SANTA FE, N.M. (Dec. 30, 2015) -- The New Mexico National Guard has been engaged in a state active-duty status since Dec. 26, and will continue to support the local communities affected by the blizzard until relieved of duty by Gov. Susana Martinez.
The state's hardest hit areas include the communities of Roswell and Clovis as well as the surrounding counties. Portions of the main east-west thoroughfare through the state were closed to all traffic for days due to the wind, snow and status of the route further on in neighboring states.
National Guard Soldiers and airmen have been engaged in those communities and in Albuquerque supporting civilians and law enforcement officials. More than 60 airmen, from the 150th Special Operations Wing, assisted the Albuquerque Police Department by manning traffic control points on roads too treacherous to safely traverse.
Some of the first Soldiers to respond made their way over the icy, snow-covered roads to the readiness centers in Clovis and Roswell, home of the 717th Brigade Support Battalion and subordinate units.
The local service members exchanged their personal cars for military automobiles such as light medium tactical vehicles, or LMTVs, and high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles, or HMMWVs. Even though the military vehicles tend to be heavier and have a higher ground clearance, the road conditions and feet-deep snow drifts posed a challenge. Some of the first missions these Soldiers performed were traveling to their fellow service members' homes to pick them up and add them to the roster of military personnel assisting.
Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Vaillancourt, an information technology specialist with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 717th Brigade Support Battalion, was born and raised in Roswell. He said as soon as he realized the National Guard was placed on alert by the governor, he volunteered to help.
"We were at Midway, New Mexico, just north of Roswell and there were some vehicles stranded on Darby Road and people out walking trying to get home. The weather was horrible," he said. "We were out assisting those people, making sure they got to shelter. We were checking vehicles that were abandoned to make sure no one was in them."
During the daylight hours, more than 25 Soldiers, from the Roswell and Clovis areas, drove the semi-passable roadways stopping at disabled vehicles to check for stranded civilians. They transported some to safety and those whose vehicles could be pulled back onto the roads were sent on their way.
Beginning that afternoon, teams of Soldiers in Roswell were sent to specific homes to pick up critical patients who needed dialysis treatments and some health care employees who needed transportation to the medical center. This mission is ongoing until the roadways are clear enough for the patients to make the commute. As of noon today, more than 75 dialysis patient transfer missions have been completed.
Pfc. Johnny Estrada, a wheeled-vehicle mechanic with the 613th Support Company (Forward), has been on the mission since it began. "One of the females we drove had missed a couple of appointments already, so if it wasn't for us, she would have missed another," he said. "What we're doing is a good thing."
In addition to the ongoing tasks in the Roswell area, a team of Soldiers, from the 93rd Brigade, were dispatched on Sunday to deliver 60 cases of meals, ready-to-eat and 20 cases of 24 packs of water to the State Police, who took the supplies to a shelter in Moriarity, New Mexico, where civilians were waiting out the storm.
Additional Soldiers were quickly called in to assist with a follow-on tasking of retrieving two full palletized loads of perishable and non-perishable foods from the State Food Distribution Warehouse located in the south valley of Albuquerque for the police to deliver to Moriarty along with the military rations.
Pilots and crews, from Company C, 1st Battalion, 171st Aviation Regiment, conducted aerial surveillance flights of the blizzard ravaged landscape of southeastern New Mexico from their base in Santa Fe. They also stationed a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and crew at the Carlsbad airport performing duties as air medical evacuation (medevac) response until the civilian aerial medical emergency assets are fully-mission capable.
The New Mexico National Guard's 920th Engineer Company, located in Hobbs, New Mexico, has the personnel and expertise to assist the state with clearing roadways of all the snow dumped by the storm dubbed Goliath. About 21 Soldiers are working across Lea County and the surrounding areas to help make travel as safe as possible for the residents of the area.
Brig. Gen. Andrew Salas, the adjutant general, proudly commended the work of all the Soldiers and airmen supporting their local communities.
"Remarkable effort by all in responding to this emergency. I'm very proud of, and very grateful for, everyone's contributions," he said. "The substance of helping out is what is at stake here and we've done nothing less than exceptional work."
The uniqueness of the National Guard being a state and federal entity is the ability for the governor of the state to call upon the Guard to assist in disaster relief efforts. The citizen-Soldiers and airmen who responded to that call live and work in the communities that were hardest hit by the blizzard. They brought their military training and discipline, coupled it with their civilian skills and successfully responded to every mission they were tasked to do for their neighbors.
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