Mississippi Ping!
(My first... I hope it meets with everyone's approval!)
Posted on 10/05/2005 4:32:26 PM PDT by SandRat
STENNIS SPACE CENTER, Miss. (NNS) -- The Navy will build a 100-home community and offer to pay leases for hundreds of employees to keep a highly skilled workforce intact at the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command after Hurricane Katrina left about 450 workers homeless.
In response to the unprecedented destruction, the command has set up a Navy Housing office to find places to live for Stennis-based military personnel and civilian workers at the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (CNMOC), the Naval Oceanographic Office, the Naval Research Laboratory, Naval Special Boat Team 22 and Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School, leaders said.
"We're taking care of our workforce," said Rear Adm. Timothy McGee, commander of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command. "We are one Navy."
The Navy relies on the Oceanographic Office's highly educated employees, made up mostly of civilians such as oceanographers, physicists and other scientists, to create and update navigation charts and execute Navy operations. Likewise, the Naval Research Laboratory here researches and develops new ocean technologies for the Navy.
"The Navy has stood tall and done things it has never done before for the civil service community," McGee told an all-hands gathering Oct. 4. "My end game is to have this workforce 100 percent [housed] by Christmas. We're going to be close."
The Navy will build the 100-home community in Covington, La., and lease dozens of other homes in both Mississippi and Louisiana. It will use a lottery system to offer most displaced employees a place to live.
It temporarily has placed 50 trailers to house workers behind the Naval Oceanographic Office.
The service has offered to pay up to $1,800 a month, including utilities, for renewable one-year home leases, McGee said. Employees may initially be asked to pay $10 to $20 a day to help defray the cost.
"Ideally, we're trying to do this at no cost," he said.
Additionally, military personnel will qualify to keep basic housing allowances to pay off loans due on homes that were destroyed.
“The stability of our workforce is a huge issue for us as we move forward,” said Edward C. Gough Jr., deputy/technical director at the command.
McGee called on employees to find homes on their own as well, and added that if someone rejects a place the Navy has offered to live, they will be dropped from a waiting list.
"Our idea is, if you find it, you get it," he said.
He expects some employees may live in semi-permanent housing for three to five years before their homes are rebuilt.
“On an absolute scale, we have to get people into homes,” said Capt. Peter W. Furze, CNMOC chief of staff, who also lost his house to the hurricane. “These people have become the real fabric of the community on the Gulf Coast.”
The Navy housing office quickly grew from two workers three weeks ago and will have 50 involved in finding places for displaced employees to live.
“We’re becoming a housing office out of nothing,” said Cmdr. Chris Kent, who is leading the initaitive, working 12 to 14 hours a day.
Kent said the long hours searching for places people can call home hasn’t bothered his crew.
“We’re trying to take care of people who have nothing,” the commander said. “What’s a few extra hours at work if I can find a place for them to put their head at night?”
Navy housing leaders helped CNMOC budget officer Claudette G. Luther and her family find a place to call home after staying at Stennis 10 days when Katrina struck. While there, she acted as an “inn keeper” for 60 paramedics, emergency medical technicians and firefighters who used Stennis as a regional staging area to respond to the catastrophe.
After sleeping on a cot at Stennis, the Navy provided Luther and her family a trailer behind the Oceanographic offices and then found her a rental home.
“The Navy has been absolutely, positively the most caring group of individuals I have ever met,” Luther said. “This command has been very giving, very compassionate to the employees.”
From the beginning, Navy Seabees were sent to salvage homes, and CNMOC volunteers cleared trees or took damaged goods out of homes where they could.
A Seabee team gutted what was left of Lt. Cmdr. Rebecca Lince's house in Diamondhead, Miss., and Navy volunteers from her command later removed a tree from her driveway.
"They were not only professional, they knew what they were doing," the reserve liasion officer said.
Navy PING
Navy PING
I did not realize that there was a Navy ping. If so can you put me on it? Thanks
Mississippi Ping!
(My first... I hope it meets with everyone's approval!)
That's a mighty purty ping!
Thanks for taking the initiative. ;o)
The Navy is gettin' her done!
Thanks, SR!
Don't have a Navy Ping per-se, just use my Canteen ping ling list with the appropriate service Name. Still want on?
Kudos to the Navy !
Yes, thanks.
BTTT
BTTT
done
The damage to Stennis isn't as extensive as to Pascagoula. Stennis has wind damage and water intrusion but Pas. had storm surge as their major problem. Water levels 3-4 feet high at 20-25 feet above sea level.
You did good ....for a "Southern" boy. :>)
If I'm a "Southern Boy" then I guess that makes you and that other school up there Yankees! ;)
I did my thesis work collecting data in the buffer zone just to the east of Stennis. I wonder how much damage was done to the gas wells out there....
why in hell would they build the community in Covington? Covington is a 45-50 mile drive one-way, land prices in Covington are among the most expensive anywhere on the North Shore, and much of that area is low and subject to flooding. Why not build this community near Picayune, MS where land is much cheaper, there is less chance of flooding, and employees would have to drive only 15-20 miles to work.
never mind, i know the answer, it is the federal government spending other people's money. who gives a damn
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