September 8, 2006:
The U.S. Department of Defense has used its system for finding troops and equipment to meet the needs of combat commanders overseas, to identify troops and gear that would meet the needs of dealing with natural disasters in the United States. About 25,000 troops have been tagged for disaster relief duty, and large quantities of equipment (trucks, commo, construction gear, tents, medical and so on) have been located and alerted for disaster duty. Currently, the most likely disaster planned for are some more major hurricanes. The U.S. Department of Defense will regularly update these lists, if only because the troops and equipment normally move around, sometimes overseas, as time goes by.