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NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - (April 23, 2019) – The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) is currently undergoing refueling complex overhaul (RCOH) in Newport News, Virginia, and many Sailors are doing work that is not what their rate usually requires in order to help the ship complete the overhaul as soon as possible.
Despite this fact, damage controlmen aboard George Washington maintain their general duties as they help the ship remain on schedule.
“We still have some of some of our repair lockers up, so we still maintain those,” said Chief Damage Controlman Peter Martinez, from Chicago. “We still do some maintenance on some of the firefighting systems that are up. A lot of it is in [storage] or removed, like our aqueous film-forming foam stations (AFFF). Whatever equipment we do have, we work on.”
Even though a lot of damage control equipment has been removed from George Washington, the damage controlmen are still ready to aid the ship to the best of their ability in any situation that arises.
“We maintain all the fixed firefighting systems, different repair lockers that house all the equipment we might need to combat a casualty, and lifesaving equipment like [self-contained breathing apparatuses], stuff we use for firefighting, and [emergency escape breathing devices],” said Martinez.
Damage controlmen are also instrumental in every step of the process of getting the ship out of the dry dock and out of the shipyards entirely.
“Right now the push is getting ready to flood the dry dock and getting ready to undock,” said Martinez. “Getting all of our ready-to-flood items like ballasting, list control, our tanks: all of our systems we need for certain spaces ready is a priority. When we start flooding the dry dock, it’s going to be a big thing. We have to make sure every space below the waterline is going to be watertight. You don’t want to put water in a tank.”
RCOH also presents a rare training opportunity for newer damage controlmen.
“A lot of the new people that come in, once we start bringing our systems back up, will be able to see it rebuilt from the ground up like our AFFF,” said Martinez, “They’ll learn from that, and I think it will give them a better grasp on how the system actually works. They see it in computer-based training, but they’ve never worked on it, so they get to see how it’s done.”
Training on damage control equipment and procedures is not just limited to damage controlmen, though. Even though some of the equipment aboard the ship has been removed during the RCOH process, training on procedures and practices of damage control continue for the entire crew.
“One of the main jobs of a damage controlman is to train the crew in all aspects of damage control, because you can’t just depend on the damage control organization when you have a fire, flooding, or [chemical, biological, radiological] attack,” said Martinez.
Training happens on the floating accommodation facility (FAF) every day of the week, and in each duty section through drills and scheduled training.
“If you have a Sailor that doesn’t know what to do if they see water coming on the ship, then I would feel like we’re not doing our job as damage controlmen,” said Martinez. “But if we train the Sailors on what to do – initial responses, initial actions, and they get it done, then we save the ship.”
All of these responsibilities are done daily by almost every damage controlman. These Sailors stand at the ready to respond to a variety of situations at a moment’s notice.
“Anytime there’s a casualty that could happen onboard, our equipment and our response is always going to be one of the first things that’s going to prevent high casualties to personnel,” said Damage Controlman 1st Class Mark Carroll from Middletown, Ohio.
From maintenance to training to casualty response, with or without equipment aboard, the damage controlmen aboard George Washington overcome the hardships involved in being in RCOH and maintain the core responsibilities of their rate. They are integral to keeping the ship on its path of getting out of the dry dock and back to the fleet as one of the most advanced and capable warships in the world.
| Date Taken: | 04.23.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 04.30.2019 15:36 |
| Story ID: | 319911 |
| Location: | NEWPORT NEWS, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 30 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, At Sea and Ashore: Damage Controlmen Maintain the Ship, by PO2 Tatyana Freeman, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
