Photo By Sgt. Cassandra Monroe | Boats belonging to the United States Coast Guard line up at a dock, ready and waiting...... read more read more
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By Maj. Michael Wunn
Minnesota National Guard
ST. PAUL, Minn. - The United States Coast Guard is using everything from its elite security response teams to local Coast Guard reservists to ensure the St. Paul waterfront remains safe during the Republican National Convention.
More than 300 Coast Guard personnel, working hand-in-hand with local law enforcement authorities and other federal partners, are on station patrolling and securing the Mississippi river through downtown.
"This is a unique operation from the Coast Guard point of view because we've never blended the types of resources to the extent that we have here," said Capt. Steve Hudson, the Coast Guard incident commander for the convention.
The Coast Guard's mission is to provide safety and security to the overall waterfront of St. Paul and the convention venue, which is relatively close to the river, said Hudson. "We do that by having a 24-hour presence on board the river."
"It's the first time we've done this to that extent in an inland environment," he said. "I have my staff from Sector Upper Mississippi River which is out of St. Louis. I have two Marine Safety and Security Teams, one from New York and one from Kings Bay, Ga. - and I have the Marine Security Response Team, which is out of Chesapeake, Va."
The involvement of the Coast Guard's elite Maritime Security Response Team, a new counter-terrorism force with advanced interdiction capabilities, provides the incident commander a significant resource to protect the St. Paul riverfront.
"Those are more of our high-end capabilities where we have a very dangerous situation that we need to be able to come in and control and dominate a piece of the water way," said Hudson.
But these elite forces are only part of the Coast Guard's RNC team.
"I have sector boats; I have MSSTs; and I have MSRT boats. In addition to that, I have a lot of Blue Force partners; I have the Ramsey County Sheriff. They have a presence on the water 24 hours a day - and I have the St. Paul Fire department," said Hudson.
In addition, the Coast Guard has a strong relationship with the Secret Service, the lead federal agency securing the convention, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Energy.
"Those are the key pieces of the federal partnership," said Hudson. "In my 25 years in the Coast Guard, this is the largest operation I've been involved in. I've never seen the level of cooperation and the smoothness of communication and sharing of information...this is the best I've ever seen," he said.
The Coast Guard began planning for this operation more than a year ago.
"This is pretty unique for us. It's been a long lead time. A lot of planners have been working hard for several months to pull off this operation. And now when it's game time, the planners, the logisticians, the communicators, hand it over to the operators and now it's our time," he said.
During the last few days, Coast Guard operators have been busy identifying those activities going on along the river that may present a higher risk to the convention, such as commercial traffic transiting the river near downtown.
"We provide security for that. Some of the larger, commercial passenger cruises - we see that as a potential target for someone to disrupt the event and harm some folks...so we've been adding some resources there," said Hudson.
Even with assets from all over the country converging on St. Paul to help secure the river, the Coast Guard relies on local members to give them the upper hand in making sure the waterway remains safe for the convention.
"They wanted to have some local knowledge on the boat. I live four miles from here and know the river pretty well," said Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Arney, a boarding officer and boat operator with Marine Safety Detachment St. Paul, Coast Guard Sector Upper Mississippi River.
"I've been out on the river for two summers now. It's nice to have people with local knowledge that can see things out of the ordinary. Obviously, if there's something that's very different, we're going to know it. A lot of these guys from out of town might not be able to see those things," said Arney.
Despite the increased security measures, river traffic continues to move through downtown St. Paul as normal.
"The river has stayed open for commercial and recreational transit throughout the convention. We have measures in place that, if it needs to be shut down, it can be shut down immediately. But it's been pretty seamless the last few days...If something does happen, we're ready to close it down and keep people out of the area," said Arney.
| Date Taken: | 09.04.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 09.04.2008 03:49 |
| Story ID: | 23180 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 454 |
| Downloads: | 393 |
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