Reads like Clancy

I thought I was finished writing about the Gulf Coast Disaster, but I guess I saved the best for last.

This account is by a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force who was designated Shelter Commander for one of the disaster shelters on Keesler Air Force Base, near Biloxi MS, and on the dangerous right-front side of hurricane Katrina as the Storm of the Century made landfall.

For those who don't know, the Air Base was inundated by a storm surge of 20+ feet and suffered eyewall winds. There is little left of the base today besides the shelter, it's Command Post and the runway.

The shelter was in an older building that had been originally built (overbuilt!) with nuclear attack in mind. The building was damaged, but it and it's 731 occupants survived.

The story reads like an abbreviated Tom Clancy novel, and you won't turn away from it. It starts before the storm hit, and carries on, 24 hours a day for over six days until the shelter occupants were released to attend their personal needs.

There were no assaults, robberies, rapes or murders in the shelter. Those who got sick were cared for properly. The conditions in the shelter were probably worse than in the Super Dome in New Orleans, yet the character of the shelter occupants and the masterful way the Shelter Commander ran it were the difference, literally, between life and death.

Indigo brought this article to us, and deserves your serious support for doing so.

If you never read anything from my blog again, you are forgiven if you will just read her post.

Comments

[Indigo]

Thanks for the link and the validation of my selection. You know what they say in the South about blind hogs!! Every once in a while I find an acorn! ;-)