by Stacey Paretti Rase
Captain John Cannon of the Philadelphia National Guard 56th Brigade happened upon a copy of Inside Northside one afternoon in Hammond, where his troops were stationed while delivering aid following Hurricane Katrina. “I noticed that your magazine wrote about million-dollar homes in this area,” Cannon told me during a phone call in late September. “And I thought you might like to come take a tour of our million-dollar home.”
The home Cannon was referring to was Camp Keystone, the brigade’s “tent city,” located on a 45-acre plot of land that normally is home to Hammond’s soccer fields. The site served as home base for nearly 1,000 soldiers during their time in southeast Louisiana. The troops retreated to the tent city between working shifts at PODs (Points of Distribution) throughout St. Tammany, Tangipahoa and Washington Parishes, where they handed out water, ice and food to the needy following the storm. The estimated cost to operate the camp for a mere thirty days: 1.2 to 1.5 million dollars—the figures that spurred Cannon’s tongue-in-cheek comment.
Except for the price comparison, the tent city had nothing in common with a luxury home. For starters, two armed security guards met me at my car when I pulled up to the site’s dusty entrance. After receiving clearance, I was met by Human Intelligence Coordinator, Major Joe Decree, whose duty was to coordinate the intricate details of housing the soldiers on the site. “My job is to house them, feed them and then get them back out there working. I like to say that I’m running a hotel here,” he quipped, after inviting me to hop onto his ATV for a tour of the site.
Our first stop was one of three massive living quarter tents, each of which housed up to 300 people. The major allowed me to peek inside, after surveying the space to ensure each soldier was “decent.” We entered through a heavy tarp—no French doors or crown molding to be found anywhere—and my eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness of the windowless space. The enormous expanse was nothing but a sea of green cots, lined up end to end as far as the eye could see. Only a handful of soldiers were there during my midday visit. Some were playing cards; others were simply resting before their next distribution shift. I noticed that each cot held the personal effects of its owner: pillow, blanket, books and toiletries.
Not that there were any fancy restroom facilities in which to use those toiletries! The site’s only bathroom facilities were the 130 portable toilets that lined a fence near the highway. “A service comes twice a day to empty them, so it’s not so bad,” Decree remarked. He pointed out a few bright yellow tents, each housing four shower heads, which were erected at the south end of the campground, but were not yet operational. “We’re waiting for a line to be drawn in from the city water supply so that we don’t have to find a separate place to dump. It should be soon,” he noted, without even a hint of frustration in his voice. Surprising, coming from a man whose troops hadn’t had a shower in weeks.
Decree then pointed out other highlights of the site—a medic tent (to date, only two soldiers had needed IVs for dehydration), a fuel station and a recreation field, where a group of guys was enjoying a game of horseshoes. It was there in the field that I noticed signs of the land’s previous life. Soccer goal posts still stood tall, albeit covered with soldiers’ clothes hung out to dry.
Next, we visited the tent-covered mess hall, where two catered meals were served daily; bag lunches were sent with each soldier to eat during their work day. The space housed the camp’s only semblance of luxurious living: a large-screen satellite television that stood predominantly in the corner of the tent. A few guardsmen were huddled around, intently watching an episode of “Jeopardy.” I learned that the satellite feed had come just in time for the troops to enjoy the New Orleans Saints “home” opener game, played in New York.
“The guys really loved that. Actually, this camp is living large for field troops like us,” Decree said. He acknowledged access to the Internet, as well as satellite telephones. “We have what we call our ‘Internet Café’ and we also have a laundry service that comes by. If we want a shower, we can get one down the street, if we’re willing to walk.”
Mall headquarters
Decree made “down the street” sound like a hop, skip and a jump. But the site of the shower trailers was actually over a mile away, at the Hammond Square Mall’s JC Penney. The store was converted into an Incident Command Post that served as the base of operations for both the mall and the tent city sites. Housed at the mall were more soldiers from the Pennsylvania National Guard, as well as a variety of civilian relief support systems, including the Red Cross, the Corp of Engineers, state employees from as close as Texas and as far off as Wyoming, and the Lonestar State Wildfire Incident Response Team. The latter usually deals with emergency base operations for wildfire rescue and relief, but the site’s Community Relations Officer Steve Parsons said that the command center is used in a variety of emergency situations.
“It’s a very efficient way of managing a large response team. It’s the same set up we used when responding to the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11,” he said. “Our teams are trained to quickly seek out facilities in the community in which it would be appropriate to house operations after a disaster.”
Accommodations at the “Penney Dome”—as one handmade sign read—were Spartan, yet a sure step up from the tent city across town. First of all, there was air conditioning, an amenity that I immensely appreciated after spending an hour in the blistering heat of the tent city grounds. In the mall’s living quarters, soldiers slept just feet away from call centers and computer terminals, making it somewhat difficult to rest, but the cots were noticeably more spread out than in the tent city “bedrooms.” Restrooms were available, as well as private changing rooms. Residents even had a place to hang their clothes at night, upon the deserted clothes racks left behind by the department store. In the mall’s parking lot were trucks fashioned with rows of sinks and mirrors, which were used for daily tooth brushing and face washing. Close by were the aforementioned shower trailers, bearing a reminder message on their doors to “Please remove boots before entering.”
Parsons then led me to the outdoor mess hall, which resembled a cafeteria lunch line, complete with soft drink spigots and cereal dispensers. Food was prepared by a caterer in a mobile kitchen nearby. “There’s a national list of approved caterers through the government,” Parsons explained. “The one here is called ‘For Stars Catering’ out of California,” he laughed, as he waited for the irony to sink in. The catering company had gone from servicing fancy movie stars out west to the hot and hungry soldiers here in Louisiana.
Next to the mess hall sat a bulletin board that broadcast news to the soldiers. Featured were clippings of world news events, sports scores and weather updates. I stopped short when I read a report tacked to the board detailing how many people had been assisted by the Pennsylvania National Guard at the various PODs in the area. At the time of my visit, the soldiers had distributed 1,580,000 bags of ice, 1,912,500 gallons of water and 5,914,368 MREs (meals, ready to eat). “We serve about forty to fifty thousand people a day,” Parsons said, and noted that the Covington POD at the intersection of Highway 21 and Interstate 12 was the largest in the area. “To date, nearly one million people have been helped.”
Build it, so they can come
Members of the 56th Brigade were more than eager to offer their services to south Louisiana following the storm. “Two days before our mobilization, guys were calling in and offering to come down here,” said Decree. But while deploying troops was an easy decision, finding the right space to house them definitely was not. Brigade Civil Affairs Officer Captain Mike Fluck was sent ahead of the troops to scope out possible sites. After surveying and accessing damage in the Slidell area with Mayor Ben Morris, Fluck said the initial plan was to set up the tent city beside the runway of the Slidell Airport. “It was plenty big enough,” he admitted. “But, can you imagine trying to sleep while those planes take off and land?” Luckily, before the final decision was made, Fluck happened to drive by the Hammond soccer field site, which was originally set up as temporary housing for displaced employees of Cingular Wireless. “The site was perfect. And Cingular no longer needed it, so I put in the request,” he said. “Six hours later, we got it.”
An environmental engineer by trade, Fluck went to work quickly lining up contractors to properly equip the site for its hundreds of incoming residents. It was a process that he described as fast, furious and unique. “Luckily, many of our guardsmen brought skills to the table from their work back home,” he said. Among the troops were electricians, plumbers and even an environmental engineer who helped to map out the facility’s design. In the end, the final layout of the tent city had the look of a military base, but truly jelled as a small village.
“We all came together and we’re doing great out here now, although we’re not used to this heat,” laughed Decree. “And the lovebugs have sparked some curious discussion, since we don’t see those back home.”
When asked about their favorite experiences from being stationed in south Louisiana, Decree and Fluck didn’t hesitate to answer. “Definitely the jambalaya!” remarked Decree. “And the hospitality of the folks down here,” added Fluck. “You never know how the people are going to react to you, but the people here have been extremely hospitable.”
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