Responding immediately to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the Coast Guard designed and fielded a new organization to establish or reinforce security measures at major U.S. ports on short notice: the Maritime Safety and security Team (MSST). Each MSST is a self-contained rapid-response force of approximately 100 active and reserve Coast Guard personnel that combines selected capabilities of the service's port security units and law enforcement detachments.
Port security and defense of U.S. maritime assets are not new missions for the Coast Guard. It has accomplished those tasks for more than 211 years. They have, however, become more vital and visible since the terrorist attacks of 11 September. Some 361 major ports are part of the maritime transportation system, which handles the overwhelming majority of U.S. overseas trade.
Many of these harbors are critical military sealift ports for war materials destined for overseas operations. They are potentially vulnerable because roughly 7,500 foreign ships, manned by some 200,000 foreign sailors, enter them every year to offload six million truck-size cargo containers. Maritime commerce passing through U.S. ports and transiting internal waterways is crucial to the nation's economy, and protecting the maritime transportation system is a key component of homeland security.
MSST Organization & Mission
As part of the Department of Homeland security's layered strategy, the Coast Guard has fielded eight MSSTs:
* Seattle, Washington
* Chesapeake, Virginia
* Los Angeles/Long Beach, California
* Galveston, Texas
* Port of New York/New Jersey
* St. Mary's, Georgia
* Boston, Massachusetts
* San Francisco, California
Five more teams are scheduled for activation in the near future:
* Anchorage, Alaska
* San Diego, California
* Miami, Florida
* Honolulu, Hawaii
* New Orleans, Louisiana
In recognition of their creation in response to the 11 September attacks, each team designation begins with 911-for example, the Seattle Team is 91101 and the Galveston Team is 91104. Their mission is to enforce security zones (moving and fixed), defend critical waterside facilities in strategic ports, protect military load-outs, interdict illegal activities, and assist with shoreside force protection.
The MSSTs are designed specifically to work closely with civilian emergency response assets in the maritime environment. Their additional capabilities include maritime interdiction and law enforcement, weapon of mass destruction and explosives detection, search and rescue, commercial port protection, and canine handling team employment.
Although teams are allocated regionally, they must be capable of responding to any location along the nation's 95,000 miles of coastline. Thus, they are designed to be highly mobile. Each MSST must be ready to deploy anywhere in the nation within 12 hours. Special trucks and C-130 Hercules transports are used to move the teams and their boats and equipment by ground and air when they are needed outside their homeport area.
Initially equipped with a variety of craft, the MSSTs are receiving the new Defender-class 25-foot fast response boats, which can be transported by truck or aircraft. With their twin 250-horse-power engines, the response boats can reach speeds of more than 40 knots; they are armed with two M-240G machine guns to reinforce the M-16 rifles, 12-gauge shotguns, and 9-mm pistols carried by the crews. Their fully enclosed cabins provide protection from the elements and are outfitted with the latest navigation system, heater, shock mitigating seats, and an interoperable system for communicating with federal, state, and local homeland security partners.
Early Deployments
MSST 91104, based in Galveston, Texas, and commissioned on 10 October 2002, made one of its first operational deployments to Florida's Atlantic coast. While temporarily based in Mayport, the team's boat crews were busy escorting Navy submarines out of St. Mary's, Georgia (just up the Intracoastal Waterway), while the boarding teams went to Cape Canaveral to provide sea marshals for cruise ships visiting that popular port. All hands quickly discovered that one of the greatest threats was the uninformed boater-and they were kept on their toes by people who wanted close-up photographs of submarines or cruise ships.
Thereafter, MSST 91104 transited to the Ft. Lauderdale-Miami area, where the Coast Guard constantly responds to its more traditional missions of law enforcement and search and rescue. The weather there promotes year-round recreational boating, and its proximity to other countries makes it a prime landing area for narcotics smugglers and migrants.
The MSST was tasked to escort the four to ten cruise ships that traveled in and out of Port Everglades and the Port of Miami daily. Protecting cruise ships is a high-priority task because these vessels offer terrorists opportunities to inflict casualties and benefit from dramatic publicity. While this job is made somewhat easier by regulations that keep boaters out of high transit areas, the team's capabilities establish an additional-and necessary-line of defense against potential threats.
Later in the spring, MSST 91104 made a ground-breaking trip to Memphis, Tennessee, to visit Group Lower Mississippi River and Marine Safety Office Memphis. Coast Guard missions in that area had long revolved around marine inspections and maintaining aids to navigation in a dynamic river setting. In the new threat environment posed after 11 September 2001, however, additional operational assets and more intensive law enforcement training were needed to increase maritime domain awareness of activities on and near the river.
As it turned out, the educational process actually worked both ways: MSST personnel were surprised to discover the huge quantities of national products that transit the Mississippi River on barges. Some analysts believe there are locations along the river where destruction of a single bridge could shut down traffic and inflict great damage on the nation's economy.
Later in that deployment, MSST 91104 spent a month in Memphis to provide valuable additional law enforcement training to local Coast Guard personnel and simultaneously patrol the Mississippi River and escort tugs with barges. The team's presence greatly enhanced maritime protective measures and increased local public awareness of Coast Guard activities and the need to .be alert to possible threats.
While MSSTs originally were designed and organized to respond rapidly to terrorist operations and integrate with emergency response assets of other agencies, they are being used increasingly for other tasks. For example, a routine assignment for MSST 91104 has been to add layers of security to ports for high-profile events and to train other Coast Guard units in port protection. During its first year of operation, the team was deployed for more than 130 days, operating in nine different states and traveling more than 8,000 miles.
Conclusions
Maritime Safety and Security Teams demonstrate the Coast Guard's increased emphasis on maritime security in its role as a key component of the Department of Homeland security. At the same time, the service retains its extensive capabilities to perform its traditional tasks.
The MSSTs have proved themselves to be valuable additions to the nation's maritime defense posture. From Seattle to Boston,.they stand ready as first responders to terrorist attacks on U.S. ports and waterways.
Prior to her current assignment as the training officer at the Coast Guard Finance Center, Chesapeake, Virginia, Lieutenant Macheca served with Maritime Safety and Security Team 91104 during its establishment and initial training.