America's North Shore Journal

A small group of eight U.S. Navy Seabees from Amphibious Construction Battalion Two, Detachment India recently completed a long overdue electrical upgrade to the Zurbatiyah port of entry border crossing. The crossing is one of four main border posts along the 1,000-mile Iran-Iraq border operated by the directorate of border enforcement, Iraqi army and Iraqi police services.

They control a hive of activity in the otherwise empty desert with over 150 oil trucks crossing daily and over 1,500 Iranians, almost all of them pilgrims, crossing to visit Iraq’s Shiite shrines in the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.

Fresh off completing a recent Patrol Base build, the Seabees arrived to the site in mid-October and made immediate impacts to the POE, normally operating on less than two hours a day of city power. The Seabees provided the POE the capability to have power supplied 24 hours a day, seven days a week with the installation of two new generators, manual transfer switches to change power supply from city to generator power, and upgraded power distribution lines to all critical facilities.

“What the Seabees have done for this place is nothing short of remarkable,” commented Border Transition Team Leader, Major Raymond Smith, Fort Riley, KS local. “They [Seabees] have taken a facility that was consumed with severe electrical safety hazards and made it a safe working environment for all employees and visitors passing through.”

“When we arrived it looked like a spider web of electrical wires and cables everywhere…I’ve never seen anything like it,” stated Petty Officer 2nd Class William Jackson, project electrician and native of Raleigh, N.C. “I was surprised not to hear any horror stories of people being electrocuted.”

In less than 30 days, the hard charging Seabees continued to prove the “Can Do” spirit and turned over a project that will reap benefits until Iraqi electrical infrastructure improvements reach the outlying areas.

DVIDS
By Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew K. Burns
555th Engineer Brigade