The 225-foot Oak is one of the Coast Guard's newest cutters, only 18 months old, and Cash is its first captain. His last vessel was half the size in tonnage, took a third more crew to operate and dated to 1946. Cash's new command is a versatile, technological marvel, capable of tasks ranging from retrieving and placing buoys to cleaning oil spills and even smashing channels through ice fields. The $29-million Oak can steer itself by computer from its base in South Carolina to Miami without deviating from course more than five yards along the way. "We cherish it as a new crew," Cash says.
The Oak -- along with a flotilla of hyper-fast 25-foot patrol boats off Miami -- is among the more visible manifestations of how the Coast Guard and port security have changed since Sept. 11.
Once focused as a military branch on protecting America's shores, the Coast Guard mission migrated in the last century to becoming America's seaborne cops with tasks such as enforcing environmental laws and stopping illegal immigration via the sea.
"Now, the pendulum's swinging back," says Lt. Cmdr. Ted Ferring of the Coast Guard's Marine Safety Office in Miami.
Part of the Guard's new duties involves pre-empting possible terrorist strikes by boarding, before the ships reach the U.S. border, "high-interest" vessels -- judged by their crew, port of origin or other considerations, with random checks thrown in to prevent predictability. It still only searches a portion of shipping coming into the nation. Officials say the Coast Guard is relying on local partners and technology -- surveillance cameras on port approaches, for instance -- to spread the net.
Guard duty
On a night in late November the workhorse Oak is serving as a high-tech command center for the 30-odd boats guarding the water approaches to the Free Trade Area of the Americas talks. All eyes are on the boat Cash is watching. The 110-foot SunCruz IX, operated by Presidential Yacht Charters, is carrying upward of 200 trade ministers and dignitaries from 34 countries down the dark bay to Vizcaya, a museum and gardens where they will attend a reception.
Earlier in the day on the Oak's deck, Coast Guard Lt. Darren Caprara, 30, joined a score of Guardsmen, Fish & Wildlife officers, police and others from nine agencies for a briefing on their roles in the Vizcaya voyage. Caprara is the operations officer for a new Coast Guard anti-terrorism team commissioned in October and based just north of Jacksonville in St. Marys, Ga.
One of eight such teams created after Sept. 11 -- reflected in its unit number, 91108 -- the 70-member team can be deployed anywhere in the Southeast in 12 hours and anywhere in the nation in 24.
Another team will be commissioned in Miami within a couple of years.
Coordinating with other agencies is a given in their work. To help coordination in Miami, Caprara has posted on a board on the Oak's bridge "uncommon terms" to help the Guardsmen understand local police radio talk. One posting: 1040 means meals.
Team members receive special training in tactics, law enforcement and detection of weapons of mass destruction and spend "literally countless, countless hours on the water," Caprara says, training and patrolling.
The vehicles: New jet-ski maneuverable homeland security boats. Crewed by three, each boat carries two machine guns, though, says the 20-something coxswain of one boat, John Ragan, "they try to train us to outdrive" threats. To demonstrate, he sends his boat hurtling down the port's deserted main channel and then whips it into a turn a roller-coaster designer would envy. "Fun every time," Ragan says.
Ragan's boat will be among the flotilla of local police and state boats escorting the dignitary boat.
Many roles
The level of intra- and inter-agency cooperation has elevated since Sept. 11. It's one of many changes. The Coast Guard, for instance, moved from the Transportation Department to the Department of Homeland Security and saw its personnel increase by 4,200 to 38,000. Its budget rose $913 million in 2003, of which $628 million was for homeland security measures.
"The Coast Guard's role in shoreside security is growing in an exponential manner," Ferring says. Formerly, "my whole day was consumed with environmental regulation and environmental issues. It's just the opposite now." His office reviews civilian security plans and randomly inspects cruise terminals and cargo operations for adherence to security procedures.
But it's still multitasking. Ferring, for instance, on the environmental side, last year succeeded in getting a derelict vessel on the Miami River that had become a dumpsite seized, cleaned and sunk at sea, one of three he's sent to the bottom. And the anti-terrorism team, while in Miami, was sent to intercept and search a ship for drugs.
During the FTAA talks, the Coast Guard, among its other duties, did at least two search and rescues and returned 204 immigrants to Haiti.
As the SunCruz IX leaves its moorings and heads for Vizcaya, a dozen radio-holding, binocular-toting men and women from the city, state, county and federal governments watch from the Oak's bridge. Overhead are three helicopters. Blue police lights flash in the dark from the boats accompanying the dignitary vessel. Lt. Cmdr. Jon Totte, the senior watch stander for the Coast Guard for the event, holds phones to each ear as reports of the SunCruz IX speed come in.
Neither terrorists nor protesters materialize, but all the law enforcement planning can't ensure a glitch-free trip. As the boat nears Vizcaya, one security team member asks another, "Red over red?" -- the signal for a ship aground.
Reports come to the Oak bridge that the dignitary vessel has run aground -- a nightmare in the making. How will they lower a couple hundred dignitaries in evening clothes into little boats to be carried in twos and threes to Vizcaya?
Media helicopters can be expected to swarm. Caprara calls the Coast Guard station on Miami Beach to ready his off-duty boats to come.
After six minutes, by the count given on the bridge, the SunCruz IX captain extricates his vessel and ties up at Vizcaya. As one Fish & Wildlife officer on the Oak observes, the passengers probably didn't even know it happened. Once at Vizcaya, the dignitaries party for hours and return by bus. Good thing. With the tide against it, the vessel runs aground again as it leaves Vizcaya.
Caprara, with one of the team's junior officers in charge, calls his grandmother to say hello. The people on the bridge relax. "You got Tylenol?" a state officer asks a colleague. He does.
As the small Coast Guard boats return, Caprara heads to the main deck, checks in with the crews and scrambles down a ladder to one of the boats for a ride to the Guard's Miami Beach station, where he will hitch a ride to his hotel. It was a good day for security. "If nothing happens," he says, "I've done my job."
Setting Limits
A host of new security measures has gone into effect for all ports.
In November 2002, Congress passed the Maritime Transportation Security Act in an effort to improve security at U.S. ports. All of the ports are required to begin implementing guidelines in the act beginning this month, including identifying and tracking vessels, assessing security preparedness and limiting access to sensitive areas. Several agencies have been charged with carrying out the plan, but the Coast Guard, now under the Department of Homeland Security, has taken the lead role. Some increased security measures not part of the act have already been implemented or planned. Among the changes:
? All ships must provide ports with detailed lists of crew, cargo and passengers 96 hours prior to arrival at the port. The Coast Guard reviews these lists and randomly boards vessels (at least 50 miles away from the port) it deems "suspect." The Guard tries to surprise vessels by approaching with small speed boats. In Tampa, the transit time across the bay is so long that boarders sometimes go by helicopter and drop down lines onto ships. Guardsmen stay aboard ships carrying cargoes of explosives and hazardous materials, providing "positive control" so that no one on board will turn them into floating bombs.
? Before boarding cruise ships, passengers now have to check their baggage curbside with port personnel. All luggage is screened through machines similar to those at airports. Passengers then go through security inside the cruise terminals, where their carry-on luggage and purses are also screened. Each passenger must have a ticket and a passport. Before boarding the ship, passengers' pictures are taken, and they are issued security identification cards that also work as credit cards on the ship.
? The U.S. Customs Service now inspects containers coming through the ports with X-ray machines. At busy ports, such as Miami, not all the containers can be X-rayed because of time and money constraints.
? New identification cards, which will be equipped with biometric tags, such as fingerprint data, will be required by all port personnel, vessel crews and employees of companies based at ports this year.
? Security plans must be created for each port and tenants at the port as well as all vessels. Ships based in other countries will also have to meet the requirement, but those security plans will be regulated by each ship's home country, not the U.S.
? Vulnerability assessments will also be required for all port facilities and vessels. Each assessment costs about $1 million.
? Vessel Traffic Service systems, similar to air-traffic control systems, will be installed in some ports, none in Florida, that use radar, closed-circuit television, radio phones and other vessel-tracking equipment to monitor vessel traffic from a shore-based location. The VTS works with Automatic Identification Systems, which are installed on ships, to electronically identify the type of ship approaching and crew and cargo information. AIS installation will cost about $10,000 per ship.
-- Amy Welch Brill
Dual Burden
Without a doubt, Florida ports are far ahead of the nation in improving security. And it's hurting them.
While federal and state grants pay for fences and the like, the ports have had to bear the cost of the extra security personnel. Passing on that cost is tough. Cruise ships can switch to cheaper ports as can cargo operators, who work on thin margins. Port Everglades Director Ken Krauter raised fees for cargo operators 5% last year to bring in an extra $3.4 million. "It was not warmly received," says Krauter. Port of Miami Director Charles Towsley hasn't raised charges, fearful of losing business.
So port directors look to state and local governments to pay. They reason that preventing a bomb from getting out of the port and into town is a community service for which the community should pay.
Increased security has another cost: It slows down goods -- something that makes cargo operators howl.
There are intimations that the state needs to rethink its ground-breaking security law (passed before Sept. 11) in light of more recent federal legislation. Florida ports, because of the state law, operate under a dual burden. Some in the ports business say the state has to make sure its duplication, and extras, makes sense -- both for security and for port finances. -- Mike Vogel