Roads and airfields are rapidly cleared during disasters to facilitate the emergency response and recovery process, and allow access to the affected areas. National Guard units in each state have been equipped with route opening pachages consisting of two compact front-end skid-steer loaders, attachments (bucket, grappler, and sweeper), trailers, chain saws, hand tools, storage containers, and Personal Protection Equipment (PPE). Each front-end loader still require snow plow and chipper attachments to complete the capability. In addition to snow and ice removal, the snow plow is also useful for clearing debris, mud, and sand. The chipper breaks down large stacks of brush interfering with operations into smaller piles of debris eliminating the manpower and equipment needed to transport or stack brush. Each augmentation package also includes a backhoe and trailer to load dump trucks with sand or gravel, feed sandbagging machines, rapidly dig trenches, and unload supplies from trucks and flatbeds.

Need identified in 2015 Domestic Capability Priority Book for ESF #3.