Mainers flee mission in Mississippi Guard unit arrives as Rita threatens weary Gulf Coast

GULFPORT, Miss. – The Maine National Guard’s security team arrived on Monday in this crippled coastal town, planning to embark on a 30-day deployment to protect and patrol a military training facility here.

But the force of nature that brought the men here now is forcing them to flee.

More than two weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated this city of 70,000 people, Hurricane Rita is swirling off the Gulf Coast and is predicted to land in the area later this week.

For the 11 members of the Maine Guard’s security team, Tuesday began with an early breakfast and leisurely morning at the Air National Guard’s Combat Readiness Training Center, where they landed late Monday afternoon.

Hours later, the men learned from their team leaders, Chief Master Sgt. Allen Graves and Maj. Joel Nadeau, that they could be leaving the base within hours to wait out the storm at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida before returning to Mississippi.

“We came here to help people who are hurt,” Graves told the team in the relative coolness of their air-conditioned tent. “I didn’t come here to get hurt ourselves.”

The team’s 11 members flew out of Bangor on Monday on a KC-135 tanker with 22 guns, more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition, two four-wheelers and other supplies. They set up camp in the sweltering heat at one of two tent cities on base, unrolled their sleeping bags and unpacked their bags.

Even as Graves and Nadeau attempted to arrange for transportation to Florida, members of the team began regular patrols on the base, each toting a 9-millimeter Beretta and an M-4 automatic rifle.

Much like regular police officers, their job is to patrol the base and deal with troublemakers. They carry handcuffs and wear fatigues with special blue arm bands to denote them as security forces. Nadeau is a Bangor police detective.

Infighting among the roughly 6,000 troops, who are from various branches and states around the country, has been minimal, Walter Johnson, assistant chief of security forces on base, said Tuesday. The Maine Guard team’s role largely will be to relieve other units, he said.

“Security has not been a problem here,” Johnson said, amid the dust that’s often kicked up by a passing truck or front-end loader. “We’ve been working long hours here.”

The base suffered its share of Katrina’s wrath, though some services are up and running.

President George Bush surveyed the area this week and was whisked on the base Tuesday by a caravan of black sport-utility vehicles to the waiting Air Force One.

U.S Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, also visited the area, meeting up unexpectedly on Monday with the Maine Guard team on the base runway.

Within the senator’s sight were white tents on the far side of the runway that house a tightly secured temporary morgue.

Elsewhere on base, blue tarps cover holes in a number of roofs, a gaping hole torn in one hangar has yet to be repaired, and the water is unsafe to drink. Milk jugs, clothing and other garbage still litter the fence on the perimeter of the base and neighboring airport, flung there by 145-mph winds.

Yet cell phone service is fairly reliable, the power has been restored in places and the base convenience store is open. Troops even gathered in the community center Monday night to watch plasma televisions.

Beyond the base’s walls, however, the destruction is far worse. On a tour of Gulfport on Monday afternoon, Graves and Nadeau surveyed the damage for themselves. Some buildings were inexplicably spared, while others were reduced to rubble still waiting to be cleared.

A box truck lay on its side in the parking lot of a storage facility while an auto repair shop across the street was open for business. A fried chicken restaurant was open to hungry customers, while broken tree limbs buried toppled gravestones in a nearby cemetery. Liquor stores and restaurants seem to be the first businesses to be up and running, and they stay busy.

“It’s amazing how much cleanup is already going on,” Graves said, traveling past a woman pulling a wagon carrying an animal crate and other supplies.

Much more work could remain, however, upon the Maine troops’ planned return to this already disheartened area in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Bangor Daily News reporter Jackie Farwell is on assignment with the Maine Air National Guard in the Gulf Coast.