Displaced Airmen return to Keesler AFB for first time after hurricane

KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Staff Sgt. Jose Espola-Negron looks around his on-base house in disbelief. Most of his belongings were ruined from flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Before returning here from Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., where his family evacuated to before the storm, the only information he had about his home was that it had taken in a lot of water. During the highest point of the flooding, more than 6 feet of water was in his home. Sergeant Espola-Negron is an air traffic control instructor with the 334th Training Readiness Squadron here. (U.S. Air Force photo by Joe Piccorossi)

Displaced Airmen return to Keesler AFB for first time after hurricane

KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Personal belongings and parts of walls are strewn about the backyard of a home on the perimeter of the Bay Ridge housing area here. Hurricane Katrina's high winds and storm surge downed trees, engulfed homes in debris and destroyed houses in the area. (U.S. Air Force photo by Joe Piccorossi)

Displaced personnel visit Keesler AFB for first time after hurricane

Published Oct. 19, 2005
By Monica D. Morales
96th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFMCNS) -- Twenty Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., personnel displaced here by Hurricane Katrina made a bittersweet day trip back to their homes and belongings Sept. 5, just one week after the storm hit areas of the Gulf Coast.

Hurricane evacuees piled into a convoy of eight security-escorted vehicles to make the three-hour drive to Biloxi from Eglin.

Staff Sgt. Jose Espola-Negron, an air traffic control instructor with the 334th Training Readiness Squadron, evacuated with his wife and 3-year-old and 1-month-old daughters.

He had already braved Hurricane Hugo in his homeland of Puerto Rico, and then two others during his previous assignment at Keesler from 1997 to 1999.

"We're from Puerto Rico and we've seen quite a few," he said. "It's like they follow us."

Sergeant Espola-Negron made the trip back to Keesler knowing only the information that his neighbor had conveyed - that his on-base home had been flooded with at least nine feet of storm surge.

He returned home to find the first floor of his two-story home destroyed by the water - an overturned refrigerator, water-whipped toys and books, and a floor veiled in dark silt.

"I thought it would be a better scenario," he said as he peered around what used to be his living room.

Four miles away in D'Iberville, Staff Sgt. Susan Tennant, an Airmen Leadership School instructor with the 81st Mission Support Squadron, waded through soaked pink insulation as she surveyed different parts of her top-floor apartment.

High winds peeled the roof and ceiling off half her home and left wind-battered belongings strewn about in some areas, while other items remained in place, but were enveloped in debris and moisture.

"I couldn't open my door, and I was like, 'Uh oh. That can't be good,'" she said of first arriving at her residence after evacuating.

She laughed that she and her fiancé were only recently discussing their wedding and how they'd go about making plans.

"We were just going to ask for money for the wedding trip," Sergeant Tennant said. "We had double of everything. Now we have nothing."

Despite the damages done to her home, she said the possessions that mattered to her most - the things in her 3-year-old daughter Avary's bedroom - were all left untouched, making the discoveries somewhat easier to bear.

"Everything I was worried about was fine, so I'm happy," she said.

Evacuees gathered salvageable items from their dwellings and began their journey back to Eglin having a better grasp of Katrina's impact and what their futures may hold.

"We're just going to plan for the future now," Sergeant Tennant said. "Whatever that might be."