Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday told CBS News’ Nicole Sganga that several Coast Guard facilities across the U.S. recently lost utilities while standing ready to respond to emergencies. “In the last few days, station Channel Islands, California, had the power cut off. A station in Michigan, Port Huron, had services cut off. Our air station at Barbers Point, Hawaii, had natural-gas service cut off,” he said. He added that the service was restored in those instances but warned the number of outages is increasing and likely to continue as the Department of Homeland Security shutdown continues.
Lunday stressed the operational risk: these are stations where crews “are standing by to respond at a moment’s notice to any mariner in distress or any threat to the nation, and they launch 24/7, 365. And suddenly the lights go out, or they don’t have water.” When asked how Americans would react, Lunday replied, “Furious. That’s exactly right.”
The commandant described crews’ ability to respond as being tested by sudden utility interruptions at locations responsible for search-and-rescue missions, and he urged attention to the potential consequences if outages continue to spread.