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Archive: 2026
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  • May

    Fort Worth District Emergency Management team members joined the staff from Grapevine Lake and community partners for a tabletop exercise and rehearsal of emergency action plans. Regular coordination with agencies like the Texas Department of Emergency Management and local partners ensures that response plans are aligned at every level. As district officials emphasize, planning for dam-related emergencies is no different than preparing for fires or tornadoes—it requires constant communication, exercises, and updates to ensure readiness.

    Engineering Readiness: Building Relationships Before Crisis

    The rain didn’t arrive all at once. It built, hour by hour — an unrelenting drumbeat against rooftops, roadways, and the rising surface of the reservoir. What began as a forecast turned into a threat, as water crept higher along the dam’s face, inching toward a point of no return. Sirens remained silent — for now — but behind the scenes, emergency managers were already making critical decisions that could mean the difference between a controlled release and catastrophic failure. In moments like this when nature tests the limits of infrastructure and time is measured in inches of rising water, emergency management becomes not just a function of government, but the frontline defense between order and disaster.
  • U.S. Army Col. Calvin Kroeger, Fort Worth District commander, recently met with Corps of Engineers' team members that are deployed to Maui supporting the debris cleanup mission from wildfires that swept through the small Hawaiian towns of Lahaina and Kula, Aug. 8, 2023. Pictured are members of the Recovery Field Office, the Joint Field Office and some members from the Emergency Field Office.

    A Mission Built on Service and Readiness

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Fort Worth District stands as a critical component of the nation’s disaster response and recovery framework, demonstrating how engineering expertise and a culture of volunteerism can directly impact lives in times of crisis. From hurricanes along the Gulf and East coasts to wildfires in Hawaii and California, and even international disasters such as Super Typhoon Sinlaku, Fort Worth District personnel have repeatedly answered the call—often by volunteering to deploy into challenging and austere environments.

  • April

    A groundbreaking ceremony was held on April 17, 2026, at Moore Air Base for the New World Screwworm Sterile Fly Production Facility. Once complete and fully operational, the facility will produce approximately 300 million sterile flies per week. Pictured from right to left in helmets are U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Fort Worth District Commander Col. Calvin Kroeger, USACE Southwestern Division Commander Brig. Gen. George Walter, Mortenston Vice President and General Manager Kelly McNamara, USACE Commander Lt. Gen. William “Butch” Graham Jr., Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment Dr. Jeff Waksman, U.S. Department of the Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Senator John Cornyn, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Mr. Dudley Hoskins, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Acting Administrator Kelly Moore, and USDA Deputy Director for New World Screwworm Directorate Chris Needham. Others in the photo are members of the USDA’s Veterinary Services “Tick Riders”.

    Groundbreaking Ceremony Marks New Era in Agricultural Biosecurity at Moore Air Base

    On April 17, 2026, leaders from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture gathered alongside federal, state, and local partners to break ground on a critical new facility aimed at safeguarding America’s livestock industry—the New World Screwworm Sterile Fly Production Facility.
  • U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers from the 401st Engineer Company conduct multi-role bridging training operations at Bardwell Lake in Texas. The exercise focuses on wet gap crossing techniques, including ribbon bridge and raft operations, enabling the transport of vehicles, equipment, and personnel across water obstacles. The training integrates new Soldiers fresh from Advanced Individual Training (AIT) alongside experienced Noncommissioned Officers, enhancing readiness, morale, and technical proficiency. Conducted in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the field training exercise highlights the importance of interagency collaboration and access to USACE-managed resources for realistic, mission-essential training environments.

    U.S. Army Engineers Conduct Bridging Exercise at Bardwell Lake

    Soldiers from the U.S. Army Reserve’s 401st Engineer Company spent the weekend of March 26-29 at Bardwell Lake conducting a multi‑day bridging exercise designed to train new troops and refresh skills that many in the unit had not practiced in years.
  • After a wildfire at Dana Peak Park crept dangerously close to homes in Harker Heights, local, state and federal agencies partnered to build a large-scale firebreak aimed at protecting neighborhoods bordering Stillhouse Hollow Lake.

    Agencies Join Forces to Build Mile-Long Firebreak After Near-Miss Blaze in Harker Heights

    After a wildfire at Dana Peak Park crept dangerously close to homes in Harker Heights, local, state and federal agencies partnered to build a large-scale firebreak aimed at protecting neighborhoods bordering Stillhouse Hollow Lake.
  • The key participants in the first bead-laying ceremony for the 3D-printed buildings on Fort Bliss are pictured left to right: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Southwestern Division Commander Brig. Gen. George Walter, ICON CEO Jason Ballard, Assistant Secretary of the Army (IE&E) the Honorable W. Jordan Gillis and 1st Armored Division and Fort Bliss Commander Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor. Using a tablet, they initiated the construction-scale 3D printer to lay the next level of a future barracks. In total, 10 new barracks will be constructed over a six-month period. Each of the barracks will house up to 56 soldiers deployed to the West Texas Army base.

    Laying the Future of Barracks Construction

    In the high desert of West Texas, a milestone in military construction and innovation took shape under the dusty sky at Fort Bliss as leaders, engineers, soldiers, and contractors gathered for the first bead-laying ceremony of 10 new 3D-printed buildings. The event marked not just the start of construction, but a transformation in how the Army builds for the future.

  • February

    Modern cartographers for the United States Army Corps of Engineers’ Fort Worth District Real Estate Division have decades of maps stored in wooden cabinets. The maps show the different phases of projects including the district’s 25 lakes, military construction, as well as flood risk mitigation projects with local, county and state governments from throughout the district’s boundaries. Using the old two-dimensional maps along with current surveys allows the cartographers to produce new maps using modern software such as MicroStation and ArcGIS Pro that clearly depicts each and every project in a clearer, multi-dimensional view that was not available before.

    Mapping the District’s Future - Cartography

    In a utilitarian structure of reinforced concrete, a bastion of pragmatism near the Trinity River, there worked a group of government employees, cartographers not of lands, but of interventions. They are assets of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District, and their charge is a solemn one: to translate USACE’s immense, earth-altering projects from the sterile domain of engineering schematics and hydrological models into the authoritative and comprehensible form of the map. Theirs is not an art of mere illustrations, but of sober visualization, a critical bridge between the raw power of engineering and the human landscapes it was designed to protect or create.

  • January

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    USACE, Air Force Celebrate Ribbon Cutting of Net Zero Facility at AFPC

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Air Force marked a milestone with a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new two-story net zero addition to the Air Force's Personnel Center, Dec. 4, 2025.