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  • December

    Risk cadre members observe newly placed riprap slope protection placed to prevent erosion on a steep slope at the Beach City Dam in Ohio for the Huntington District July 2012.

    Risk cadre renews commitment to Corps’ most vulnerable structures

    SAVANNAH, Ga. – Across the Corps’ portfolio of dams and levees requiring rehabilitation, a risk cadre team here sets out to identify issues that could lead to further degradation of structures and pose economic or life-threatening risks to surrounding communities.
  • Matthew Rorick (back), Jason Lavecchia (front) and Jimmy Luo of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Savannah District work to provide emergency power to areas surrounding Annville, Penn., in response to Superstorm Sandy. As part of the joint federal response led by FEMA, the Corps of Engineers currently has 69 FEMA mission assignments exceeding a total of $254 million.

    Savannah’s power team generates national recognition

    SAVANNAH, Ga. — As the Northeast confronted the trauma of Superstorm Sandy in 2012, the Savannah District’s emergency power team mobilized as part of an interagency response to support the New York Engineer District and provide relief to the ravished region.

  • November

    A row of 6.4-inch Brooke shells wait in buckets filled with seawater prior to being inerted, Nov. 4. Technicians inerted 170 Brooke shells and Dahlgren projectiles in two months.

    CSS Georgia’s parting shot

    SAVANNAH, Ga. — Ben Redmond and Matt Christiansen are breathing a little easier now that the most dangerous part of their job is over. The pair, along with a handful of engineers and technicians, spent the last two months inerting 170 Dahlgren and 6.4-inch Brooke projectiles that Navy divers recovered from the CSS Georgia this summer.

  • October

    The Fort Pulaski shoreline stabilization project restored approximately a mile and a half of Cockspur Island’s north shore using more than 200,000 cubic yards of dredged material from the Savannah Harbor Navigation Project.

    Shore stabilization project protects Fort Pulaski’s heritage

    SAVANNAH, Ga. – Officials at Fort Pulaski National Monument have gained precious ground thanks to a multiagency project that wrapped up this week.
  • Capt. Joshua Moore (right) and 2nd Lt. Thomas Zarack (left), both part of the Technical Engineer Competency Development Program, pose at the site of Fort Gordon’s $66 million Advanced Individual Training Phase II Barracks and Ground Source Heat Transfer Project Oct. 16. The pair work as part of the TEC-DP which places junior engineers at USACE districts to gain technical expertise while filling key billets within USACE.

    Junior engineers grow competent in district’s developmental program

    The pair have had an ascendant year in their professional lives. From leading tactical projects for the operational Army to managing multimillion dollar construction projects impacting a community of thousands, Capt. Joshua Moore and 1st Lt. Thomas Zarack entered the Technical Engineer Competency Development Program, or TEC-DP, to tackle some of the district’s leading military construction projects.
  • Archaeologists with Panamerican Consultants, Inc. spray down pieces of the CSS Georgia’s armor or “casemate” during the mechanized recovery phase, Sept. 24. The mechanized recovery is one of the final phases of the project that will remove the ironclad before deepening the Savannah harbor.

    Mechanized recovery reveals more of CSS Georgia’s gems

    SAVANNAH, Ga. – Six days a week, Loren Clark comes home covered in mud, soaked in seawater and physically exhausted from 12 hours of hard labor.
  • Gordon Simmons (right), chief of engineering, USACE Savannah District, currently deployed to Afghanistan, receives the Bronze Order of the de Fleury Medal from Col. Pete Helmlinger, commander, USACE Transatlantic- Afghanistan District, Monday at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan.

    Top brass engineer leads from the front

    SAVANNAH, Ga. – As if deploying to Afghanistan does not pose enough of a challenge, making a dramatic mission change in the middle only adds to personal and professional demands. However, Gordon Simmons, Savannah District’s Chief of Engineering, would not let that slow him from pushing forward to help the people of that war-torn nation.

  • September

    ROTC Cadet Justin Wynne on a survey boat before the CSS Georgia recovery station.

    California cadet finds element in the 'Hostess City'

    On the heels of his freshman year at UCLA, Army ROTC Cadet Justin Wynne arrived with a lean understanding of the Corps as a new intern with the Cadet District Engineer Program here. By week four, he departed fleshed with experience on some of the district’s principal works, including the all-encompassing Savannah Harbor Expansion Project.

  • Harbor deepening begins: Welcome aboard the Dredge Alaska

    SAVANNAH, Ga. — As part of the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, dredging for the outer harbor began Sept. 10 onboard the cutter head dredge Alaska. The vessel is situated approximately four miles offshore from Tybee Island in the entrance channel to Savannah harbor.
  • Another unexpected surprise: A crane raises a Dahlgren rifled cannon from the CSS Georgia site in the Savannah River, Sept. 15.

    A second Dahlgren is twice as nice

    SAVANNAH, Ga. – As the mechanized stage of recovery began in earnest this week, marine archaeologists working on the CSS Georgia had just started to dig in for the long haul – anticipating tedious, 12-hour days of sifting through concretion-covered objects from the dregs of the Savannah River.

  • August

    Corps tests gates at Hartwell, Thurmond

    SAVANNAH, Ga. – The Savannah District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducted limited engineering and operations tests on spillway gates at Hartwell and J. Strom Thurmond dams, Aug. 25 and 26, respectively.
  • The CSS Georgia continues to surprise archaeologists. Case in point, this 9,000-pound Dahlgren rifled cannon that archaeologists thought was a different type of cannon before raising it to the surface July 21.

    A wreck reborn: Recovering the Civil War ironclad CSS Georgia from the Savannah River

    SAVANNAH, Ga. – As cities along the East Coast scramble to bolster their infrastructure and employ massive dredges to deepen their harbors, Savannah began its harbor expansion with a team of 10 people who used wire baskets to raise a handful of objects at a time.
  • From left to right: Retired Major William A. Allen, Martha Coley and retired Lt. Col. Stephen R. Allen are pictured at McEntire Joint National Guard Base in Hopkins, South Carolina January 2014.

    After decades of giving, she won’t slow down

    SAVANNAH, Ga. – From the moment her teenage son mounted a foldout of an aircraft cockpit on his bedroom wall, she knew that he was poised to fly planes. Martha Coley, now mother to two retired Air Force pilots, recalled this, and similar aspirations-turned-accomplishments, arresting the discussion to misty-eyed silence.

  • July

    Ellie Covington, a biologist with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Savannah District, and Sandy Beasley, a volunteer with U.S. Fish & Wildlife, count birds at Tybee Island, June 30. Savannah District biologists like Covington visit the island three times a month to monitor the number of birds following Tybee Island’s beach renournishment in December 2014.

    Savannah River islands attract a different type of tourist

    SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Threatened by development and predators from every side, local birds here are finding safe, pristine habitats in an unlikely place: at the bottom of the Savannah River.

  • Video: Navy divers recover first of 4 remaining cannons

    SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Navy divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2 and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit 6 raised the first of four remaining cannons from the CSS Georgia, July 15.
  • Members of Fort Benning’s Project Delivery Team coalesce after the first piece of structural steel was placed at the site April 9, 2012.

    Fort Benning project team shines with delivery of industry-leading hospital

    SAVANNAH, Ga. – Fort Benning’s newly unveiled Martin Army Community Hospital brims with exceptionalism, earning the hospital’s area team the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ 2015 Project Delivery Team of the Year for Excellence Award.
  • From left to right: Jose Sigran, Jafet Aguiler and Alexandria Gunter pose in front a loaner lifejacket stand on Lake Hartwell June 3. Gunter volunteered to swim lifejackets to the boys who were stranded on a buoy after becoming winded attempting to swim back to the shoreline

    Boys’ lives saved by rescuers, loaner life jackets at Hartwell Lake

    SAVANNAH, Ga. – The collaborative efforts of a Hartwell Lake corps ranger and bystander saved two boys’ lives after the pair struggled to swim from a remote buoy to the beach shoreline June 3.

  • Army reductions response to changing fiscal, warfighting needs

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of the Army today announced force structure decisions and stationing plans for the reduction of the Regular Army from 490,000 to 450,000 Soldiers. This reduction of 40,000 Soldiers will occur in fiscal years 2016 and 2017. This represents a cumulative cut of 120,000 Soldiers from the Regular Army, or 21 percent, since 2012. These will be accompanied by a reduction of approximately 17,000 Department of the Army Civilian employees.
  • (Left to right) Gordon Simmons, Chief of Engineering & Construction, USACE Transatlantic Afghanistan District; Ahad Wahad, Deputy Mayor of Kabul City; and Col. Pete Helmlinger, USA, Commander, USACE Transatlantic Afghanistan District, discuss engineering challenges in the rapid expansion of Kabul City.

    Building the Builders in Afghanistan

    BAGRAM AIRFIELD, AFGHANISTAN – What if you had to make a choice in which the outcome could impact the gross domestic product of an entire country? Would you be Chief of the Federal Reserve? An executive of a leading international company? A political leader? How about an SAME Post? There was such a choice, and the SAME Savannah Post chose to team with the Transatlantic Afghanistan District (TAA) of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) on an action that could well shape the development of construction procedures and material testing in Afghanistan from this point forward.

  • June

    From left: Paula Hanna, Savannah District’s family readiness coordinator and executive secretary for Savannah District’s deputy commander, and a USO staff member take a break after welcoming home the 542nd FEST-A team at the Savannah-Hilton Head International airport, June 23.

    District’s backbone crowned USACE’s top FRN coordinator

    SAVANNAH, Ga. – A magnet for recognition, Paula Hanna, the Savannah District’s Family Readiness Network coordinator, adds to her string of awards receiving the Family Readiness Individual Excellence Award for 2014-2015.