Costs of Rescue...

[valhalla360]

To claim there is no cost is foolish or disingenous. Even if you assume they are training anway, if people didn't unneccessarily put themselves in harms way in the first place, we would need fewer rescue resources along with the training that goes along with them.

Then there is the cost to the individuals. If the weather is too bad, trainings get called off. Rescues do not. At 900 miles, they are pushing the limits of thier capabilities. In trainings, they would tend to stay closer to shore so if something goes to heck, it's easier to get things back under control.

The answer I've hear in response is that these guys love this work. But remember these are often the young imortals who haven't lived long enough to fully comprehend the risks they are taking. I'm sure the mother or daughter of one of these brave men might think there is a cost if they don't come home and sometimes they don't.

Life is full of risks and some might feel I take too many, so I won't speak to the family in a tough situation off Mexico.

I do believe if an incident can be traced to poor seamanship there should be a cost.

[sww914]

If you're going to count up the costs of the equipment and wages, you should also figure the costs of training for the same period and subtract the training costs from the rescue costs. Inflammatory figures say nothing but they get people riled up. If that's the goal that's one thing but if you want actual numbers, complete the equation.

[captainbri]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

It's not that they "intererrupted a barbeque", thought I'm certain they did.

.

there is nothing more satisfying to the military, coast guard and rescue crews than making sure a family gets home or a child is saved. Im sure that if it was you in the situation you would be happy to get rescued and hand them your credit cards before they helped you out. Funny I see no complaints when it is a non us citizen floating on a raft with no experience. Or a run down ship that should be scrapped before it was overloaded with 300 people.

Im sure we can all get together and come up with 1 cent of your tax dollar your complaining about.

When on base your on call not at home or at bbq. Please please list your vast military experience.

Do in know eric. No ive read some of his post and the blogs. But I can tell you they did everything right to prepare and it doesn't matter one bit.. it is bad to have one thing go wrong never mind 3 or 4 things go wrong. The worst thing is working and preparing and then having to leave it all. .it takes a real man to call for help because it is admitting defeat. On top of losing everything. There are plenty of people that wouldn't call for help. Eric and his wife are what people should achieve to be. Adventurers risk takers dreamers. They are the people the have made and do make america great.



Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

It's not that they "intererrupted a barbeque", thought I'm certain they did.

It's also absolutely not the case that the people working it were sitting around waiting to get sent 900 miles off the coast of Mexico.

Yea, those people, even the ones "on call" don't work at some station 24 hours a day, even if they're on a salary. They don't close their doors on the weekends, but they had more people working this weekend in order to pull this off. Maybe you're thinking of the people on the Navy boat. They certainly weren't going home.

People work longer hours when they're on a rescue mission. People were pulled from other things. Fuel was expended. Boats were tracked. They sent boats and helicopters to the location. They made reports all over creation. And they got the job done. That work will continue this week, even after the rescue is complete. Yes, some will get a day off this week to make up for it. Even that is a cost.

There IS a budget for rescues, but that budget was used for THIS, instead of some other rescue. If they need more money for rescues, they don't stop doing them, they just ask for more funds. You can budget for a boat repair. Does that make the boat repair free? No, it just means you have it covered when it happens.

No, those pilots and paramedics weren't going to be spending the weekend waxing floors if they weren't on this mission. In all likelihood, they were going to be home. Yes, military members are on call 100% of the time. They DO live for this kind of stuff -- it's what they train for. But that doesn't make it "free".

I want to be perfectly clear, I don't have ANY problem that they did this. I do, however, have a problem with anyone who says that this kind of mission doesn't cost anything. It's just way too flippant to say that, without it being at all true. Rescue missions do have a cost.

You can argue that it's a better use of our resources than a lot of things I see our government do, and I'll be inclined to agree.

You keep getting hours they worked confused with cost.

They don't get paid by the hour. Do you understand that? Whether they are rescuing someone, or waxing the hangar floor, the COST is the same because they get paid a FLAT SALARY for the month.

I was in the Navy. Whether I worked 30 days straight, or I was off on leave for 3 weeks, my COST to the Navy was EXACTLY the same.

Yes, those pararescue personnel could have been doing something else, but that has nothing to do with COST. They can work 90 days straight without a day off, and it doesn't cost 1 penny more to the gov't.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

It's not that they "intererrupted a barbeque", thought I'm certain they did.

It's also absolutely not the case that the people working it were sitting around waiting to get sent 900 miles off the coast of Mexico.

Yea, those people, even the ones "on call" don't work at some station 24 hours a day, even if they're on a salary. They don't close their doors on the weekends, but they had more people working this weekend in order to pull this off. Maybe you're thinking of the people on the Navy boat. They certainly weren't going home.

People work longer hours when they're on a rescue mission. People were pulled from other things. Fuel was expended. Boats were tracked. They sent boats and helicopters to the location. They made reports all over creation. And they got the job done. That work will continue this week, even after the rescue is complete. Yes, some will get a day off this week to make up for it. Even that is a cost.

There IS a budget for rescues, but that budget was used for THIS, instead of some other rescue. If they need more money for rescues, they don't stop doing them, they just ask for more funds. You can budget for a boat repair. Does that make the boat repair free? No, it just means you have it covered when it happens.

No, those pilots and paramedics weren't going to be spending the weekend waxing floors if they weren't on this mission. In all likelihood, they were going to be home. Yes, military members are on call 100% of the time. They DO live for this kind of stuff -- it's what they train for. But that doesn't make it "free".

I want to be perfectly clear, I don't have ANY problem that they did this. I do, however, have a problem with anyone who says that this kind of mission doesn't cost anything. It's just way too flippant to say that, without it being at all true. Rescue missions do have a cost.

You can argue that it's a better use of our resources than a lot of things I see our government do, and I'll be inclined to agree.

I don't think you grasp just how the military works. I was on subs, and we deployed for 6 months at a time, local ops were usually 2-3 months and weekly ops were 7-14 days. One year, I was underwater for 340 days of the year.

What were we doing for most of that time? Standing watches. Whether we were tracking an actual contact or listening to whale farts, the cost was exactly the same. Believe me, if we ever got called to search for a missing plane or boat, we would have been happier than you could imagine to be doing something helpful.

Please explain to me the added costs of diverting a US Navy ship, aside from fuel. Even that is most often mitigated by simply deleting a drill or two off of the training schedule. They don't just slice straight through the water. They do a hell of a lot of circles, especially if they're doing anti-sub ops, or drills. So instead of doing circles for 3 days, they drove in a straight line. The ship was scheduled to be in the area, it was simply diverted a little bit.


I've done it plenty of times. Another boat asks for a tech assist with their gear, or we assist in loading ESM gear and calibration, I wrote it up as our weekly training exercise, and we skipped the lecture I was going to give. Yes we had monthly requirements, but we had flexibility in how we accomplished those things.

[ReMetau]

I was on an aircraft carrier back in the late eighties early nineties. We did a Med cruise to basically show the world our power. We did figure eights all the way across the Atlantic at about $300k to operate a day, and this didn't include all the support vessels around us; an aircraft carrier doesn't operate alone.

For that one ship to do what they did is nothing in the matter of cost of running a fleet of ships. That ship would have been making way no matter what, and most of the time would have just been running drills and exercises. Same thing with the helicopters. They fly exorcizes all the time. They have to in order to keep the crew properly trained to handle real situations. This would have been great training for them.

I read somewhere in all these posts and other site comments, that considering the budget of the military, this operation may have cost you personally 15 cents. Are you willing to say that you would not have authorized this for your personal 15 cents?

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by captainbri

there is nothing more satisfying to the military, coast guard and rescue crews than making sure a family gets home or a child is saved. Im sure that if it was you in the situation you would be happy to get rescued and hand them your credit cards before they helped you out. Funny I see no complaints when it is a non us citizen floating on a raft with no experience. Or a run down ship that should be scrapped before it was overloaded with 300 people.

Im sure we can all get together and come up with 1 cent of your tax dollar your complaining about.

When on base your on call not at home or at bbq. Please please list your vast military experience.

Do in know eric. No ive read some of his post and the blogs. But I can tell you they did everything right to prepare and it doesn't matter one bit.. it is bad to have one thing go wrong never mind 3 or 4 things go wrong. The worst thing is working and preparing and then having to leave it all. .it takes a real man to call for help because it is admitting defeat. On top of losing everything. There are plenty of people that wouldn't call for help. Eric and his wife are what people should achieve to be. Adventurers risk takers dreamers. They are the people the have made and do make america great.



Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

I suggest you re-read my post before flaming me. If you had actually read my post, you wouldn't have written what you did. You'd see that I covered it, and you'd see that I didn't say what you implied that I said. I can't account for your inability to read or understand posts.

I didn't complain that we spent money -- I just pointed out that those who are saying that rescues don't cost anything are incorrect. I don't appreciate my words being twisted around.

If you want to disagree, read the post you're responding to first. If you want to attack me personally, please refer to the rules of the forum.

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by socaldmax

You keep getting hours they worked confused with cost.

They don't get paid by the hour. Do you understand that? Whether they are rescuing someone, or waxing the hangar floor, the COST is the same because they get paid a FLAT SALARY for the month.

I was in the Navy. Whether I worked 30 days straight, or I was off on leave for 3 weeks, my COST to the Navy was EXACTLY the same.

Yes, those pararescue personnel could have been doing something else, but that has nothing to do with COST. They can work 90 days straight without a day off, and it doesn't cost 1 penny more to the gov't.

No, I believe it's you who doesn't understand what I'm talking about regarding the concept of cost. But it's pretty clear that it's not worth my time to try and explain my perspective to you.

I gave my opinion, you gave yours. Feel free to disagree.

I don't have any experience in the Navy, so maybe it is that ships are just floating around looking for something to do, but I hope that's not the case.

[hellosailor]

OldFrog-
What folks don't seem to grasp, and what the gummint doesn't really want you to grasp, is that the USCG is not a branch of the military.

"Federal executive departments such as the Department of Homeland Security and administrative agencies such as the United States Coast Guard write regulations to implement the authority of laws."
Directly from the horses mouth at:
Regulations

The USCG enjoys a special dual role, as an administrative agency in times of peace, and only after a formal declaration of war, it is transferred to the War Department [sic] and placed into the military, as another military branch.

In the same way the "National Guard" units are almost all State Militia, who have been seconded to the Federal Militia (per 10 USC) and then placed in service with the regular military.

The legal fictions and technicalities count, sometimes.

Among other things, most of the time in most circumstances the US military are banned from domestic law enforcement and other operations, while the USCG is not only allowed to do these jobs, but they are the administrative agency charged with doing them. (That gets more complicated these days, some branches were exempted from the so-called Posse Commitatus Act while others weren't, and a while ago, that also got secretly modified to allow a Presidential Order to override it entirely.)

Dubyah got his britches in a knot after Hurricane Katrina, because he couldn't grasp the difference and couldn't understand why the USCG could conduct rescues, but the military...usually had their hands tied.

Just FWIW.

[Scott Berg]

It's worth saying again.. Whether it's a US President's visit to Russia or Japan or a deep sea rescue it doesn't cost any real dollars. We don't hire new marines, pilots, secret service, or coast guard. We don't buy new airplane or helocopters. We use the assets he have. The fuel burnt up is in lieu of what would be used for other training (and live response is much better training at that). Indeed, I have a several close USCG career friends who say that this is what they train for. Another friend was plucked from the Atlantic after a schooner sunk out from under him. We have amazing search and rescue capabilities just as we have an outstanding military and civil service. It's part of being a first world country. And I'm proud of that... Aren't you?

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by Scott Berg

It's worth saying again.. Whether it's a US President's visit to Russia or Japan or a deep sea rescue it doesn't cost any real dollars. We don't hire new marines, pilots, secret service, or coast guard. We don't buy new airplane or helocopters. We use the assets he have. The fuel burnt up is in lieu of what would be used for other training (and live response is much better training at that). Indeed, I have a several close USCG career friends who say that this is what they train for. Another friend was plucked from the Atlantic after a schooner sunk out from under him. We have amazing search and rescue capabilities just as we have an outstanding military and civil service. It's part of being a first world country. And I'm proud of that... Aren't you?

Absolutely!

Well said!

One of the proudest moments in my Naval career was when I was riding an FFG as a guest. They were target practicing on the beach in the Philippines with the CWIS. BUUUUUUUUURP!! BUUUUUUUUUURP!!

Suddenly we get a message that a small jet with an Admiral on board (basically a corporate jet like a Citation, but owned by the Navy) had to ditch several hundred miles away. The alarm goes off, and this ship hits a flank bell about as fast as I could grab a railing!

Shortly after, two helos from an LPH come flying in from the stern and we slow down to maybe 30 kts or so. The two helos pace the FFG, one on each side, hovering just at the edge of the deck. They discharge the static and rig up fuel hoses and they're refueling both of these helos in flight at 30 kts! They get done, retract the hoses and the helos take off at max. speed and we kick it back up to flank. Several hours later, we arrive and there are rescue swimmers all over the water, they found some debris and marked it with smoke flares. they looked all over and no sign of the pilot, Admiral, or any EPIRB signals or strobes.

Right after dusk, we get another message. A local fisherman saw the plane go down, and cruised on over and picked them up shortly after they ditched. He had no radio or phone, so they spent the day with him as he checked his nets and slowly motored back to shore. Once back in the village, they found a phone and called in for a pickup. Meanwhile, the fisherman's wife fed them dinner and waved goodbye!

The efficiency and resources were awe inspiring. To see 2 helos come zooming in, refuel and zoom off in just a matter of minutes was impressive. They secured training and laid in a new course in a matter of seconds and that thing got up and moved like a power boat!

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by kentobin

I? What bureaucrat would you trust to make the determination?

Generally the federal prosecutor, combined with a criminal trial and the jury that convicts someone. At that point I am perfectly fine with charging someone for a false emergency call. Otherwise SAR missions should rb free.



Otherwise I think this conversation is going down a pretty silly rabbit hole. There are two different 'costs' being bandied about here which is causing a lot of confusion.

The first is the net cost of the resue, which is the pro-rata labor costs, equipment costs, maintenance, fuel, ect that were used during the course of a rescue. These costs are properly considered the cost of the rescue and are probably pretty high.

The second is the marginal cost. Which is any additional costs incurred because of the rescue as compared to the training and floor waxing that otherwise would have occurred. This cost is probably pretty low. The labor costs go away since those people who worked the rescue were likely the duty staff, the fuel mostly goes away since the fuel would have been burned on training instead of on missions, the equipment and maintenance costs again go away because of the training avoided... You may see drop tanks added back if they used them, while even during training they are pretty rare.


The trick to this is to keep in mind which 'cost' we are talking about. The net cost for an operation is always going to be a really big number, while the marginal cost may not be such a big deal.


On a further note, as a prior service member, we always liked going to do real things instead of training. Sure it was usually hot, grubby, nasty work. But it was still better than walking in circles carrying 80lbs of gear around on 'conditioning' hikes.

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by Scott Berg

It's worth saying again.. Whether it's a US President's visit to Russia or Japan or a deep sea rescue it doesn't cost any real dollars. We don't hire new marines, pilots, secret service, or coast guard. We don't buy new airplane or helocopters.

Thanks for the chuckle. I wonder where you live. Because in the United States, the President's visit to Russia or Japan, and a deep sea rescue both cost real dollars.

We hire new marines, pilots, secret service, and coast guard employees every day. We buy new airplanes and helicopters all the time. We spend as much on our military as the next 13 countries combined.

I'm very proud to be an American. But I'm not pretending that all that stuff is free. In fact, I'm getting reminded again on April 15th.

I'm happy that the U.S. is capable of doing these rescues, and I'm happy that they do them. It's a worthy endeavor, but it's not a free endeavor. We do pay for it.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Its politically very hard to charge for humanitarian acts.







.

Yes and it hard to say it is too expense to use a service that was put in place for a purpose. We equipped and man a rescue service because as a society we have decided it is a good use of our resources to spend the money.

[hellosailor]

"get a bill for "
Must be something that got into my coffee because I just "saw" an imaginary tv commercial for a helicopter rescue at sea. Ship goes down, everyone is saved and hoisted aboard, and the flight mechanic presents the bill to the family, refusing to take their American Express card as the voiceover says "Visa, taken everywhere. Because you can't use American Express here...."

Ah yes, the bill.

Exact change only...no personal checks...wrong card...I like the ones that refuse to take cash, which is also a federal crime.