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NAVHOSP Pensacola Sends Relief to Katrina-Ravaged Gulf Coast

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS050901-20
Release Date: 9/1/2005 4:58:00 PM

By Rod Duren, Naval Hospital Pensacola Public Affairs

PENSCOLA, Fla. (NNS) -- Naval Hospital (NH) Pensacola deployed seven personnel by helicopter to its Gulfport, Miss., clinic site with a pallet load of pharmaceuticals, hand sanitizers, mosquito repellant and sun block in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. A second flight is scheduled for Sept. 1.

Naval Branch Health Clinics in Pascagoula and Gulfport, Miss., and three in New Orleans all received major damage from Hurricane Katrina, which came ashore Aug. 29 on the southeastern tip of Louisiana, producing winds of more than 145 mph and a storm surge on the Gulf Coast between 10 and 25 feet of water.

The Gulfport clinic is operational and running on generator power, though it did receive flooding and water intrusion into the building. Fifteen members of the clinic's medical staff are providing care for about 1,300 military and local civilians in an on-base shelter - including some former residents of the damaged Armed Forces Retirement Home.

Naval Station Pascagoula and its clinic are closed. The area experienced major flooding.

"We have medical reps working out of the one evacuation area off base in which most sought shelter," said Capt. Matt Nathan, commanding officer of NH Pensacola. The shelter recently received additional food and water from Gulfport.

"New Orleans is the most hazy [situational picture]," he said. "We know two of our [three] clinics took moderate damage and the third is unknown. We have accounted for all but four folks there, and I am hoping they are simply out of pocket and evacuated."

NH Pensacola has had "spotty contact" with the clinics' senior staffs; and have accountability of about 95 percent, said Nathan.

The seven Pensacola support personnel leaving for Gulfport were sent as both a relief effort and to provide medical care, environmental and preventive medicine support - such as checking on water and food quality and sanitation issues.

"The Navy is staging a large disaster assistance effort along with Joint Services and all the federal agencies," said Nathan. NH Pensacola will play a significant role assisting with the staging of supplies and augmentees coming to this area to embark on ships and disaster teams.

"We are tirelessly attempting to get better visibility on what is needed. The process is being hampered by sparse communication capabilities" in the devastated areas, continued Nathan. "Some civilian hospitals in the Katrina area are down hard, and the NDMS (National Disaster Medical system) has been activated."

There may be hundreds of evacuating "patients" in the Gulfport and New Orleans area in which the hospital may play a role with their medical care, he said.

"This is a true humanitarian disaster, and no one is better prepared to provide early relief, stabilization, and support than the U.S. military...and we are doing it," said Nathan.

"Our shipmates, their families, and all the people west of us truly need all our support and our prayers," he said. "This will not be a brief mission...we will be linking arms with all the above for a great while."

NH Pensacola is the parent command of 12 branch health clinics in four states. By the time Hurricane/Tropical Storm Katrina departed the Southeast U.S. August 29, 11 of the hospital's clinics had been affected by the storm.