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News | June 3, 2016

Troop Support helps power FEMA with new generators contract

By Jason Kaneshiro DLA Troop Support Public Affairs

An entire region can lose electricity when a disaster strikes. A new Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support contract for power generators aims to reduce the time affected communities are left in the dark.

The five-year contract will provide supplemental diesel power generators to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for disaster relief operations.

“FEMA has generators in stock in several locations. When a disaster hits, there is a possibility they might not have the size, or quantities of the size, they need to support the relief effort,” said Mary Ryan, a contracting officer with the Construction and Equipment supply chain. “If that happens, they would tap into this contract to augment what they need.”

The generators can be leased for the amount of time that FEMA requires and range from 15 kilowatt-hours up to 1 megawatt-hour, Ryan said.

 “We could ask for larger sets or sets with parallel ability if FEMA requests it,” Ryan said.

Generators will be delivered directly from either of the five contracted vendors to an incident staging base anywhere in the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, the Caribbean or the Pacific Islands. 

DLA provided generators to FEMA in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The support was provided through C&E’s Heavy Equipment Procurement Program, said Tom Grace, C&E customer operations director.

“We didn’t have this FEMA generator leasing contract when Sandy hit, but FEMA needed help and they came to us,” Grace said. “We were able to utilize our existing contracts and support FEMA with generators.”

At the time, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provided supplemental generator support to FEMA. When USACE later declined to continue the contract, FEMA approached DLA to provide generator support.

“We put together, very quickly, a generator lease contract,” Grace said. “FEMA does their thing but they have us here sitting in the wings, if need be, to provide generator support.”

USACE still has a role in installing and maintaining the generators for FEMA, Grace said.

The impetus for the new contract was due to DLA’s ability to respond on short notice during the Sandy recovery effort, said Navy Capt. Daniel Hodgson, C&E director.

“Having competitively awarded contracts already in place will allow DLA to provide optimal support to FEMA’s power mission,” Hodgson said.

FEMA will receive the same level of support as they had during the response to Sandy, but the new contract uses a better process, Grace said.

“It’s better in a sense that we have an established contract ...  and it’s a joint effort with FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers,” Grace said.

This contract aligns with the DLA Strategic Plan to support the whole of government, including federal agencies outside the Department of Defense.

Hodgson said that FEMA and DLA have a strong partnership, and the generator contract taps into DLA’s core competencies to provide solutions to other agencies without degrading warfighter support.