U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Heartland-WR Marine Safety

09/03/2026

⚠️ Illegal charter operations are UNSAFE!

CHECK THE CAPTAIN 📕

If you're paying for a boat ride, the captain must have a valid U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Mariner Credential!

Illegal charter operations pose a significant risk to the safety of their passengers, their crew and the maritime community. Keep yourself safe and don't waste your time or money on an illegal charter!

👀 See a suspicious charter? Report it through the National Response Center at 1-877-24WATCH (1-877-249-2824).

For immediate danger to life or property, dial 911 or call the Coast Guard on VHF-FM Marine Channel 16.



Graphic By: PA3 Lyric Jackson

08/25/2026

Happy Birthday, National Park Service!

08/07/2026

Happy ! that the US Lighthouse Service was the first maritime service, organized a year before the Revenue Cutter Service in 1790? Today, US Coast Guard buoy tenders, known affectionately as "Black Hulls", continue the traditions of the USLHS to keep "the lamps burning" along America's waterways, including here on the western rivers.

U.S. Coast Guard Sector Upper Mississippi River
U.S. Coast Guard Sector Lower Mississippi River
U.S. Coast Guard Heartland
US Coast Guard Auxiliary, Heartland District-Western Rivers

📷: T. Wilkinson, AUXPA1, on board CGC CHEYENNE, 2025.

07/11/2026

"Those familiar with Coast Guard history know that the service’s development has been shaped by the nation’s natural and man-made disasters. Many Coast Guard missions were written in blood. Nowhere is that clearer than the Marine Safety mission."

Those familiar with Coast Guard history know that the service’s development has been shaped by the nation’s natural and man-made disasters. Many Coast Guard missions were written in blood. Nowhere is

06/24/2026

🔹 Training Tuesday: Navigation Systems & Bridge Program 🔹

Did you know that Coast Guard Auxiliarists play a vital role in supporting our Nation’s waterways?

⚓ Navigation Systems (NS)
Qualified Auxiliarists serving as Aid Verifiers (AVs) help ensure the accuracy of Private Aids to Navigation (PATONs), such as private buoys and daybeacons. Members may also assist Coast Guard Aids to Navigation (ATON) units with servicing Federal aids after receiving appropriate training.

Auxiliarists also support charting efforts by assisting NOAA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with updates to nautical charts, publications, and other critical navigation information that keeps mariners safe.

🌉 Bridge Program
Qualified Auxiliarists support the Coast Guard Bridge Program by conducting bridge surveys, reporting navigation concerns, and assisting with waterways safety issues involving bridges and bridge lighting systems.

These missions help maintain safe and efficient waterways for recreational boaters, commercial traffic, and all who depend on our maritime transportation system.

Whether verifying aids to navigation, supporting bridge safety, or assisting our Coast Guard partners, Auxiliarists continue to demonstrate their commitment to Service to the Nation.

04/27/2026

161 years ago today, the United States experienced its most significant marine casualty in terms of lives lost. On that day the steamship Sultana exploded and caught fire. An estimated 1,800 of the approximately 2,400 passengers and crew died after one of the ship’s boilers exploded. The ship had just left Vicksburg en route to St. Louis. It was carrying numerous Union Army veterans home, many recently released from Confederate prisons. Subsequently, inspection standards for steamships were strengthened (Courtesy of Bryant’s Maritime Blog).

The history of the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Program is forever linked with steamships and related marine casualties. After several steamboat fires and boiler explosions, Congress passed the Steamboat Act of 1838 to “provide better security of the lives of passengers on board of vessels propelled in whole or in part by steam.”

After steamboat disasters increased in volume and severity, Congress passed the Steamboat Act of 1852. This Act required the testing of boilers and steam safety valves, and licensing of pilots and engineers by local inspectors. The law exempted, however, freight boats, ferries, and tugboats. Under this law, the organization and form of the first federal maritime inspection service (i.e., the Steamboat Inspection Service) began to emerge.

An Act of 1871 created a comprehensive Marine Safety Code. This Act sought to protect the crew as well as passengers, authorized period inspections, and extended licensing requirements to all masters and chief mates. Further, it created a Supervisory Inspector General directly responsible to the Secretary of the Treasury and gave the Board of Supervisory Inspectors the authority to prescribe nautical Rules of the Road.

Today the story of Sultana is told by the Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion, Arkansas, and The Sultana Association.

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-- https://midatlantic.coastguard.dodlive.mil/2010/04/ss-sultana-explosion-and-fire-april-27-1865/

📷: Original image is credited to Thomas W. Bankes, Helena, AR - Cowan's Auctions, Public Domain.

04/22/2026

“The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value." -- Theodore Roosevelt

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04/20/2026

"Another drop of oil"

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill began on April 20, 2010, when an offshore oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. It was the largest oil spill in U.S. history. The Coast Guard worked closely with local, state and federal agencies in response to it. Here a member from the National Strike Force team from Fort Dix, N.J., finds a small clump of oil in the sand during a beach assessment patrol to monitor progress of contracted cleanup workers on Dauphin Island in Alabama’s Mississippi Sound. Volunteers, shown in the background, daily swept Alabama beaches and wetlands in a search for potential signs of oil and other threats.

Image: Oil painting titled "Another drop of oil" by Kristin Hosbein. US Coast Guard Art Program 2011 Collection, Ob ID # 201112, "Another drop of oil," Kristin Hosbein, oil, 24 x 24

03/11/2026

The cutters are the first three of 30 future WCCs that will replace the Coast Guard’s legacy inland tender fleet, which will strengthen the Coast Guard’s capabilities to facilitate commerce vital to economic prosperity, strategic mobility, and maritime dominance.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Coast Guard authenticated the keels for future Coast Guard cutters Allen Thiele, Fred Permenter and Samuel Wilson on Friday in Bayou La Batre, Alabama.