Coast Guard Atlantic Area

The Coast Guard's Atlantic Area Command oversees all Coast Guard domestic operations east of the Rocky Mountains, including the Caribbean and Coast Guard “out-of-hemisphere” operations in Europe, Africa, and Southwest Asia.

Day-to-day operations are run by five regional district commands. Atlantic Area is responsible for coordinating and deploying cutters, aircraft, pollution response equipment and thousands of personnel between districts when major events occur.  After major disasters, Atlantic Area assists districts by ensuring resources, equipment and personnel are surged to impacted areas for rescue and recovery efforts, while also ensuring other Coast Guard operations throughout the region continue. 

The Atlantic Area command works closely with the Coast Guard's Pacific Area command to respond to national level incidents, such as hurricane response and large-scale environmental pollution, in addition to allocating cutters to deploy to the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific to combat transnational organized crime, to prevent, deter, detect and interdict illicit smuggling efforts.

Portsmouth, Virginia
Official Coast Guard City Guarding Our Homeland

 Coast Guard Atlantic Area response teams have deployed in support of earthquakes, mariners in distress distress, environmental response operations and natural disaster response and recovery.  The Districts which fall under the Atlantic Area Coast Guard conduct operations focused maritime search and rescue and law law enforcement, port security operations, and maritime border security.