Eglin Air Force Base support evacuees Published Sept. 3, 2005 EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFPN) -- Official here received a request to support two 250-person hospitals, a medical staff of more than 200 people and a 1,000-person evacuee camp.The facilities will be set up at the Northwest Florida Fairgrounds in Fort Walton Beach.The request came from Joint Task Force Katrina officials at Camp Shelby, Miss., the Defense Department’s focal point supporting the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s relief efforts along the Gulf Coast.The hospitals will consist of two 40,000 square-foot, air-conditioned areas and an area to house the medical staff, all of whom will be from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A tent city will also be set up with showers, food and electricity.“This is the military support to Homeland Security,” said Col. Edmond B. Keith, 96th Air Base Wing commander. “We don’t know when the … patients will arrive, but the equipment will start arriving over the weekend.”Airmen from the 49th Material Maintenance Group at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M. are sending the tent city equipment.“We want to stop the suffering and help as many people as we can,” the colonel said. “The military is good at this; we’ve been asked to do it, and we’re leaning as far forward as we can to make it happen.