CE continues work to restore the base

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Rachel Martinez
  • 35th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan --  Operations appear to be returning to normal around Misawa Air Base. Over the past week and a half, the men and women assigned to the 35th Civil Engineer Squadron have worked tirelessly to get the base to where it is now, but they still have work ahead of them.

When the 9.0 magnitude March 11 earthquake struck Northern Japan and halted operations for most people, the 35th CES on Misawa jumped in to overdrive.

"We knew it was a bad earthquake and knew there was going to be repairs that needed to happen," said Senior Master Sgt. Christopher Vansile, 35th CES operations flight superintendent. "Overall, it wasn't bad, but there were a lot of water breaks, alarms tripping and some minor steam breaks."

CE's phones immediately began ringing with reports of damage.

"The phones were nonstop for the first five days after the earthquake," said Sergeant Vansile. "The first 12 to 20 hours were spent taking nothing but phone calls on what broke and heading out there to isolate the problem."

With the influx of damage reports, isolate was all the CE Airmen could do at first. If they attempted full repairs on immediate damages that would have caused further damage in facilities and structures elsewhere, said Sergeant Vansile. To isolate problems with water and steam line breaks, the CE team would simply shut off the water source or divert the line.

More significant than the damage reports coming in to CE, was the loss of power. Misawa Air Base pulls electricity from a commercial power grid.

"We were out of power," Sergeant Vansile recalled. "But it wasn't anything on base causing the problem. There was nothing we could do at that time so we focused on infrastructure. That's pretty much what we did for the first 24 hours.

"Once things started calming down it was time to figure out the extent of damage," Sergeant Vansile continued.

All available Airmen in the CE squadron were put on damage assessment teams. Working their way around the entire base, the teams looked for any potential problems. They examined steam and fuel lines, checked roads, and structural soundness of facilities.

"Once all the quick kills were out and we had people doing assessments, the third thing we did was to walk each floor of the housing towers to make sure things were ok," Sergeant Vansile said. "All the towers were assessed within a six-hour period and then we focused more on all the other facilities."

Facilities were assessed according to a base priority list. Sergeant Vansile said it took the CE team a good three to four days to go through and assess all facilities on base. While exact damage costs are still being worked out, initial assessments revealed relatively minor damage.

Even with the minimal facility damage, the base faced a much larger problem - power.

"Power was a big thing and still is a huge concern for us," said Sergeant Vansile. "A lot of people are working every single day, all day, trying to solve the problem of getting the power back to the installation like it was before all this happened."

When the power went out, many mission-critical facilities, such as the command post and hospital, were able to continue operations thanks to built-in generators. There were approximately 140 generators already installed in buildings. For the first three days, the only things running were those on generators, said Sergeant Vansile.

"Our focus was to get a few facilities up so the base populace would have somewhere to go," Sergeant Vansile said. "We got the Mokuteki and gym online and we also put a hot water boiler at the gym so people could get a hot shower. The dining facility was another big facility we wanted to power."

Perhaps the biggest concern was restoring heat and hot water to housing, said Sergeant Vansile. Members of the 35th CES developed a contingency plan that called for 60 generators just to restore these elements for base residents. The base issued a request for additional generators to be flown in from around the Pacific Air Forces. As the base team prepared to implement their contingency plan, some commercial power was restored. The allotted power was dedicated to housing and residents had hot water and heat beginning in the evening of March 13.

Those first few days after commercial power was restored, the base only received three megawatts. The base typically uses 17 megawatts of power when operating normally.

"Those megawatts were like gold," said Sergeant Vansile. "Each megawatt that came in we had to decide what to do with it. We had to decide what we wanted to turn on."

Power was given to facilities based on a priority list. Normally, operational facilities needed to continue the wing's flying mission topped the priority list. With normal flying operations halted, wing leadership changed the priorities to focus on accommodating families, said Sergeant Vansile. After a few days of operating on generators and three megawatts of commercial power, the base received a little more commercial power. Still, it was not near what the base was used to operating with.

"We were hoping to receive all our power back, but as the days went on, we realized it wasn't going to happen," said Sergeant Vansile. "Our engineers were directed to figure out how we should utilize what we have."

Working with 10 megawatts of power, a CE team is now working around the clock to monitor power usage and make recommendations on what facilities can be turned on.

"We have 66 percent of our normal power," said 2nd Lt. Carly Reimer, 35th CES programmer working in the newly created Base Energy Nerve Cell where power usage is monitored. "We are constantly calculating and brainstorming what capacity we have and what we can do with it, whether it's generator or commercial power."

In an effort to be smart with power usage, Lieutenant Reamer and members of the BENC are powering up facilities one by one versus one switch at a time, which distributes power to all facilities in a designated area.

"We are trying to put the main facilities on commercial power, but it's tough when they take up so much power," said Sergeant Vansile. "And we want to limit our generator use because we know shortly all these things will need maintenance."

The base is now running more than 30 generators at a time. Sergeant Vansile said they are mindful of those generators as they are meant to be used for temporary periods, not for sustainment like they are being used now. The generators also require a lot of man-hours to operate.

"It's a logistical nightmare with generators," Sergeant Vansile said. "Every 300 hours people have to go change the oil, perform other checks and start the generator again. Plus, they need to be refueled every eight to 12 hours."

All the extra man-hours required to run the dozens of generators, as well as the man-hours needed to repair the infrastructure damages called for additional forces to augment the 35th CES. A request for forces was issued seeking additional electricians, power production and HVAC personnel. More than 60 CE Airmen from PACAF bases have arrived to support Misawa.

"We knew no matter what, we would need more personnel to support recovery efforts," Sergeant Vansile said. "It's amazing how well they've integrated with the Misawa folks."

In addition to the augmented forces, local Japanese employees played, and continue to play, a critical role in recovery efforts.

We had hoped our local workers would be here, and they were, even though they didn't have to be," said Sergeant Vansile. "They are the people who have been here for 20, 30 years. They know the base in and out. They're our continuity and we couldn't do it without them."

As repairs are completed and the base takes steps toward full recovery, the men and women working for the 35th CES are finally starting to pause for a break - it's only a pause though as work continues at Misawa.