2 Air Movements Squadron brings aid to hurricane-stricken Caribbean
News Article / December 14, 2017
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By Captain Patrick Gignac
The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season has been a hyperactive and extremely destructive season, featuring 17 named storms, tying it with 1936 as the fifth-most active season since records began in 1851 and the most since 2012 . . . In addition it is by far the costliest season on record, with a preliminary total of over $368.66 billion (USD) in damages, which is more than double the cost of 2005’s total and nearly all of which was due to three of the season’s major hurricanes: Harvey, Irma and Maria. – Wikipedia “2017 Atlantic hurricane season”, accessed November 30, 2017.
On September 16, 2017, a Mobile Air Movements Section (MAMS) team from 2 Air Movements Squadron left from 8 Wing Trenton, Ontario, bound for Bridgetown, Barbados. The mission for the short-notice deployment: to help load important humanitarian relief supplies to assist in Operation Renaissance, a Canadian Armed Forces mission to support Hurricane Irma and Maria relief in the Caribbean.
During the task the MAMS team helped evacuate Canadian, Dominican, American and British citizens from the affected countries. They also airlifted the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) of the Jamaican Defence Force (JDF) from Kingston Jamaica to Dominica, where the JDF provided direct relief to Dominicans.
The eight-person team worked closely with MAMS from the United Kingdom and, together, they delivered the supplies to many islands in the Caribbean, such as Grand Turks, Dominica, British Virgin Islands and U.S. Virgin Islands, to name a few.
They helped load and offload a wide variety of aircraft, including CC-177 Globemaster III and CC-130 Hercules from Canada and, from the United Kingdom, the A400M, Hercules, Globemaster and Voyager, and a contracted Antonov.
Overall, the team handled 64,000 pounds of baggage and 410,000 pounds of supplies in the Caribbean region, in addition to supplies shipped by the British MAMS.
Captain Gignac is the MAMS officer at 2 Air Movements Squadron.