NEW CUMBERLAND, Pa. –
The Defense Logistics Agency Expeditionary team arrived at Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, North Carolina, over the weekend to help establish the Incident Staging Base for U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency’s preparation efforts for Hurricane Dorian– a Category 3 storm.
DLA is closely aligned with U.S. Northern Command, as Department of Defense synchronizer, FEMA and the potentially impacted states as Hurricane Dorian approaches. Dorian is expected to move near or over the South and North Carolina coasts Thursday through Friday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center. Given the storm's unpredictability and massive strength, DLA’s expeditionary capability and its partnerships with a wide range of commodity suppliers is critically important to the relief effort.
ISB Fort Bragg is currently operating seven days per week with a total number of 41 personnel (FEMA-18, DLA-25) on ground in support of trailer transfer operations, information technology communications, FEMA commodity visibility, staging area management, security and property accountability. The 25 person DDXX team, led by Army MAJ. Grant Thimsen, commander, deployed to Fort Bragg to provide support to FEMA’s wide range of services, supplies, and disaster relief efforts with logistics expertise as well as equipment including the mobile command trailer, a yard truck and forklifts. Thimsen is seen in this video discussing the DLA Distribution mission at Fort Bragg. All equipment arrived Sept. 3 and the DDXX team has received over 200 trucks bearing over 500,000 shelf stable meals to be distributed to communities in Hurricane Dorian’s path. This expeditionary distribution capability gives FEMA significant responsiveness and flexibility to flow critical relief supplies, to include food, water, fuel and generators, to the impacted areas.