CRANE, Ind. - Even the best laid plans are subject to change, especially when it is to support the Warfighter. Crane Army Ammunition Activity had to adjust its plans on repairs to one of its magazines when a request for ammunition came down from the Joint Munitions Command.
The problem was that Crane Army stored the ammunition JMC needed in a magazine with no dock in front of it. CAAA Program Specialist Terri Brown explained, Tri County Builders (construction contractor) was awarded the job of removing an existing six-foot dock and replace it with a new 12-foot dock. The contractor had already removed the existing dock, built new frames for the pouring of the concrete and placed all the re-bar for the new dock.
According to CAAA's Depot Operation's Operation Officer Dennis Sickel, although the request from JMC was not expected and the dock to the magazine was gone, the people on duty went to work immediately to solve the problem of getting 70 pallets of ammunition out of the magazine.
"Since the contractor had already removed the dock and we exhausted our efforts Saturday trying to figure a way to gain access and couldn't, we called JMC and informed them we might not be able to fill this because of the magazine repair," Sickel said. "On Monday, I called Terri Brown and she was able to get a modification to the contract and Navy Facilities came up with a plan to build a gravel bridge to allow us access to the building. We also have other Navy requirements of same materiel we'll remove for shipment."
Brown explained that once she received the call, she called Chad Taylor, Crane Navy Facility's Contracting Officer's Representative, for the work and asked that any further construction stop. Then Safety Officers Walt Shearin and Pam Houk met with Brown and made the decision to work with NAVFAC heavy equipment supervisor Joey Walls for a solution to the problem. Walls requested that a ramp be built out of gravel and forklifts then be used to get the ammunition out of the building.
NAVFAC Heavy Equipment Operator Jim Fuhs built the ramp with Joey Walls on site as the supervisor. Once in place, Depot Operations personnel were able to go in and get the pallets. Sickel said thanks to the hard work of everyone involved there would be no impact on getting the shipment out on time.
He said, "We'll have this to port via truck on time to meet the ships schedule thanks to extraordinary efforts by our Joint Commands here at Crane."
The new dock for the magazine is expected to be completed by Nov. 27, 2009
CAAA was established in Oct. 1977 and is a tenant of the Navy Region Midwest, Naval Support Activity Crane. The Army activity maintains ordnance professionals and infrastructure to receive, store, ship, produce, renovate and demilitarize conventional ammunition, missiles and related components.
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