EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla.
-- Eglin Air Force Base received an official request Sept.
1 to support two 250-person hospitals, a medical staff
of more than 200 people and a 1,000-person camp.
The facilities will be set up at the
Northwest Florida Fairgrounds on Lewis Turner Blvd. Highway
189, in Fort Walton Beach.
The request came from Joint Task Force
Katrina headquartered at Camp Shelby, Miss., the Defense
Department's focal point to support the Federal Emergency
Management Agency's relief efforts along the Gulf Coast.
The task force is headed by Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore,
1st U.S. Army commander.
The requirements for the hospitals
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 & Human Services.
A tent city will also be set up with showers, food and
electricity for patients' families and hurricane evacuees.
"This is the military support
to Homeland Security," said Col. Edmond B. Keith,
96th Air Base Wing commander. "We don't know when
the hurricane evacuees or patients will arrive, but the
equipment will start arriving over the weekend."
Carrying the hurricane evacuees camp
equipment, the same type of equipment Airmen use when
they deploy overseas, are 41 tractor trailers traveling
from Holloman Air Force Base, N.M.
"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.
Setting up camps is nothing new for
Team Eglin. In 1980, a refugee camp was set up at
the fairgrounds for Cuban immigrants.
