As Hurricane Helene gathered strength in the Gulf of Mexico before landfall along the shores of Florida, members of the Civil Air Patrol Geospatial Team were working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Response Geospatial Office in preparation for damage assessment efforts in the region.
As of Oct. 7, 100 members from 31 wings, along with three assigned to region staffs, devoted more than 2,000 volunteer hours to assisting FEMA in locating and assessing damage to homes and businesses throughout the state’s coastal areas.
Working with teams from FEMA, the contractor Dewberry, and the National-Geospatial Intelligence Agency, members have completed more than 90,000 assessments and identified over 40,000 damaged structures across six states that have been declared major disasters.
“The needs of our government partners are always changing, and this particular incident — the fifth hurricane we’ve responded to this year so far — is no exception,” said Maj. Scott Kaplan, National CAP Geospatial Program manager.
“As such, we’ve been actively training a smaller team of members on assessing open-source video and images to serve our communities faster and more efficiently, and to assist those affected with greater speed and accuracy,” Kaplan said.
“A much more complex process, this portion of the team has been slowly expanding. After a larger amount of satellite or airborne imagery is available, such as this event, we’ve leveraged hundreds of trained CAP members.”
“Time and time again, the Geospatial Program’s Damage Assessment Team has been a force-multiplier for FEMA,” said Capt. Christopher Freeze, CAP’s incident commander. “The multistate nature of this disaster presented both vast and unusual challenges for those involved, but the CAP Geospatial Team continues to provide meaningful analysis.”
Also, last month, the Damage Assessment Training Course, or DATC, Operations Qualification became a reality within CAP’s eServices. Members who want to complete this training need to go to the CAP geospatial page, sign up, and follow the process.
While performing damage assessment of affected structures is important work, the Geospatial Program’s biggest draw is that anyone can participate, regardless of location, age, gender, or disability.
“We allow everyone to be involved, and that’s been the most important piece of our program since its inception,” Kaplan said.
Meanwhile, the team is preparing for Hurricane Milton’s arrival in Florida, where its members will once again step up.
Acting as a Total Force partner and official civilian auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, Civil Air Patrol helps First Air Force rapidly respond to nonmilitary threats domestically in a Defense Support of Civil Authorities capacity to save lives, relieve suffering, prevent property damage, and provide humanitarian assistance.
