Diary of a mad hurricane: The 82nd Airborne—a waiting game
For several days as Hurricane Katrina first threatened and pounded the Gulf Coast, then flooded New Orleans, dozens of government agencies and private researchers helped predict, resist, and recover from the storm. In a series of timelines, U.S. News staffers detail the activities of:
FEMA officials: On paper, feds gave an upbeat analysis;
Climate researchers: Experts feared the worst;
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: 'It all started crashing pretty fast';
The Army's 82nd Airborne Division: A waiting game;
The Coast Guard: 'Hoisting up every vulnerable-looking thing;
The National Guard: 'We did respond with amazing speed';
State and local emergency officials: Getting through the storm;
and airborne storm chasers: A view from the eye.
Here, the Army's 82nd Airborne Division's story:
On Monday, August 29, Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, calls the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy heads and tells them to be ready to deploy troops and ships to the devastated region. The next day, the 82nd Airborne is alerted for possible action. The 82nd always has a battalion ready to deploy anywhere in the world in less than a day. The division's intelligence officers have already been monitoring the storm as it is developing in the Gulf, anticipating they may be called to help out in the aftermath of the hurricane. Since the division was already making plans, a battalion would have been ready to move as early as Tuesday, said Major Gen. Bill Caldwell, commander of the 82nd.
"We could have immediately responded within 18 hours," he said. "We could have come here, had we been asked, at any point."
Caldwell keeps a rucksack packed so he can move in a moment. Over the last 16 months, the 82nd has conducted three different emergency homeland defense exercises.
"The whole reason we [created] Northern Command is to help with disasters in America," Caldwell says. "We are a force of choice, ready to go, and we have the flexibility to do anything." Though the National Guard has more law enforcement training, Caldwell says the 82nd is able to bring a large, coherent force to a disaster area that has spent long hours working and training together as a team. "When you call in the 82nd Airborne Division, you bring someone who works together all the time and knows how each other operates," he says. "We can execute rapidly."
But throughout the week after Katrina's landfall, the call never comes to the 82nd. The National Guard is telling the Pentagon it had the situation under control. The Louisiana governor and military officials are squabbling over who should control the military forces in New Orleans. And Admiral Timothy Keating, head of Northern Command, is reluctant to use active duty troops. Still, it is apparent to the 82nd Airborne officials at Fort Bragg that they have skills that might prove useful. They stay on alert.
On Friday, September 2, Caldwell calls an emergency deployment readiness exercise. The scenario is a response to Hurricane Katrina. His commanders get out their maps, make out their plans and have their soldiers get ready to load the planes. From the beginning, Caldwell hopes he can turn the exercise into a real deployment midway through the drill. The president is visiting New Orleans, and Caldwell wants him to have the option to call for the 82nd and for his soldiers to run onto the C-17 cargo and troops transport planes.
"My whole purpose for calling the exercise Friday was that in my heart the president was going to come down here and see the devastation and then he would announce at 4 p.m., before he left, that he was calling out federal troops—which would mean us, in my mind. I thought I would be able to tell the joint staff we are boarding airplanes right now, we are flying. . . . That is what we wanted to do for the president."
The call does not come. Caldwell calls the exercise to a halt on Friday evening. But he tells his soldiers to keep their gear ready. And he is right. The next morning, the word finally comes.
At 10 o'clock Saturday morning, September 3, Caldwell is dressed in his PT clothes, sitting on his back porch and sipping a cup of coffee as he chats with his wife. Then his phone rings.
"Hey, sir, have you seen the news?" asks one of Caldwell's deputies. No, the general responds. "The president was just on the news and said the 82nd is deploying to Louisiana," says the other officer. Caldwell calls in to his operation center, which is just then getting the official word, and puts the 82nd's gears in motion once again. Soon after, an official from the Joint Staff calls to ask if the 82nd can be airborne in six hours. The answer, Caldwell says, is a definitive yes. By 4 p.m. Caldwell and his team are boarding a C-17 that has been diverted on its way home from Afghanistan. Fifteen minutes later the 82nd Airborne is in the sky headed to Louisiana.