CCO Katrina to Ike

Author: Major David Luttrell 13 Sept 2008
Position: Contracting Officer/Contract Coordinator
ILE Student Fort Gordon / 401st Army Field Support Brigade

Disclaimer:The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

I spent much of last night watching Hurricane Ike approach and ultimately strike Galveston. I spent much time as a child on and around Galveston and it was like watching your home town destroyed. I also thought about the time I spent in New Orleans immediately following Katrina. Although the damage and devastation doesn't appear to be as wide spread and severe as Katrina I can't help but think about the challenges for military members moving into the area to provide relief and support.

I deployed with the 13th COSCOM now the 13th Support Command (Expeditionary) several days after Katrina struck. We left Fort Hood and convoyed through Houston, spending the night in Channelview at a NG armory. After leaving the next morning the first problem that occurred was lack of fuel. We had deployed with some organic fuel assets but after refueling our vehicles once, we were running low and knew there would be no fuel in New Orleans. We located a truck stop and purchased fuel to refill our tanker. This was a time consuming operation and slowed our movement considerably. We arrived at NO airport after dark and moved into the terminal for the night. The next day I began verifying vendor lists that I had brought from Hood. What I found was that there were no businesses open initially and slowly a few began to open and provide some commodities and limited services. One of the problems I saw was that FEMA, although very effective at collecting resources, was unable to distribute those resources to the people that needed them. The effect of this on me and my mission to provide for the COSCOM was that what limited resources that were available were owned by FEMA. As a result I spent a lot of time coordinating with FEMA for many of the requirements I needed to meet. Another thing I was able to do, with help from Ft Hood Contracting and Army Contracting Agency Southern Region, was leverage service contracts already in place at other installations.

The moral of this story is when you go into a contingency you have to think outside the normal. Don't expect there to be coordination between agencies. If you need something from another agency go find someone from that agency and ask. There is no cookie cutter approach to contingency contracting every contingency is different with different challenges and different agencies. Just keep moving!