A group of 89 elementary schoolers were enjoying an early afternoon harbor tour on waterways around Naval Station Norfolk when a fire erupted in the cruise ship’s engine room. U.S. Coast Guard Captain and current Virginia Sector Commander, Peggy Britton, received the Spirit of Norfolk’s June 7, 2022, mayday signal and sprang into action, coordinating rescue and fire control efforts.
Boats from a diverse array of groups like the Coast Guard, Navy, Norfolk police, three local fire departments, York County Maritime Incident Response Team—even a privately owned sightseeing yacht—rushed to the scene immediately. The Spirit’s 108 civilian passengers were quickly evacuated to safety and the ship was moved to a secure location.
“It was such an inspiring testimony to the strength and character of our regional partnerships,” says Britton, 46. Her near quarter-century career with the Coast Guard has included posts that carried her to 35 countries and major U.S. bases in locations like Oregon, Philadelphia and Honolulu. She calls the response to the Spirit of Norfolk accident emblematic of a region-wide partnership between commercial interests, recreators, government agencies and other organizations that’s rooted in a sense of service that “is extremely rare and almost unheard of in [other major maritime locales].”
Capt. Peggy Britton
Britton calls the Virginia Sector “the harmonizing force” behind that partnership. The unit operates out of U.S. Coast Guard Base Portsmouth and the Norfolk Federal Building, and is comprised of a team of 480 active-duty or civilian personnel, 130 reservists, and 1,300 auxiliarists. It’s tasked with covering an area that spans from the coastal Atlantic border with Maryland to that of North Carolina, and includes the Port of Virginia, Virginia’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, and the Virginia section of Intracoastal Waterway.
While most civilians probably think of maritime law enforcement and search and rescue as primary duties, Sector Virginia’s list of responsibilities is startlingly long and includes vessel safety inspections; port safety and security; administering fishing, towing, charter and attraction vessel exams; marine casualty investigations; managing buoys and other aids to navigation for waterways; waterfront facility inspections; maritime environmental protection—and much more.
“Our motto is ‘small but mighty,’” says Britton. But the dictate takes on an outsized meaning in a region that’s home to the country’s sixth biggest commercial port, the largest naval base on the planet, the biggest estuary in the U.S., a $1.1 billion commercial fishing industry and one of the most traveled corridors for recreational boaters.
Britton says it’s rare to have such an intense concentration of overlapping activities and interests in a single area. The past few months, for instance, have brought a deluge of high-profile assignments in addition to the unit’s already abundant duties (like installing navigational buoys and beacons in channels).
Most notably, the cargo ship Dali, which catastrophically crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge last March, was moved to Norfolk for rehabilitation and unloading in June. Sector Virginia was tasked with overseeing transport, repairs, and the environmentally safe removal of 1,500 breached cargo containers and the 125,000 gallons of hydro-sulphonic sludge they leaked into the hull. The unit also escorted the ship out of port when it left for China on September 19.
The three-month effort was exhaustive, time-consuming, and took a tremendous amount of coordination to pull off, says Britton. But assignments like this are what made her want to pursue a career in the Coast Guard in the first place and, later, “inspired me to seek a position that would bring me back [to Hampton Roads].”
Members from Coast Guard station Portsmouth underway maintaining safety zones and enforcing safe boating practices during the 2024 Norfolk Harborfest event in Portsmouth, Virginia, June 7, 2024. To assist in maintaining a safe waterway, Coast Guard Sector Virginia crews, along with regional partners, enforced a safety zone limited the use of the Elizabeth River Channel June 7-9. (U.S. Coast Guard Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Ryan L. Noel)
Britton enrolled in the United States Coast Guard Academy after graduating from Poquoson High School because she loved how, compared to other military branches, the organization’s mission statement “exemplified service.” She subsequently sees her work at Sector Virginia as less of a job, more of a calling.
“We’re protecting people’s lives and livelihoods, as well as the beautiful natural resource that is the Chesapeake Bay,” says Britton. She points to the Port of Virginia, which supported more than 565,000 jobs and about $124.1 billion in output sales in 2022 alone. Sector Virginia’s job is to make sure commercial ships move in and out in a way that’s smooth and safe for recreational boaters, doesn’t conflict with military interests, and causes the least possible adverse environmental impacts.
Succeeding in that mission “leaves me with a deep sense of satisfaction,” says Britton. “I go home knowing I’m contributing to something much larger than myself, and that my work is making a difference.”
