\n\t\t\t\tSAIPAN HARBOR, Saipan\u2014Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard amphibious dock landing ship USS Ashland (LSD 48) look at the damage caused by Typhoon Soudelor in Saipan after the typhoon made landfall. Ashland is assigned to the Bonhomme Richard Expeditionary Strike Group and is on patrol in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations. (MC3 DAVID COX)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\u201cWe can move anything, if it\u2019s palletized, if it\u2019s containerized, if it\u2019s just loose bulk type cargo, we can dress trucks to make sure it happens,\u201d Weise said. \u201cAny type of fluid, any type of solid, you need it moved, we can move it.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the top concerns on Saipan is a lack of clean drinking water in many of the affected areas, which is a large part of the cargo Ashland took to the island. The Federal Emergency Management Agency loaded onto Ashland 89 pallets of drinking water, with each pallet being equivalent to 900 liters and two pallets of water jugs to help with the effort.<\/p>\n
Weise said his Marines from Combat Logistics Battalion 31 will be using several vehicles during distribution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe water trucks that we have right now can carry 1,800 gallons on top of each truck,\u201d Weise said. \u201cWe have one water trailer that holds 400 gallons, we also have water purification equipment; TWPS (Tactical Water Purification System) and LPS (Lightweight Purification System) that produce about 30,000 gallons of purified water a day. Once they get started, we start pushing out as much fresh water as people can handle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cpl. Jartavious Gunter, a motor transportation operator, said during his trips delivering water he got the chance to see how much the typhoon affected the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we first got there, there were a few kids playing basketball, all without shirts, there were trees everywhere, we had just enough space to get vehicles through,\u201d Gunter said.<\/p>\n
The water is being taken to 14 community centers that will distribute it to neighboring areas over the next few days.<\/p>\n
Willard Brungel, a safety officer for the pier, said Ashland\u2019s presence on his home island is beyond appreciated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really needed you guys,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat you\u2019ve brought us has made us so happy. All the supplies\u2014over 500 pallets of blankets, water, generators and other supplies, we are very happy to have you guys here and I don\u2019t know how to express everybody\u2019s gratitude. I can tell you from the people of Saipan and myself, we want to thank you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ashland departed from its homeport of Sasebo, Japan, for patrol on June 3. Ashland is assigned to the Bonhomme Richard Amphibious Ready Group, which supports maritime security operations, provides crisis response capabilities, and increases theater security cooperation and forward deployed naval presence in the U.S. Navy\u2019s 7th Fleet area of operations.<\/p>\n
(By MCS3 DAVID A. COX, Amphibious Squadron 11 Public Affairs)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAIPAN HARBOR, Saipan\u2014The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard USS Ashland (LSD 48) arrived on Saipan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":207430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6436,6437,6359,67],"class_list":["post-207429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-hugh-weise","tag-master-sgt","tag-meu","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}