Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite has made headlines for his plans to construct makeshift hospital rooms across the country as the Nation prepares for an onslaught of COVID-19 patients. On Monday, Semonite turned to the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) in Vicksburg to ask for help accomplishing that mission. Within an hour of the initial phone call, the ERDC Directorate of Public Works (DPW) staff had gathered and begun preparing to build two types of mock-up hospital rooms.

As part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers COVID-19 response efforts, Buffalo District finished facility assessments for potential alternate care facilities for COVID-19 patients in Pennsylvania, March 26, 2020. As of this post, USACE has over 15,500 personnel engaged in the fight. We're working with the White House and Department of Defense, as well as Federal, state, and local partners to address possible medical facility shortages across the Nation. The Buffalo District is supporting the Baltimore District with facility assessments as part of a unified response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A challenging problem facing our military is the impact caused by aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) that has been used to control aviation fires at military bases since the 1970s. It contains a substance called PFAS, which has been discovered at hundreds of installations around the world, and Department of Defense leadership has committed to further studying the issue. In support of the Department of Defense, ERDC is leading a collaborative effort to bring experts together from government and industry to address the legacy issues of PFAS, and subsequent replacement compounds, as they seek out cost-effective and environmentally protective solutions.

Col. John Hudson, Commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Omaha District gives an update on repairs to the levees damaged during the March 2019 flood.