Displaced Airmen return to Keesler after hurricane

  • Published
  • By Monica D. Morales
  • 96th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFPN) --  Twenty Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., people who evacuated here because of Hurricane Katrina made a bittersweet day trip back to their homes and belongings Sept. 5, just one week after the storm devastated much of the Gulf Coast.

The Airmen rode in a convoy of eight security-escorted vehicles for the three-hour drive from here to Biloxi, Miss.

Staff Sgt. Jose Espola-Negron, an air traffic control instructor with the 334th Training Readiness Squadron, evacuated with his wife and 3-year-old and 1-month-old daughters.

He had already braved Hurricane Hugo in his homeland of Puerto Rico, and then two others during his previous assignment at Keesler from 1997 to 1999.

“We’re from Puerto Rico and we’ve seen quite a few,” he said. “It’s like they follow us.”

Sergeant Espola-Negron made the trip back to Keesler knowing only the information that his neighbor had conveyed -- that his on-base home had been flooded with at least 9 feet of water during the storm surge.

He returned home to find the first floor of his two-story home destroyed by the water -- an overturned refrigerator, water-whipped toys and books and a floor veiled in dark silt.

“I thought it would be a better scenario,” he said as he peered around what used to be his living room.

Four miles away in D’Iberville, Staff Sgt. Susan Tennant, an airman leadership school instructor with the 81st Mission Support Squadron, waded through soaked pink insulation as she surveyed different parts of her top-floor apartment.

High winds peeled the roof and ceiling off half her home and left wind-battered belongings strewn about in some areas, while other items remained in place, but were enveloped in debris and moisture.

“I couldn’t open my door, and I was like, ‘Uh oh. That can’t be good,’” she said.

She laughed as she said that she and her fiancé were only recently discussing their wedding and how they would go about making plans.

“We were just going to do one of those things,” Sergeant Tennant said, “and ask for money for the wedding trip. We had double of everything. Now we have nothing.”

Despite the damages done to her home, she said the possessions that mattered to her most -- the things in her 3-year-old daughter Avary’s bedroom -- were left untouched, making the other discoveries somewhat easier to bear.

“Everything I was worried about was fine, so I’m happy,” she said.

Evacuees gathered salvageable items from their dwellings and began their journey back here, having a better grasp of Katrina’s impact and what their futures may hold.

“We’re just going to plan for the future now,” Sergeant Tennant said. “Whatever that might be.”