From: clarinews@clarinet.com (UPI)
Newsgroups: biz.clarinet.sample,clari.news.military,clari.local.texas,clari.news.disaster,clari.news.top
Subject: Military scrambles to weather Andrew, render assistance
Keywords: military, severe weather, trouble
Date: 26 Aug 92 09:46:13 GMT
Followup-To: biz.clarinet.sample
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Location: texas
ACategory: national
Slugword: andrew-military
Priority: major
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	WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Military units and bases across the South were
scrambling to weather Hurricane Andrew themselves and to render
simultaneous assistance to the stricken civilian population, the
Pentagon says.
	``Homestead Air Force Base was the hardest hit of the Defense
Department facilities in south Florida,'' said Pentagon spokesman Bob
Hall on Tuesday.
	But he said most of the base's F-16 jet fighters and virtually all of
its 4,600 military personnel and their families were evacuated before
Andrew struck.
	The base commander and a party of 17 remained behind, but no one has
been reported injured thus far. Evacuated aircraft were flown to other
Air Force bases in Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina as well as to
the civilian airport at Jacksonville, Fla.
	Two of the six F-16s that were in maintenance and could not be flown
out were wrecked by the storm at a cost of $14 million each, Hall said.
All of the base's operations and maintenance facilities, including at
least two hangers, the base exchange and the commissary, were also
destroyed.
	The roofs of most of the remaining public buildings were torn off,
and the fuel storage area was rendered unusable. The runway has been
cleared of debris, but its lights were still out and its control tower
was out of operation, he said. Some 50 percent of Homestead's on-base
housing had no roofs and 90 percent of all windows were broken.
	Farther south, Key West Naval Air Station, clocked 40 mile an hour
winds and lost its electrical power, but emergency generators picked up
the slack. No injuries were reported there and all aircraft had been
evacuated to naval and Air Force bases elsewhere in Florida and Georgia.
The airfield was fully operational and all personnel, both military and
civilian reported to work Tuesday as usual.
	On Florida's west coast, MacDill Air Force Base reported no damage.
It also took the precaution of evacuating its aircraft to points further
north in Florida and Georgia.
	Hall said bases further west in Louisiana and Texas were already
dispersing their own aircraft.
	``The process has already started for the bases that are in the
possible path of the hurricane,'' he said.
	From New Orleans Naval Air Station, he said, Army A-10 attack
aircraft have flown to Barksdale Air Force Base, La. and its Air Force
F-16 fighter planes were going to Fort Worth, Texas. C-130 transport
planes from Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., were flown to Charleston, S.
C., and Robins Air Force Base, Ga.
	Even before Andrew made landfall, the Pentagon spokesman said, the
military was gearing up to deal with its consequences.
	``The Army operations center, which is up 24 hours a day anyway,'' he
said, ``was augmented on Saturday in preparation for dealing with the
hurricane.''
	The Army is the Defense Department's executive agent for emergency
relief operations.
	Second Army, which is headquartered in Atlanta and which overseas the
southeastern part of the United States has dispatched a liaison officer,
Col. Bob Lay, to the Federal Emergency Management Administration
headquarters in Tallahassee, which is directing the relief effort.
	The Army's Fort Sewart, Ga. has already provided 14,000 combat
rations called Meals Ready to Eat or MREs for distribution by the
Florida National Guard, which has 3,051 soldiers on active duty in the
stricken area under state control. Another 20,000 MREs from Camp
Blanding, Fla. will also be turned over to the Florida guard.
	The Defense Logistic Agency's big Memphis, Tenn. distribution center
has released 100,000 MREs to the Red Cross. A huge Air Force C-5 Galaxy
transport plane was scheduled to fly the entire shipment to Opa Locka,
Fla. Tuesday afternoon.
	The Army's 20th Engineer Brigade from Fort Bragg, N.C. was providing
portable lighting to illuminate the perimeter of the federal prison in
Miami. Another Army engineer unit, which has yet to be named, will
perform cleanup duties in the battered region as the engineers did after
hurricane Hugo in 1989.
	Air Force Reserve units from the 301st Rescue Squadron at Homestead
are on the job despite the loss of their base. They have flown three HH-
60 helicopters and a C-130 transport equipped for aerial refueling to
Miami where they will provide local helicopter support.
	To track and evaluate Andrew's further course, the Air Force's 403rd
Weather Squadron from Keesler has been operating out of Charleston, S.C.
with an specially equipped C-130.
	The Key West, Fla. Naval Air Station has provided the Key Largo Fire
Department with three flatbed trucks, two bulldozers, one front-end
loader, a fuel tanker truck with 1,200 gallons of fuel, and an ambulance
together with a team of two doctors and seven medical corpsmen.
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