Keesler recovery efforts already showing results

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Dan Neely
  • 81st Training Wing Public Affairs
KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. (AFPN) --  People here are well into recovery operations just a week after the base and much of the Gulf Coast sustained massive damage from Hurricane Katrina.

"We're in the recovery and reconstitution stages where we're assessing the damage and repairing the facilities we're going to need in order to be able to reach out to the community and help them recover as well," said Col. Douglas Hayner, 81st Training Wing vice commander.

"We're evacuating students and nonessential personnel so that we can focus our attention on the operational missions of helping the Gulf Coast recover,” Colonel Hayner said. “We're already moving toward Phase III, where we'll bring the equipment and people who have the talent, resources and capability to help the local folks regenerate. A lot of those folks are already here."

More than 500 medics from the Federal Emergency Management Agency are helping with disease control and recovery from injuries and illnesses. The FBI also dispatched agents to help local law enforcement officials.

Colonel Hayner said members of Joint Task Force-Katrina have arrived to help orchestrate numerous post-hurricane activities.

"They're already here on base, set up with their own command centers, and they'll be fully functional in the next couple of days," he said.

While the multiphase recovery effort may take months, even years in some cases, the colonel said people here have already begun helping the local community by supplying their first responders with everything from fuel to clothes.

"We've removed a water tower from our own system and connected it to the local community supply because they're out of water, and that was completed within the first three days after the hurricane destroyed everything," the colonel said.

"We also got the airfield fully functional for daytime operations. Just 11 hours after hurricane-strength winds left the area, the first airplane actually touched down on the airfield," Colonel Hayner said.

The medical center here, in addition to normal operations, served as one of several hurricane shelters, taking in more than 1,000 Airmen and family members. But it was not easy, as huge tidal surges eventually flooded the basement where backup generators are housed.

"After their primary power failed and the basement flooded, they lost their backup power," Colonel Hayner said. "They went totally black for the next two days."

During the outage, medics performed two operations and delivered two healthy babies by flashlight, as their only source of illumination.

"Two patients were on full-time respirators," the colonel said. "When the power went out they had generator power. When that went down, they were on three-hour battery packs. So when those three hours came and went, the patients were put on manual respirators. Medics actually took turns breathing for those patients until they finally got small generators up and running and were able to keep their electric-powered equipment functioning. Essentially, there was at least one life saved, possibly two -- a total miracle in itself."

In another significant event, Colonel Hayner noted the actions of two civil engineers who braved Hurricane Katrina's peak winds to save Keesler's water system, and in the process ensured an emergency supply for the local community.

For the latest information on Keesler recovery efforts, visit www.keesler.af.mil. (Courtesy of Air Education and Training Command News Service)