The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a continuing requirement for aviation ground support services.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) extensive planning of evacuation procedures has the potential to prevent the unnecessary loss of life in the days prior to landfall of a hurricane or other major disaster. The planning and execution of an evacuation relies on many modes of transportation including ground, air, watercraft, and rail methods.

The purpose of this Performance Work Statement (PWS) is to obtain aviation ground support services at designated airports to assist in the safe and timely precautionary mass evacuation of the critical transportation needs (CTN) segment of the general (non-medical) population to pre-designated locations and/or Host States in the event of a major disaster. In the event of a declared emergency or major disaster, air evacuation operations will be conducted at designated airports. FEMA, along with state and local authorities, may be responsible for transporting CTNs evacuees, to include individuals with disabilities and those with Access and Functional Needs (AFNs), to safe harbor locations outside of the disaster impacted area. CTNs are residents that do not have the means to self-evacuate. For the purpose of this PWS when CTNs is used in
this document it shall also include, but not be limited to, all support services that shall be provided to individuals with disabilities and those within the AFN (non-medical) population.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, particularly the City of New Orleans. This Category 3 storm resulted in the loss of over 3,000 lives. Based on lessons learned from this event, the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 (PKEMRA) designated the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as the lead Federal agency for the management of federally assisted evacuations. FEMA may be required to assist other states, territories, and other U.S. location in air evacuation requirements.

Additionally, in 2017, there was consideration by FEMA for the post storm evacuation of CTNs for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico because of the devastating impact of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. While this evacuation did not materialize, there were plans implemented by FEMA Headquarters to gauge the number of CTNs that could be potentially evacuated, if it would have been required.

The Federal Evacuation Support Annex to the, Response & Recovery Federal Interagency Operational Plans, Second Edition, (April 2025); the National Response Framework (October 2019); National Incident Management System (October 2017); and, the Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 101, Version 3.0 (September 2021) provides an overview of mass evacuation functions, agency roles and responsibilities, and overall guidelines for the integration of Federal, state, tribal, and local support in the evacuation of large numbers of people in incidents requiring a coordinated Federal response.

To support the ability to rapidly obtain aviation ground support services at U.S. airports. This contract support includes the requirements to obtain Contractor-managed multi-functional air operational support resources and capabilities as needed in support of Federal assistance for a national event. A national event, as used in this document, is defined as any occurrence when federally provided capabilities are needed to support activities that otherwise exceeds available local and State resources. Specifically,, the Contractor may be tasked to provide airfield site plans by conducting an airfield survey at designated airports. Upon completion of the airfield survey, the Contractor may be tasked to develop an aviation ground support operational plans for the support in a CTN evacuation. Additionally, the Contractor may be tasked to provide training, exercise, and technical assistance support under this contract. The Contractor may be tasked to provide ground support services to include passenger services for CTN evacuees supporting a large-scale air evacuation. The contractor may also be tasked to provide crisis action or daptive operational planning supporting planning for airfields that don’t have an evacuation plan and airports who existing planning needs to be updated, respectively. Furthermore, the Contractor shall be tasked to provide operational and/or logistical support for CTN evacuations and/or the staging of responding team assets.