USA — Defense, Guard Establish 8 Homeland Response Force Units

WASHINGTON, July 12, 2010 — Eight more home­land response force units will be estab­lished in fis­cal 2012, Defense Depart­ment and Nation­al Guard Bureau offi­cials said here today.

The units are region­al forces that will cross state lines when need­ed. They are part of a restruc­tur­ing of the nation’s chem­i­cal, bio­log­i­cal, radi­o­log­i­cal, nuclear and high-yield explo­sive con­se­quence man­age­ment enterprise. 

Mass­a­chu­setts, New York, Penn­syl­va­nia, Geor­gia, Texas, Mis­souri, Utah and Cal­i­for­nia each will host a home­land response force unit. On June 3, offi­cials announced Ohio and Wash­ing­ton would receive units that will be oper­a­tional in fis­cal 2011. 

One unit will be based in each of the 10 Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency regions. The units are sched­uled to have 270 Guards­men, and each will have a med­ical team, a search and extrac­tion team, a decon­t­a­m­i­na­tion team and very robust com­mand and con­trol capa­bil­i­ties, offi­cials said. The units are arranged in such a way that they will be able to dri­ve to the site of an event with­in 12 hours. 

The units will be key ele­ments of the new Defense Depart­ment chem­i­cal, bio­log­i­cal, radi­o­log­i­cal, nuclear and high-yield explo­sive con­se­quence man­age­ment enter­prise. The enter­prise also will include a defense CBRNE Response Force, two con­se­quence-man­age­ment com­mand and con­trol ele­ments, 57 weapons of mass destruc­tion civ­il sup­port teams and 17 CBRNE-enhanced response force packages. 

When not deployed for con­se­quence-man­age­ment oper­a­tions, unit per­son­nel will focus on plan­ning, train­ing, and exer­cis­ing at the region­al level. 

The forces are part of a larg­er reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the Defense Department’s domes­tic con­se­quence man­age­ment enter­prise rec­om­mend­ed in the 2010 Qua­dren­ni­al Defense Review. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)