>> yeah, i wanted to comment on operatability within the california national guard. they worked really well within the framework that we established with cal fire and then beyond that throughout the national guard and the army, all of our aviators train to the same standards so really we're able to integrate any aircrew from any state, any component, into our program at any time because we're operating you noah cording you know, according to the same standards. back in 2008 we had a very large fire event here in california and we aircraft from 22 states responding to that. there is capability to respond within the national guard alone and we have started developing relationships with our title 10 partners, we do similar academics every year like they do so i think that helps generate interoperatability amongst the title 10 and title 32 assets within the state as well. >> well, i don't know about you all but i feel pretty comfortable going into this fire season. it sounds like we have a pretty integrated group not only within the military capability you but state and

none. >> reporter: she believes the national guard failed to properly investigate her sexual assault. >> reporter: is this exposing the dysfunction inside the guard? >> yes. >> reporter: brown says following the incident in las vegas, she returned to duty where she said she experienced sexual harassment and inappropriate touching. she said it continue for years. >> it is multiple things over and over again. >> reporter: why did you decide to get involved here? >> because i'm a commander. >> reporter: frustrated with the guard's lack of response to jessica brown's reports, lieutenant colonel david emory sent a years us of memos to commander baldwin, the commanding officer of the california guard. >> reporter: do you have any reason to doubt her statements? >> absolutely not. she is one of the finest ncos i've ever seen. >> reporter: in his memos he wrote no reported action has been taken against anyone in the chain of command regarding the numerous leadership and wingman failures. another memo included, i was the first commander to display any interest in her situation. >> reporter: fo

we're the experienced national guard force. we do some sort of civil support emergency response system every three days in california. we support the governor, mainly law enforcement and the fire services here in the state. we tend to do more emergency missions every year than any of the 53 states and territories combined. so, we have quite a bit of experience. with that experience has come a wealth of relationship building that's key to success and any disaster response is being able to work with the inter agency. we're in a unique position because in addition to my federal responsibilities for commanding both the army and the air national guard, i also serve as a member of the governor's cabinet and with that i work on a daily basis with all of the other state level assets and resources, cal ema, cal fire, the highway patrol, health and human services and all the other state entities that would respond to support local authorities. we have a full-time liaison officer embedded in cal ema that works there 7 days a week, 5 days

the national guard to come in.we are desperate for the national guard to come in. we need specialized equipment to get to people and evacuate those that haven't been evacuated. i have been ask canning them. there's a chain of command. >> what are you hearing. >> they are coming, they are coming but they are not here. >> that was last night. we aired that at 8:00. shortly after you got word that the national guard was coming. they arrived at 1:00 a.m. how are things today. >> we appreciate governor christie working to make sure the national guard came in and actually got a call from the white house and really appreciate -- there is some miscommunications that happened but president obama is really focused on making sure if there is a miscommunication he wants to know about it. really appreciate that we have the option now to reach out and if we need additional resource is, which we absolutely do and we will be making sure that we get the resources for the city. >> what's the greatest need? last time we talked on the

but first the national guard plays a critical role in america's national security. at home, supporting disaster relief operations as in the wake of superstorm sandy that devastated parking lots of the northeast -- parts of the northeaster operations worldwide including afghanistan. while the guard is part of the air force, units -- units in each state are under the command of governors and so the guards relationship with the active duty force can sometimes be strained. that's been the case since february when the air force said that of 9,900 proposed personnel cuts, 5100 would come from the guard. a move that sparked a fire storm of protests on capitol hill. lawmakers governors and guard leaders accused the air force of failing to coordinate cuts they say fell disproportionately on citizen airmen and in protest the congress prohibited the air force from executing $9 billion in cuts freezing the services ability to shed personnel to meet targets for the budget. the new chief of staff general mark welsh on the show a few weeks ago said that one of his top priorities is

this is the staging area for the national guard. dozens of guards are here to evacuate anywhere from 15 to 20,000 people who are still trapped by surging floodwaters. as we rolled out the scene quickly degrades from dry roads to waist-high water, cars abandoned in the middle of the street, not a sidewalk in sight. water full of oil, debris and sewage, up to 25% of the city is still submerged in water and less than a mile into a trip a man walking with his belongings in a large garbage bag. how bad was it? >> bad. all of my clothes are all messed up, the whole door is caved in there. >> reporter: hector santiago is the superintendent of this flooded building. water is receding but images like this car bring home the magnitude of the storm's wrath here. >> we have a guy having chest problems they want to get him out. >> reporter: a couple of their friends brought their boats here to help with the rescue. at times the water is so deep our humvee can't get through so we went looking for a larger truck, found one in the middle of a rescue

the national guard hadn't arrived.and this is what she said about it last night. >> we are desperate for the national guard to come in we need their specialized equipment to get through city streets to safely get the people and evacuate those out of the national guard. >> you have been asking? >> i have been asking. chain of command. >> what are you hearing? >> they are coming, they are coming, they are coming, but they are not here. >> that was last night, we heard that around 8:00, shortly after, you got word they were coming and they arrived about 1:00 a.m. how are things now? >> we appreciate governor christie working to make sure the national guard came in, and i got a call from the white house and really appreciate. there were some miscommunications that happened. and president obama focussed on making sure if there is a mixed communication that he knows about it if we need additional presources, which we absolutely do, and make sure we get the resources of the city of hoboken. >> what is the greatest need? we ta

they got to see the national guard's capabilities down there, the coast guard's capabilities. they got experience of what the marine corps has to offer. it was the smorgasbord of mill capability. as we contemplate the idea of medical surge and how do we deal with a thousand people in a hospital parking lot, we have to be creative. the only way we can do that is we have to know what are the options out there, what are the game pieces, what's the apps in the apps store? what can we ask for? by understanding some of these capabilities and looking beyond the obvious i think we're going to be able to develop some really cool medical surge plans and capitalize on the partnership between dod and the civilian world and i don't want to discount the other partners because this happens, this comes up every year and i have to say that it comes up every time we get lectured about there's the state, the state has resources, the feds, the other federal partners, they have resources, absolutely. when i say dod, please don't take it the wrong way, i'm encapsulating the entire family. when we t

they got to see the national guard's capabilities down there, the coast guard's capabilities. they got experience of what the marine corps has to offer. it was the smorgasbord of mill capability. as we contemplate the idea of medical surge and how do we deal with a thousand people in a hospital parking lot, we have to be creative. the only way we can do that is we have to know what are the options out there, what are the game pieces, what's the apps in the apps store? what can we ask for? by understanding some of these capabilities and looking beyond the obvious i think we're going to be able to develop some really cool

and the national guard troops delivered food and water to people in cities across manhattan. troops arrived on tuesday to help as officials sent out a plea for more supplies including boats and generators. it flooded 25% of the community and 90% was without power. this left many people anxious and city leaders struggling to get help to those who need it. dozens of volunteers are going door to door in new york to see if seniors need water or other medical supplies. sherrie johnson abc2 news. >>> by tomorrow night everyone should have their lights back on here in our community, bge says they have restored power to more than 90% of its customers. 19,000 people are still in the dark. the majority of them are in baltimore county. they expect to have the lights back on by friday night. >> if you picked up sand wags and many of you did to prepare, now is the time to return them. the city has announced the dropoff lotions. we're going to pass them along to you. you can bring them to the broadway pier, rash field down at the inner harbor or you can go to polly western high school thei

maybe we can talk about how is the national guard and dod resources and capabilities integrated into the command and control at the fire and also the supporting ops centers whether it be the gac or other centers down there. maybe our military personnel can talk about that, or ray. >> it's important to note that we are the supporting effort to cal fire and we get called in when they are basically out of assets. we are working for cal fire, they are the incident commanders, we follow their coordination, typically we're the last ones in and the first ones out. we do have an on-going relationship with cal fire, i'm in contact with cal fire all the time. we have good situational awareness what's going on in the state of california. they normally put us in an alert stat us so we're prepared to respond in an attack mode. i don't often work with chief chaney in southern california, about a month ago we had 9 aircraft at our peak working fires throughout northern california if that answers your question. >> any other responses? >> i wanted to touch -- can you hear me now? i wanted to touch on

this is the staging area for the national guard. guards are here to evacuate anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000 people still trapped by flood waters. as rerolled out, the scene degrades from dry roads to waist high water. cars s abandoned. water full of oil, debris and sewage. up to 25% of the city is still submerged in water. less than a mile into our trip, we see a man walking with his belongings. how bad was it? >> bad. all the doors caved in. >> reporter: hector is a superintendent of this flooded building. water is receding, but images like this car bring home the magnitude of the storm's wrath here. >> we've got a guy with chest problems. they want to get hick out. >> reporter: they brought their boetds here to help with the rescue. at times the water is so deep our humvee can't get through. so we went looking for a larger truck. we found one in the middle of a rescue. even the national guard are relying on cell phones. so we had to drive through the neighborhood to find another. that one had finally reached the man having chest p

in california, we would go to the national guard from other states and that may be 1500 miles away. and that capability could be right down the road or down in san diego in one of the reserve components or in the active components of the marines or the navy and we need to sort through that so we can better respond. with that also will come changes that may need to be statutory changes so we can better accept the title 10 forces in particular the reserve forces. it is very frustrating during fire season when our black hawk helicopter company flying its rotors off down in los alamedos is sitting on the same ramp as army reserve helicopters we can't access because of staff problems and other issues we're going to have to work through to fight those same fires, those are the kind of things we'll probably have to take back to our elected leadership and change -- make some changes to be able to better serve the people. >> i was at chief sur, and i was glad to hear him say that we really rely on the communities to be their responder for the first 72 hours. this topic of community res

we had the national guard above us in a helicopter, even though it was really foggy, they didn't see much, but they demonstrated proof of concept that they can connect the video feed. we learned there are limitations in things of band width and video feed that i'm not qualified to talk about, i'm strictly a push to talk guy. we know as a city when the earth moves, things fall, we get a lot of rubble. that's going to be one of our critical, critical things we have to do. we have to be able to move material and personnel and one of the ways we're going to be doing that is how do we actually get the debris off the road so we can put things back to work. so that was the command of control exercise. we had the marine corps, the navy, and the national guard all working with our department of public works figuring out how would they work together. we didn't give them a lot of coaching, we just kind of put them in a tent and said here is your scenario, here's some problems, and we wanted them to work it out and they did. so it was a very successful year. that's what we did as far as the fiel

or air national guard or the department of public works acu one thousand van and they pretty much made up the backbone of that network. the point i'm trying to make is we had redundancy at each site and then small unplanned events were not a factor. one way or another we were able to send our reports through. this is a starting point for working in san francisco. we could have probably done more analysis of the terrain that we're working in terms to identify those black holes for cops, those black areas. so we learned a lot. i think a lot of this has been captured in the afteraction and i think if we have another iteration next year to definitely have a good starting point. >> we brought from the california national guard, we brought our quick reaction area force and we brought our ic for you so we had 3 different com spans that are cross banded, which is an opportunity that not all dod assets have.

general baldwin was asking and requesting a new visit by the national guard bureau to review key programs in the guard and make sure they're meeting the national guard development and that's the best story. >> here's the information if you want to get ahold of our investigative unit directly. or you can send us an e-mail directly to the unit other nbcbayarea.com. >>> new details about how a registered sex offender was spotted volunteers at a san jose church festival teaming with kids. he was made by a i think girl who recognized him often the megan's law website. tonight what he did and more stunning, what he discovered about the convicted volunteers volunteering at the church. we're live at the church, george? >> reporter: more than 50 concerned parents came out to ask more questions and find out more information. one of the questions, why did it take the church more than six weeks to vet aid convicted sex o'nender from its property. >> why is that person allowed to be even near our school, i have no idea. >> john's daughter spotted convicted sex offender mark geary volunteers at a fall

president obama fired up after one of his own comes under fire. >>> the california national guard has long history of helping the state and nation during tough times. >> but a joint investigation by nbc bay area and our sister station knbc in los angeles uncovers a disturbing hidden culture in the guard, some say sexual assault and racism go unchecked. here's our investigation. tony, serious claims here. >>> raj, yes, we spoke with two dozen men and women from the california national guard who call the culture inside toxic. and now they want to expose what they say is the truth. i want it to stop. >> reporter: she's a master sergeant serving in the guard for a dozen years. >> i don't understand. i had faith in this organization. >> reporter: and she's a staff sergeant serving in the military for two decades. they are part of the 23,000 men and women serving the california national guard, where its integrity first and service before self and some of the members who say for years they have witnessed sexual harassment and racism and retaliation. >> is that part of the culture of the nati

"the national guard has arrived!" specifically, the second battalion of the 13th infantry, with 12 vehicles, able to make it through hoboken's narrow streets in deep flood waters to begin assessing the city's needs. the first priority was getting the most vulnerable people who were still strapped on to dry ground, and then figuring out who to help next. with daylight, another look at the devastation from the air revealed just how much there was to do. roughly half of that city still underwater. one stranded resident showing what that looked like from his doorstep. the national guard spent today driving these high water vehicles through the flooded streets, rescuing stranded people. yes, some people rescued with their pets, their very large pets, getting folks to friends or to emergency shelters that were set up in a couple of churches. other stranded residents were able today to hitch rides out on boats. on the dry side of the city, neighbors were banding together. people who still had electricity created makeshift ce

first i'll begin with just a little bit more background on the national guard. the national guard is unique amongst the components of the army and air force in that in addition to our war fighting mission, we have provided support to civil authorities as a core task. that's why we exist as a unique component. in addition, we're a community based force. our soldiers live and work in all the communities and already have a lot of the relationships with the first responders, the public health services, the hospitals and all those entities that would respond in a disaster. the california national guard as mentioned is the largest in the nation under 54 states and territories. we're the largest by far. and we have a broad spectrum of capabilities that range from on the low end manpower where we can deploy troops for either security missions or firefighting hand crew missions all the way up to the high end where we have a wing, we also a wealth of relationship building that's key to success and any disaster response is being able to work with the inter agency. we're in

the national guard is there, right, bob? they're helping with rescues and helping with supplies too. >> reporter: indeed, soledad. good morning to you. a different story flrthis morni from yesterday. the national guard is still here, but yesterday morning, everybody were in their trucks. the trucks are still here, but they're not idling and i haven't seen a single national guard troop and all the roads dry. the evacuations, they have essentially ceased. that's the good news. but the bad news is the power is still out and people obviously are getting a little bit cold. temperatures right now down into the 40s. yesterday morning, this was also a staging area where i was standing. got some people get loaded out, saw some families. i talked to one particular guy, here's what he had to say. >> one night without food, water, without electricity. so we had to leave, no matter what. so we had no milk, so we just have to leave. >> reporter: a cute little guy too. that was really the story for about everybody. they were running out of

none. >> she believes the national guard failed to properly investigate her sexual assault. >> is this exposing the dysfunction inside the guard? >> yes. >> brown says following the incident in las vegas, she returned to duty where she says she experienced sexual harassment and inappropriate touching. she says it continued for years. >> multiple things over and over again. >> can did you decide to get involved here? >> because i'm a commander. >> frustrated with the guard's lack of response to jessica brown's reports, lieutenant colonel david emery sent a series of memos to general david baldwin, the commanding officer of the california guard. >> do you have any reason to doubt her statements? >> absolutely not. she's one of the finest ncos i've ever seen. >> in his memos earlier this year, the lieutenant colonel wrote, no reported action has been taken against min in the chain of command regarding the numerous leadership and wing man failures. another memo included, i was the first command ir to display any interest in her situation. >> for getting involved, were you retaliated agains