On September 19 it was announced that the three warships from the Operation UNISON task force would be returning to Halifax, leaving CCGS Sir William Alexander to continue its mission of clearing navigation hazards and repairing buoys. On September 28, the coast guard vessel was retasked to assist the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in repairing the network of weather buoys along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts of the United States, which had been severely damaged by the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season; these buoys are one of the most important tools for forecasting and gathering data from oceanic storms. CCGS Sir William Alexander returned to Canada on October 24.
