The news of the COVID-19 pandemic has overshadowed many things over the last two years, but the anniversary of the St. Simons Sound Incident is approaching this fall. If the name doesn't ring a bell, you'd probably remember it better as the capsizing of the Golden Ray.
When the 656-foot motor vessel Golden Ray capsized on a sandbar in the middle of St. Simons Sound, Georgia, Sept. 9, 2019, it necessitated the largest shipwreck removal in US history. The complications of the sheer scale of the ship were only enhanced by the onset of the pandemic.
Two years later, on Oct. 26, 2021, the St. Simons Sound Incident response team (comprising members from the U.S. Coast Guard, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and the responsible party) effectively ended the operation when crews removed the final section of the wreck. Media outlets with audiences great and small created a historical record of the incident from the successful rescue of all crew and implementation of a one-of-a-kind pollution mitigation system to the marvelous engineering techniques and equipment used to cut, lift and transport the hulking car carrier, piece by piece, out of the Port of Brunswick.
However, to truly assess the impact of the nearly 30-month incident response, it must also be observed from the point of view of the people who left their civilian lives and families to support it.
Cmdr. Efren Lopez, senior reserve officer for Sector Charleston, served as the incident federal on-scene coordinator in the spring of 2020 and remained through February 2022 when the Unified Command consisting of the Coast Guard, Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the responsible party representative all agreed that response efforts mitigated any immediate threats of marine pollution and hazards to navigation posed by the shipwreck removal.
"When I look back on what we accomplished, I am most proud of the reservists that devoted significant time supporting the response—in some cases, years," said Lopez. "We integrated with the active duty to provide seamless continuity across the various roles and responsibilities.”
Lopez joined the Coast Guard in 2002 and quickly oriented his career towards leadership opportunities while earning relevant Incident Command System qualifications, notably Incident Commander Type 1.
"All the assistance and education we received from each technical expert propelled us through many challenges and steadied our management of the Golden Ray removal process," said Lopez. "I am so appreciative of my deputies, staff and section chiefs, who I relied upon heavily. They understood the needs of the response and we all worked together to ensure that we got the job done safely. We supervised over three million man-hours of activity without any significant injury, that is simply outstanding."
Achieving such an impeccable safety record required an adaptable safety plan that accounted for health safety protocols to mitigate personnel exposure to coronavirus. Chief Warrant Officer 4 Scott Smith, who spent nearly half of his career attached to the Pacific Strike Team, sequestered in a health safety "bubble" as a safety officer for eight months. He watched over approximately 150 contractors and several rotations of active duty personnel from each strike team throughout the operation. Smith, who recently retired from the Coast Guard, leveraged his many years of civilian experience with the fire service to ensure the safety of responders at the Golden Ray.
The COVID-19 pandemic threw a big wrench into the mix, but Smith said reservists were uniquely qualified to keep operations going.
"As reservists, we have been able to provide an added level of commitment to operations by filling longer assignments, while also minimizing the number of personnel rotations further limiting exposure to COVID."
Petty Officer 1st Class Beth McOmber, a corpsman from Base Seattle, arrived at the response in summer 2020 with the task of implementing rapidly changing COVID-19 medical guidance into an already complex safety environment.
"Our biggest challenge with COVID-19 was in developing policy that is practical and effective when overlaid with the overarching response goals," said McOmber. “We were all there to get that ship out of the water and not hurt ourselves during the process.”
Using her civilian background in public health and respiratory therapy as well as training typical of a Coast Guard corpsman, McOmber directly advised the Unified Command on practical measures to ensure the health safety of hundreds of contracted personnel rotating in and out of the response workforce.
As a result, the coronavirus infection rate was less than 0.5% over approximately 10,000 personnel rotations.
"I'm getting practical experiences that are making my [corpsman] training come alive," said McOmber. "I always want to be of service, that's why I joined the Coast Guard and this response validated my training. I'm already having conversations with fellow corpsmen back home about ICS quals based on their value to incident responses."
In addition to personnel safety challenges, COVID-19 significantly altered the ability for response spokespeople to engage with the local community and the media throughout the majority of the removal operation. The public grew accustomed to certain engagement methods that had to shift in real-time in order to keep information flowing while also addressing speculation about operational impacts to the community and the immediate coastal environment.
"The general public has limited understanding of Coast Guard activities and its role in a marine environmental response," said Lt. Cmdr. Matt Waller, a reservist with 16 years out of Sector Sault Sainte Marie who filled the role of Liaison Officer prior to the beginning of removal operations. "The Golden Ray was a great opportunity to educate the public on our role in such operations and how we work to protect the environment and the public."
Occasional fires and pollution discharges added to public concern already heightened due the massive scale of the overturned ship.
"We knew that lots of speculation would occur about how we were going to get the ship out safely while protecting the environment, as well as keeping port operations functioning due to the proximity of the shipwreck to the shoreline," said Cmdr. Dan Donovan, who replaced Waller. "The size of everything happening at the wreck site—from the mile-long protection barrier built out of huge pilings and netting to the [heavy lift] crane, which is the same size as a 24-story building—just added to the spectacle and the occasional rumor mill."
Donovan drew on his civilian background as an exercise planner with the Coast Guard's Office of Emergency Management & Disaster Response (OEM), and he identified an opportunity to help the public understand the response.
"I help commands develop more comprehensive drills and exercises to better prepare for real-world events, which includes producing media," said Donovan.
He worked with the public information officer to share as much information through the response website as possible.
"I conducted lots of presentations on video conferencing platforms with local government as well as organizations like the Rotary Club, faith groups, and local schools, but the most impactful action was a series of informational videos we created and hosted on the response website to explain all of the salvage engineering, safety measures and marine pollution mitigation systems and techniques," said Donovan. "We shared those videos with every reporter and stakeholder on our contact lists, This kept the public informed of the response progress and gave them a little insight to the multiple operations involved in the success of the mission."
While not unique to any manager of a long-term response, maintaining continuity of operations in a COVID-19 mitigation environment made typical staffing issues much more difficult.
"This was not a response that necessarily supported a revolving door of reserve[ist] responders coming and going on short term orders. We had to work inside bubbles, observe health safety protocols that frequently clashed with typical response workforce management, and each member had to quarantine for two weeks prior to reporting in for duty," Donovan said.
Lopez added, "We could not have been as successful without the reservists that volunteered for multiple back-to-back ADOS stints in support of this operation. I know just how difficult it is to make a 30-day or 60-day deployment work in the midst of a civilian career and family responsibilities, so to volunteer for even longer deployment orders can be very hard on the member."
Chief Petty Officer Joseph D. Wilson, a reservist with 20 years at Sector Miami, filled many roles in order to provide the continuity needed by the response.
"Continuity in division supervisor roles is so important for safety and response success, especially because the contractors are less likely to rotate personnel as frequently as the Coast Guard," said Wilson. "Every time a division supervisor, or DIVS as we call them, passes their role onto an incoming member, I stress helping that new member integrate into an on-going operation, which, despite being supervised by the Coast Guard, is often not executed by Coast Guard personnel. Seeing the big picture in every Coast Guard role is very important."
Chief Petty Officer Jerome Chen, a reservist from Sector Puget Sound, agreed.
"Having an ICS background and a civilian job as a safety manager allowed me to easily plug into this response,” said Chen. "Learning how different organizations work together helps me become a better leader in my civilian job too. The response community is smaller than a lot of people think because I've worked alongside the same technical experts in previous responses and I expect to see them again on the next one.”
Chief Petty Officer Erin Young combined administrative expertise with ICS qualifications earned over nine years with the Gulf Strike Team as she filled the role of admin unit leader across multiple sets of orders.
"Having an admin background of travel claims, orders and documentation routing and being able to communicate easily with admin shops from each member's home unit is essential to being a competent admin unit leader on a response," said Young, an 18-year member of the Coast Guard. "Being with the strike team, I can also fill operational roles when needed which is what I did on other deployments such as Deepwater and a number of hurricane responses. So whether the response needs a DIVS-qualified member to manage a [shoreline clean-up and assessment technique (SCAT)] team and oversee contractors or a tech working in a particular response section or branch, strike team members, active and reserve, are expected to be ready to fill those roles, regardless of their rating."
Ultimately, most of the Coast Guard members who deployed in support of the St. Simons Sound Incident response felt pride fulfilling their roles while witnessing history in the making. "This was a unique experience," said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Rick Baynor of the Atlantic Strike Team, who served several sets of orders at the response. "The capacity and the amount of engineering that went into this to do it safely and do it in an expeditious manner was like nothing I've ever seen."
Lopez said he was grateful for the reservists who showed up to get the work done, especially given the setting of the pandemic.
"Frankly, it's outstanding that our organization attracts motivated people who not only get qualified and get out on responses, but they also make big sacrifices to ensure the Coast Guard's mission carries forward at all times," said Lopez.
"We were all a part of history, which is really satisfying,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Jeremy Bolton, a member of Sector Charleston. "As I continue my reserve career and deploy to responses, I'll definitely look back and remember the Golden Ray."
| Date Taken: |
06.01.2022 |
| Date Posted: |
12.31.2022 21:33 |
| Story ID: |
436155 |
| Location: |
US |
| Web Views: |
210 |
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0 |
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