emergency declarations also were provided for states struggling to accommodate the influx of evacuees from the storm. Here is a list of states NOT part of the emergency declaration: Hawaii, Alaska and Vermont. The other 47 states all are part of the emergency and continue to be severely impacted.

Photo Credit: Gerald Nino

A Border Patrol Agent scans the submerged streets on New Orleans looking for people in distress following the damage and flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina in early September. CBP employees joined the largest federal mobilization in history to try to ease suffering along the Gulf Coast.

An incident of national significance

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff declared it the first-ever Incident of National Significance, which triggered the DHS national response plan and “the largest response mobilization in United States history,” according to Chertoff.

And to top things off, just as conditions after Katrina were beginning to be controlled, Hurricane Rita, a slightly weaker but quite damaging storm, struck the Texas-Louisiana border just west of New Orleans.

Photo Credit: Gerald Nino

Commissioner Robert C. Bonner encourages CBP employees gathered in a hangar in Gulfport, Miss. before they went out to assist in Hurricane Katrina disaster recovery. The roof of the hangar had been partially blown off by the storm.

CBP Commissioner Robert C. Bonner toured the most severely impacted areas just after the storm. “Our volunteer CBP rescue workers saved lives and eased suffering in this time of great need,” Bonner said. “Their effort, dedication and sacrifice in my eyes have been heroic.”

First responders

While Katrina strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico, teams of Florida CBP officers from Miami, Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa, who are used to responding to hurricanes and tropical storms, gathered as many supplies as they could carry and staged just east of the storm, in the Florida panhandle, waiting for their opportunity to move.

At the same time in the west, teams of CBP Border Patrol Tactical Units, Border Search, Trauma and Rescue and Special Response Teams from El Centro, Calif. and El Paso, Texas gathered the equipment and supplies they would need and stood by for the storm to pass. Personnel around the country and at headquarters from field operations, Border Patrol, CBP Air, human resources, finance, technology, and anti-terrorism were preparing to respond.

While CBP personnel around the country were on alert, employees in the Gulf Coast prepared for impact. Continuation of operations plans were implemented, employees secured their worksites and evacuated to safety.

Once the storm passed, the 30 CBP officers in the Florida contingency, as they called themselves, made their way to Gulfport, Miss. Led by CBP Miami Seaport Chief Bruce Boswell, they began the task of locating the homes of CBP personnel to see what they could do to assist. “We provided relief to them by removing trees, patching the roofs, providing food and water, generators and stuff like that,” Boswell explained. “In Gulfport that first week, we had no running water. We were taking water out of neighborhood pools to bathe with. When you were out on a job, you’d say, ‘hey there’s a pool here,’ and we’d fill up five-gallon buckets of water to bring back to pour over us at the end of the day because we were totally filthy.”

On to Louisiana

When the levees broke in New Orleans, flooding the city with water up to the second floors and attics of some houses, the mission changed and became much more desperate.

While the Florida contingency worked its way toward Louisiana, the teams from the west reported to Baton Rouge, La. to provide search and rescue and law enforcement support. DHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency had set up a Joint Field Office in Baton Rouge where more than 3,000 coordinators worked to deploy the 72,000 federal workers in the area in cooperation with military, state, city and humanitarian forces.

“When we got there, logistics were our first task,” search and rescue team leader Bo Mendoza, said. Their first missions were rescue and humanitarian relief. “We were flying in and picking up victims from the Superdome and other areas and getting them to the New Orleans airport,” where a hospital had been set up, Mendoza said. “We were picking up MREs [Meals Ready to Eat] and water and dropping them off where they needed to go.”

By September 3, CBP had established the Forward Deployed Operations Command Center at Hammond, La. to handle the multitude of requests from throughout the region. The command center quickly identified three priority missions: law enforcement augmentation, search and rescue, and hurricane relief.

The state of Louisiana deputized CBP officers and agents as Peace Officers so that they could assist in local law enforcement. CBP teams conducted searches of property for missing people, rode with local law enforcement responding to calls and making arrests, and provided security to locations or operations.

Photo Credit: Gerald Nino

A CBP Blackhawk helicopter soars over the storm-damaged Superdome in New Orleans on its way to a search and rescue mission. CBP Air helped state, local, federal and military authorities with rescue efforts.

The invisible guiding angels

High above the frantic efforts on the ground during this time, CBP Air played a crucial role in providing communications, search and rescue coordination and overall control of a 200,000 square mile radius.

CBP Air’s arrival on the scene provided FEMA and its partners a clear picture of the extent of the damage through photos and videos. CBP Air’s early warning and long-range tracker aircraft also provided constant aerial support to military, law enforcement and other agencies. The aircrews helped coordinate 600 to 900 air sorties daily over the impacted area, without incident.

Photo Credit: Gerald Nino

A grateful resident of New Orleans thanks crewmember after he was rescued from an elevated freeway near downtown.

The planes utilized their advanced communications systems to provide needed linkages for first responders on the scene including police, fire and other emergency services. Normal communication towers had been destroyed by the storm. The plane’s infrared cameras also provided early detection of fires in the area.

Photo Credit: Gerald Nino

CBP Border Patrol agent checks a home that had made a 911 call, looking for survivors or bodies.

A symbol is secured

In the midst of great destruction stood a reminder of the greatness of New Orleans and the spirit of the people who call it home—the New Orleans Customhouse. The Customhouse took over 33 years to build, beginning in the 1840s, and became a centerpiece for trade and prosperity in the southern United States.

When Katrina hit, the Customhouse was flooded and employees were relocated to other locations to continue the CBP mission. But as soon as possible, CBP employees visited their Customhouse and raised the American flag and CBP Ensign as a mark of their determination to return to New Orleans. Repairs will be extensive and time consuming, but the determination to get it done is solid.

Photo Credit: Gerald Nino

CBP personnel are sworn in as Peace Officers by the state of Louisiana. This designation enabled the CBP volunteers to deploy into New Orleans to respond to emergency calls, assist state and local police and enforce curfews.

“The Customhouse stands as a symbol to all in the New Orleans and Gulf Coast region that U.S. Customs and Border Protection will return to New Orleans. We will not waiver from our mission to protect America’s borders,” Commissioner Robert C. Bonner said.

Photo Credit: Gerald Nino

CBP Border Patrol Agents patrol the streets of New Orleans the only way they could, by boat. Flooding after Hurricane Katrina raised the water level to rooftops in low-lying areas of the city.

Rescue, and recovery

Supervisory CBP Officer Eric Larochelle, one of the CBP team leaders, recounted how his team responded to some of the emergency distress calls that had been made the day of the storm but had gone unanswered.

“We were attached to an operation where we were going to answer as many of the calls as we could,” Larochelle said. “An example is they would give us an address with a description like: ‘single mother trapped in attic with kids, water level rising, please help.’ This call was made the day of the hurricane, now it’s two weeks later and we’re answering these calls…”

He pauses and looks down. “So, we would go into these areas and basically we would break into doors if we had to, however we could gain access to these areas. We were in a search and rescue mode. We were looking for bodies. We were looking for survivors. We found both.”

Photo Credit: Gerald Nino

Bill Heffelfinger, operations center commanding officer in Hammond, La, deploys his troops to hot spots in the greater New Orleans area during recovery from Hurricane Katrina. At the end of the assignment, Heffelfinger told the group, “This is an unprecedented event in CBP’s history. We’ve done it together blue, green, and tan. I’m very proud of you.”

No shortage of tasks

The center’s operations lead, Vernon Foret, explained that once it was known that CBP was there, the requests poured in. “It was automatic. Once they realized we were here it was, ‘We’ve got requests for support in Baton Rouge…. We’ve got a triage facility and need 12 officers…. There’s an oil refinery and we have agents on the ground and they need to be relieved.…’”

At the height of operations, CBP had over 650 personnel from every discipline deployed to the region. CBP officers, agents, pilots and boat crews were performing a variety of work, initially rescuing people, handing out food and water and recovering bodies. Then on to law enforcement patrols followed by cutting down trees, repairing homes and recovering property.

Whenever possible, teams were deployed to check on and assist CBP employees who had not been heard from since the storm hit.

Can anyone run a chainsaw?

Assistant Chief Chuck Sears, command center executive officer, explained that it didn’t matter what someone’s day job was. “There were missions out there that had to be performed,” Sears said. “Everybody had special skills to be utilized. It didn’t always have to be a special operations branch. We started querying who knows how to run chainsaws safely? Who could perform these missions that we had to go out and do, who had carpentry skills? Those were the missions people stepped up to do and those were the missions that became very important – to support the CBP families that were impacted during this tragedy.”

Supervisory CBP Officer Keith Gillan, one of several CBP command center team leaders, recalled one of the relief missions that touched him the most. “We helped one guy who retired from CBP a couple years ago. He has cancer and lived right down the road from one of the CBP pilots. We were at the pilot’s house doing work and he came up and said he was retired CBP, so we went over and helped him on his house because he couldn’t do it. That was probably the most satisfying mission for me.”

On September 7, Commissioner Bonner announced that all 400 CBP personnel in and around New Orleans had been accounted for.

While operations were in full swing, several mission support offices were working around the clock to get impacted CBP employees the help they needed. Personnel from the Employee Assistance Program were working with employees to help them cope with the emotional toll, and the Safety & Occupational Health Branch provided employees with immunizations against potential pathogens they might encounter working in the region, health screenings and basic on-site medical care.

An assist from HQ

Two offices that had great impact on operations were the CBP finance and information technology teams. The finance office was making arrangements in anticipation of the storm and worked around the clock to get employees into and out of the area and arrange a system to pay for supplies in areas where computers were down and the only way to get supplies was with cash.

Logistics teams from headquarters and around the country were identifying and obtaining fuel, food, water, vehicles, car carriers, cots, sleeping bags, tents, portable showers, refrigerators, air conditioners, generators, temporary warehouse space, pens, paper, white boards, uniforms, shoes, t-shirts, medical supplies, and much more to send to the command center logistics team.

“We were reacting to the operational needs today and also trying to anticipate what would be needed down the road,” explained Trent Frazier, headquarters logistics officer. In several cases, logistics needed a helping hand. “There were several instances where we used CBP air assets or ground assets to move things around. It’s almost like a bartering system, saying ‘I need this’ and they’re saying ‘to do that, I need this.’ So, you’re working with someone to use assets to get things in for the operations.”

Restoring communications

Early in the response, the command center struggled to communicate with personnel in New Orleans because CBP’s radio repeater sites had been damaged or destroyed by the storm. Technology teams identified alternate locations to install equipment and got the gear there by any means possible.

“On top of the Hilton Hotel in downtown New Orleans, 30 stories up, on top of the hotel, we installed a radio repeater so that everyone could communicate from Hammond to the Border Patrol Sector,” said David Quainton, the command center OIT lead. “That equipment had to be carried up, all that equipment, all 30 floors. There was no elevator.”

This is where “whatever it takes” took hold.

The team evaluated all communications in the area including local area networks, data connectivity and telephone systems. Once they identified the status, they did what they could to get the systems running.

The healing begins

A million people were forced to flee their homes in the face of Katrina. Most were left with no place go in the worst dislocation of Americans since the Civil War. Some managed to fill a trash bag with some spare clothes; most survived possessing nothing more than what they wore.

Who would have thought that CBP could have stepped up to help this situation?

Routinely CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers confiscate counterfeit products for violations of trademark and intellectual property rights. Stored in warehouses around the country are truckloads of confiscated goods, including clothes. There is a subsection of the law on these violations that says that the property can be donated with permission from the aggrieved manufacturer. That permission was granted in short order.

So CBP and ICE employees went to work, teaming up to truck the clothing where it was needed. Soon $20 million worth of clothing for men, women and children was speeding its way to shelters in Houston, San Antonio, Texas and Jackson, Miss. and other sites.

“Customs and Border Protection is happy to be able to assist in clothing some of the many people who lost literally everything they own in Katrina,” said Tom Winkowski, acting deputy assistant commissioner for field operations, who was involved in deliveries in Mississippi.

Once at shelters, CBP and ICE personnel turned the clothes over to Red Cross and other volunteer organizations for distribution to grateful evacuees.

Providing a sense of security

CBP Officer Peter Mitchell of the contraband enforcement team at the Elizabeth Seaport in Newark, N.J., was one of many who volunteered to help in Louisiana.

“The one thing that really sticks with me is the interaction we had with the people who were affected by the hurricane,” Mitchell said. “People were constantly coming up to us and thanking us for coming down to help. They really seemed to appreciate the fact that we were there. I think it gave them a sense of security to see uniformed officers out on the street.”

Mitchell also thought the response from around the country to be awe-inspiring. “The most memorable thing for me will be the way people came together in a time of great need to help others,” he said. “There were employees from just about every federal agency you could think of, and local police from New York to California. There were even private citizens who came down on their own asking what they could do to help.”

Anytime, anywhere

Finally, on September 30, CBP stood down the Forward Deployed Operations Command Center in Hammond. As the sun set on a relatively cool September afternoon, the men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection gathered for one final muster.

Bill Heffelfinger, command center commanding officer, told his troops: “CBP will never abandon a post until properly relieved. You were asked to accomplish a mission, you stood up, stood proud and you accomplished your mission.

“So, you should go home feeling good. You’ve done what was asked of you and even more. This is an unprecedented event in CBP’s history. We’ve done it together blue, green and tan. I’m very proud of you.

“So, I’ll say to you: You are relieved. Go home. And, when they ask me back at headquarters would I do it again, would I serve with you, I will say to them: ‘Anytime, Anywhere.’”

For more information and photographs on CBP’s response to Hurricane Katrina, Rita and Wilma, please go to CBP.gov.