PHOTO BY MARK RANKIN, NASHVILLE DISTRICT
ARMY CORPS RESPONDS, SUPPORTS NATIONAL RESPONSE TO HURRICANE FLORENCE
The Deployable Tactical Operations System (DTOS) is a coordination of both teams and equipment put together to provide critical communications in the event of significant man-made or natural disasters. The Emergency Command and Control Vehicles are deployed with two-man teams. The units are self-contained, with a workspace for up to 11 users simultaneously.
BY CHRISTOPHER AUGSBURGER, Baltimore District
“We’re all in.”
Those were the words Lt. Gen. Todd T. Semonite, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commanding general and 54th chief of engineers, spoke moments before Hurricane Florence made landfall on Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, just east of Wilmington, as a Category 1 hurricane Sept. 14, 2018. “The Army is ready to jump in and respond,” he said. What meteorologists called the wettest hurricane on record in the Carolinas, Hurricane Florence brought extreme flooding throughout the south Atlantic region. It overtopped dams, inundated hundreds 20
of miles of stream and rivers and cut off power to hundreds of thousands of residents. In addition it damaged roads, railways and closed ports in North Carolina and South Carolina, totaling billions of dollars in damage and taking at least 44 lives. Even before Florence made landfall, hydrologic engineers and flood risk management experts in Washington and Atlanta partnered with teams on the ground and immediately began monitoring conditions. This included hundreds of miles of levees and 33 dams throughout the region. Officials also kept close watch on the 6,000 miles of navigation channels and 29 ports within the South Atlantic
