The Communications Department in D-11NR with the assistance and advice of LCDR Mary A. Cox, Director of Auxiliary, D-11NR, has organized a group dubbed the "Auxiliary Rapid Response Team, Communications, otherwise called the "ARRT".  For major marine disasters (i.e. airplane crashes, ferry sinking, etc.) as well as for extended or complex SAR, the Group Controller will call a "duty Auxiliary Watch Officer" (AWO).  For those that are not aware of it, the District maintains a Duty Roster seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.  That program has been in place for several years, now.  Anytime a Controller needs Auxiliary communications assistance, usually mobile communications support, the Controller calls the AWO and requests the support he needs.  The AWO then calls out the appropriate mobile unit(s) under orders and then monitors the case, usually via one of our Auxiliary repeaters.  In appropriate cases, as defined in the Controller's Quick Reaction Sheet, the Controller, or the Coast Guard OPS Duty Officer makes a determination that an Auxiliary Rapid Response Team is needed for communications support.  It is the AWO's responsibility to complete a callout of the initial response (stage one) team (usually 3 - 5 Auxiliarists and the ARRT's responsibility to get on scene and set up a communications suite for communications at the CP and/or the UCP (Unified Command Post), an intrasite net, an interagency net and a communications net with the cognizant command center, usually the Group.

The ARRT consists of a three tier response.  First an ARRT team leader who responds with one or two other communicators and sets up the communications suite and collects and relays all of the C3I (Command, Control, Communications & Intelligence) that is available to the Group and holds updated data for the incoming Coast Guard IC.  The ARRT also ensures the Group Controller designates an On-Scene Commander (OSC) for the incident and sets up and maintains communications with that unit.  The OSC takes command of any on-the-water rescues/tasks.  Secondly, the ARRT sets up liaison communications with the other agencies and identifies and maintains communications with the land agency IC.  Note, however, that all command decisions are still made by the Group Controller.  The Auxiliarists in the field are not charged with making command decisions.  They do make decisions in the field about their deployment and the frequency plans they put together.  Finally, a third response tier is put on standby as reserves or for a second shift if needed. The idea, of course, is that a Coast Guard communications suite is set up and functioning when the Coast Guard IC gets on scene, or at least shortly thereafter.  On a second tier response, several more Auxiliary Mobile Units are responded, and their assignment will be dependent on the structure of the ICS model that is in place.

Now that the Incident Command System (ICS), an incident management tool for a variety of situations, has been formally adopted by the Coast Guard, we are requiring that all members of the ARRT trained in ICS - to different degrees depending on how particular people will participate in response to anticipated situations (i.e., there are four levels of ICS training - everyone should get levels 1 and 2; only the top brass need all the way through level 4).  This is an important issue now to the active duty Coast Guard, particularly with operations involving other agencies (most of which have also adopted ICS).  As of April 2, 2001, all of the initial ARRT Team members have been trained in ICS 200 as a minimum.  New candidate team members will have to take the courses up through ICS-300 to qualify as team members.

On June 28, 2000, the Prototype ARRT-C team participated with Coast Guard San Francisco in a 35-Agency drill, exercising plans for an aircrash in San Francisco Bay on approach to Oakland Airport.  Both the Group and the Auxiliary had specific goals for the exercise; we wanted to test the integration of the ARRT-C teams members into a full-blown ICS exercise, both from the water rescue but also to be able to monitor and report on the rest of the incident management, and to test the ability of the Auxiliary unit to be the primary communications suite for the Coast Guard.  All of the objectives set out by both the Coast Guard and the Auxiliary were met.

WRITTEN BY T DUNBAR DSO/CM 11NR     Email: mobile9@aol.com
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