CG wants $330M more for rescue network

[unhappycamper]

CG wants $330M more for rescue network
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jun 6, 2008 14:11:15 EDT

The Coast Guard is asking Congress for over $330 million more to pay for its advanced Rescue 21 command and communications system, service officials said Friday, but they stressed that they believe that since technology works so well, it’s worth the money.

The additional dollars, which the Coast Guard will request for fiscal 2011, would bring the total cost of Rescue 21 to just over $1 billion, said Rear Adm. Gary Blore, the Coast Guard’s direction of acquisitions. The higher costs come from the added expense of installing Rescue 21 in Alaska in the coming years, officials said, as well as inflation and technological upgrades to the existing system.

But taxpayers are getting than their money’s worth and more, Blore stressed — Rescue 21 works better than advertised, picking up distress calls from beyond the ranges for which it was designed, locating mariners in distress even if they give wrong locations and making sure the Coast Guard doesn’t waste time responding to prank calls. He repeated what he called a “trite, but true” catchphrase: “Rescue 21 takes the ‘search’ out of ‘search and rescue.’”

The system, which now covers 15,700 miles of U.S. coastline, would cover the entire continental U.S., Hawaii and Alaska by 2017 if Congress agrees to the additional funding. A network of directional antennas and computer gear, Rescue 21 enables the Coast Guard to pinpoint the exact source of a distress call at sea.

In a May 30 search-and-rescue case off St. Petersburg, Fla., a woman sent a mayday call to the Coast Guard when her husband lost consciousness in their boat at sea, but she mistakenly gave a location 24 miles away from where she actually was, said Cmdr. Alan Arsenault, director of the Rescue 21 program. A Coast Guard helicopter flew to the location of the boat as identified by Rescue 21, not the mayday call, and rescued the ailing man.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/06/coastguard_rescue_costs_060608w/



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