An Update on the Military Response
WJHG in Panama City has a report on local military response.
Checking around it turns out that the people seen doing calisthenics and playing basketball on Keesler AFB are security and engineering people as the rest of the base was evacuated and now being re-assigned as there is little for them to return to. The base is supplying Biloxi with clean water and generators because they don’t need them. There are reports that the base personnel had to repel looters.
The Air Force sent an engineering force to the base on August 30 th, but it is possible that the base won’t be re-built. Keesler AFB is second only to the casinos as an employer in Biloxi.
Also lost was a veteran’s nursing home near the base.
CBC is reporting that U.S. Air Force sends men home to help their families cope. These are people who were sent to the Middle East from bases that were affected. Their families would have remained at the bases, and there are some things that can only be dealt with by a member of the military regarding reimbursement and relocation.
Somewhere in the scanning I’ve been doing, probably on a .mil site I saw the Commander of Northern Command, the military component that handles things in the US, wondering why FEMA hasn’t asked for more assistance.
It will be interesting to see if Trent Lott and the Mississippi delegation can convince the Pentagon to rebuild.
