Print
Aug 12, 2008 10:41 pm US/Pacific
Brandi Hitt Investigates: Operation Hydra
AFGHANISTAN (CBS13) ―
They're the first responders to any disaster, anywhere in the world. It's called "Operation Hydra", the title of an exercise launching right here out of Travis Air Force Base.
Our crew first arrives at Landing Zone Thirty-Five. It's a newly-constructed base put in a foreign country just hours after a devastating earthquake and tsunami. Except, this isn't a foreign country. It's Northern California and it's the basis of one of the largest joint relief exercises ever created.
"We set everything up," says Captain Slade Burke, one of the coordinators of the operation. "Once we get here on the ground within twenty-four hours we are up and running, the camp is fully set up and our mission is to bring cargo in."
A small city is already teeming here, in what was an empty field. All the tents, equipment, even the bulldozers have been parachueted to the site in order to set up this humanitarian mission.
"We have a unit comprised of Air Force and Army personnel," says Captain Burke. "We are on a short-notice to deploy worldwide. On a twelve-hour notice we cna deploy to anywhere in the world with these forces."
While Captain Burke and his crew handle things on the ground, barely above ground other crews work the air. Pilots practice low-level flying over and through California's rugged, mountainous terrain like they're entering a hostile, foreign environment. It's an opportunity for pilots to utilize their training and rely on their crew to get to the location safely. They also practice combat drops of equipment into the devastated area. They open the back of the C-17 cargo plane they're flying to allow cargo to slide out of the back of the plane and onto the ground below. The pilots then get the rare opportunity to land that C-17 on a dirt airstrip. It's an activity that would be similar to heading into a combat zone like Iraq or Afghanistan.
"Training like this paramount," says Colonel Joseph Zahn, the Vice Wing Commander of Operation Hydra. "This is the most dynamic training we've ever had in the contingency response wing because of its realism."
1,000 people are taking part in this exercise. Twenty-two aircraft are flying 300 sorties over Northern California skies. It's a lot of people and equipment to organize, but they can track every piece they drop taking a cue from Fedex and UPS.
"We show it arriving, we show it departing, then we show it ariving at our forward location which is about ten kilometers from here," says Captain Slade Burke.
Every piece of equipment is tagged with an RFID chip. Not unlike your mail, every piece has a tracking number and both the military and the people receiving the equipment can find out where it is.
But not everything is dropped off. Medical crews also pick up injured citizens and soldiers. The plane is converted into a flying hospital, flying injured people to the nearest hospital facility. It's a test that pushes the army and Air Force to be ready so that in twelve hours, they can head to the heart of a disaster.
It's that importance that pushes Colonel Zahn to do these exercises. "So it's things like that that we train like this for because it's vital to have these organizations ready to go out and meet the needs of whoever needs us around the world."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
