Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
September 22, 2008
By Matthew Jones, The Virginian-Pilot
GALVESTON, TEX.--The sounds of new life are rising all over this forlorn island. The thrum of generators, the grinding gears of dump trucks, the whuh-whuh of Navy helicopters, the beeping of large machines going in reverse.
After the waves receded in Galveston last week, the rebirth began, haltingly at first. It came on the backs of trailers and trucks, via ships and landing craft. They carried bulldozers, forklifts and fuel; portable toilets, showers and pallets of bottled water; boxed meals and hope.
Hurricane Ike pushed up to 12 feet of seawater over this island, temporarily ending life as the residents knew it. What's bringing it back is a million different acts, some large, many small.
The Navy is part of that. The Norfolk-based amphibious ship Nassau carries helicopters, landing craft and more than 1,000 sailors and Marines who are trained for relief efforts and war zones.
And a war zone was exactly what Galveston looked like when the first of the crew arrived on the beach Thursday afternoon. The enemy this time is debris and broken infrastructure; it's downed trees and sewage in the streets; it's the thirst and hunger of those who stayed behind.
"I've never been around a disaster like this," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Brian Yost. "It's been an eye-opener. It makes you realize what you can lose."
Galveston is 33 miles long from east to west, and one and a half miles across at its widest point.
While the roads are mostly cleared now, much of the island remains covered in debris - a base level of sun-bleached straw peppered with bits of plastic, Styrofoam and metal. Some of it came from the Gulf of Mexico, some was pushed over the island as the rising tide disemboweled buildings along the beach.
At the Galveston airport, where crews were cleaning up around the runway and in the terminal, Petty Officer 1st Class Jorge Ramos summed up the scene Friday: "It's a lot worse than we thought it was going to be."
Ramos was camped there with a couple dozen sailors who make up a disaster recovery team from Little Creek's Amphibious Construction Battalion 2. Joining them were about 18 other sailors from the Nassau.
Outside the terminal, a forklift rearranged debris. Inside, teams attacked the building with rakes, shovels, bolt cutters and axes. They pried sodden carpet off the floor and shoveled up soggy mounds of plaster, glass and wood into waiting wheelbarrows. Everywhere around them wavered the sickly sweet smell of decay.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Anthony Marshall was among the shovelers.
"I got married the day before I came out here, so this is my honeymoon," he said, surprisingly chipper.
He had been on standby starting three weeks before the storm. He was told he was going, then staying, then going, then staying.
"My wife and I got tired of it, so we said, 'Let's go get married.' "
Marshall said that, despite having to leave her behind, he was glad to be here. He's been to Thailand, the Philippines, and Brazil, he said, "but this is the first time I've been able to help other Americans. That means the world to me."
After a 14-hour day, Navy teams from all over the island made their way back to the port and boarded a landing craft for the two-hour return trip to the Nassau.
As the ship got under way, everyone stretched out on the deck, many with hats over their eyes. Some listened to music, others ate and some used their cell phones while they still had a signal.
Overhead, two seagulls kept up with the boat as it headed back into the Gulf, the water darkening in the setting sun.
Saturday afternoon found another team of sailors rolling through the streets in a pair of Humvees on the way to the port, easing through intersections with no signals.
Along the way, they passed convoys of ambulances and tree-trimming trucks. Most of the other traffic was government-issued SUVs.
On many of the businesses hung signs that no longer matched reality, There was Prosperity Bank, which looked anything but prosperous; EZ Check Cashing, where cashing a check was actually impossible; Galveston Food & Gas, which had neither; and a plywood sign proclaiming "Yes, We're open," when no, they were not.
At the port's perimeter, Capt. Bob Lineberry, the commodore of Amphibious Squadron 6, gave the sailors a pep talk as they stood along a leaning chain-link fence.
With the port closed, container ships were stacking up in the Gulf, he said. For the port to reopen, it had to be secure. For it to be secure, the sailors needed to fix the fence.
"We've got to stop the bleeding, restore stability and get this port moving again," Lineberry told them.
"It's a dirty job. It's a hard job, but it's necessary," he added. "We've got to bring that critical infrastructure back to life."
During the flooding, the 10-foot fence had acted like a colander, catching all the crud that Ike sent in: water bottles, weeds, bubble wrap, sticks, and garbage bags now waving like pennants.
Part of the team used sticks to poke out the trash before scooping it up and putting it in a dump truck. Another team set about re-welding a broken fence post.
"I was begging to come to this. Just to help," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Rhonda Bergeron, a hospital corpsman. "I can't imagine how these folks felt."
She served as mother hen to the crew. Everything they touched had spent time under dirty water, so she stayed on them to wash their hands before eating, drink plenty of water and wear gloves.
"Where are your gloves?!" she yelled at Petty Officer 2nd Class Kenneth Collier, who was helping hold up the fence.
"In the truck," he replied, rolling his eyes.
"Collier!"
"I guess you ain't been in Iraq," he retorted, before going off to get them.
Three of them lifted the fence as another sailor slithered under it. His arc welding torch sparked with a white-hot light.
As the sailors worked, they were periodically ambushed by the post-Ike funk of decomposing matter. At times it was faint or even nonexistent. Then the wind would shift and a withering stink would pass over.
Nearby, a large sailboat lay on its side, waiting for someone to put it back in the water.
On Sunday morning, a Navy crew was heading to the city's water treatment plant to help get its pumps back online.
Miles away, an odd but necessary parade set off from a distribution center, hauling trailers full of basic supplies and bound for some of the island's hardest-hit neighborhoods.
Led by a state trooper, two Humvees carried a group of Nassau sailors and Texas National Guardsmen, along with ready-to-eat meals, pallets of bottled water, bags of ice, shovels, the day's local newspaper, cots and face masks.
They passed flooded cars sitting by the curb or up in yards, looking like terrariums as moisture collected on the insides of their windows.
They had learned to pick out the houses where the residents had either never left or sneaked back in: They all had piles of destroyed furniture and appliances at the curb.
The trooper chirped his siren to get the attention of residents in their homes. As the convoy snaked through a neighborhood on the island's northwest, people began approaching. Most took ice and water, balancing it on their arms or bike handlebars.
Resident Benjamin Henderson took ice and food. The floodwater rose 10 feet on his street, sending him to live on the second floor with his friend and her son and granddaughter.
Everybody else on their block was gone. They stayed, he said, because they'd just been grocery shopping as the hurricane was approaching.
"We didn't want to abandon a refrigerator full of food," he said. "We spent all our money up and didn't want to go when we had no money."
Now they couldn't leave if they wanted to, he said, motioning to his flooded Buick nearby. So the military's daily visits have been vital.
"I hear the horn blaring and I know they're coming," he said. "It's wonderful."
Around the corner, Doris Petteway sat on a sofa by her second-story porch. She passed up a chance to leave for Austin, Texas, ahead of the storm, because it would involve more standing than her 80-year-old body could handle. She and her small dog slept in the bathroom as Ike passed over.
Afterward, she hung a flag outside her window so people would know she was in there. Then she opened her Bible.
"God bless you all," she told a sailor. "It's the only way I can make it through."
Further on, Petty Officer 2nd Class Kevin Paulk surveyed the damage as he rode in one of the trailers. After Hurricane Andrew tore through Florida in 1992, he and his family had no power for many weeks. They survived by heating canned food over a campfire.
"I volunteered instantly," he said. "I know how these people feel."
Across town, Seaman Adalberto Fuentes, another Nassau sailor, has joined that club.
Backpack on, Fuentes strode through the leaves, past downed trees that looked like overcooked broccoli crowns.
The neighborhood was Sunday-morning-post-disaster quiet, the only sound that of a Navy helicopter landing at the high school a few blocks away. Fuentes turned the corner at Avenue Q 1/2 and approached his childhood home.
"We've had storms and other hurricanes, but we never got hit," he said. "This time, it came for us."
He'd heard all sorts of things before he got here. Some people said it wasn't that bad; others told him that cars were flipped over and trees uprooted.
Luckily, he found Saturday that no water had gotten into the house. But the 2 feet of water that did come into the yard had done its share of damage.
A 10-foot section of his fence had keeled over into a neighbor's yard. Floodwater had pushed trash all the way under his house into the backyard, which was now full of soda and beer cans, Styrofoam cups and a pale blue kickball.
He reassured his mother and younger siblings, who had evacuated, that all was well. His plan was to enlist his cousin to help him clean things up, then go join the other work crews on the island.
Sailors expect to be there at least a few more days.
When he heard he was coming to Galveston, Fuentes said, his emotions were mixed. He felt bad for his family that their house had been hit but then felt good because he would get a chance to help his fellow islanders.
Fuentes sat down on his back step to smoke and wait for his cousin. Amid all the wreckage, a wooden birdhouse stood atop a slender pole by the garage. It amazed him.
"All these trees are so big and strong and they broke," he said. "But that little birdhouse is still standing."
Overhead, the birds in it were arguing with others in the trees. Above them, the blue sky was hung with harmless clouds. In the distance, the steady sound of machines.
September 22, 2008
By Matthew Jones, The Virginian-Pilot
GALVESTON, TEX.--The sounds of new life are rising all over this forlorn island. The thrum of generators, the grinding gears of dump trucks, the whuh-whuh of Navy helicopters, the beeping of large machines going in reverse.
After the waves receded in Galveston last week, the rebirth began, haltingly at first. It came on the backs of trailers and trucks, via ships and landing craft. They carried bulldozers, forklifts and fuel; portable toilets, showers and pallets of bottled water; boxed meals and hope.
Hurricane Ike pushed up to 12 feet of seawater over this island, temporarily ending life as the residents knew it. What's bringing it back is a million different acts, some large, many small.
The Navy is part of that. The Norfolk-based amphibious ship Nassau carries helicopters, landing craft and more than 1,000 sailors and Marines who are trained for relief efforts and war zones.
And a war zone was exactly what Galveston looked like when the first of the crew arrived on the beach Thursday afternoon. The enemy this time is debris and broken infrastructure; it's downed trees and sewage in the streets; it's the thirst and hunger of those who stayed behind.
"I've never been around a disaster like this," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Brian Yost. "It's been an eye-opener. It makes you realize what you can lose."
Galveston is 33 miles long from east to west, and one and a half miles across at its widest point.
While the roads are mostly cleared now, much of the island remains covered in debris - a base level of sun-bleached straw peppered with bits of plastic, Styrofoam and metal. Some of it came from the Gulf of Mexico, some was pushed over the island as the rising tide disemboweled buildings along the beach.
At the Galveston airport, where crews were cleaning up around the runway and in the terminal, Petty Officer 1st Class Jorge Ramos summed up the scene Friday: "It's a lot worse than we thought it was going to be."
Ramos was camped there with a couple dozen sailors who make up a disaster recovery team from Little Creek's Amphibious Construction Battalion 2. Joining them were about 18 other sailors from the Nassau.
Outside the terminal, a forklift rearranged debris. Inside, teams attacked the building with rakes, shovels, bolt cutters and axes. They pried sodden carpet off the floor and shoveled up soggy mounds of plaster, glass and wood into waiting wheelbarrows. Everywhere around them wavered the sickly sweet smell of decay.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Anthony Marshall was among the shovelers.
"I got married the day before I came out here, so this is my honeymoon," he said, surprisingly chipper.
He had been on standby starting three weeks before the storm. He was told he was going, then staying, then going, then staying.
"My wife and I got tired of it, so we said, 'Let's go get married.' "
Marshall said that, despite having to leave her behind, he was glad to be here. He's been to Thailand, the Philippines, and Brazil, he said, "but this is the first time I've been able to help other Americans. That means the world to me."
After a 14-hour day, Navy teams from all over the island made their way back to the port and boarded a landing craft for the two-hour return trip to the Nassau.
As the ship got under way, everyone stretched out on the deck, many with hats over their eyes. Some listened to music, others ate and some used their cell phones while they still had a signal.
Overhead, two seagulls kept up with the boat as it headed back into the Gulf, the water darkening in the setting sun.
Saturday afternoon found another team of sailors rolling through the streets in a pair of Humvees on the way to the port, easing through intersections with no signals.
Along the way, they passed convoys of ambulances and tree-trimming trucks. Most of the other traffic was government-issued SUVs.
On many of the businesses hung signs that no longer matched reality, There was Prosperity Bank, which looked anything but prosperous; EZ Check Cashing, where cashing a check was actually impossible; Galveston Food & Gas, which had neither; and a plywood sign proclaiming "Yes, We're open," when no, they were not.
At the port's perimeter, Capt. Bob Lineberry, the commodore of Amphibious Squadron 6, gave the sailors a pep talk as they stood along a leaning chain-link fence.
With the port closed, container ships were stacking up in the Gulf, he said. For the port to reopen, it had to be secure. For it to be secure, the sailors needed to fix the fence.
"We've got to stop the bleeding, restore stability and get this port moving again," Lineberry told them.
"It's a dirty job. It's a hard job, but it's necessary," he added. "We've got to bring that critical infrastructure back to life."
During the flooding, the 10-foot fence had acted like a colander, catching all the crud that Ike sent in: water bottles, weeds, bubble wrap, sticks, and garbage bags now waving like pennants.
Part of the team used sticks to poke out the trash before scooping it up and putting it in a dump truck. Another team set about re-welding a broken fence post.
"I was begging to come to this. Just to help," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Rhonda Bergeron, a hospital corpsman. "I can't imagine how these folks felt."
She served as mother hen to the crew. Everything they touched had spent time under dirty water, so she stayed on them to wash their hands before eating, drink plenty of water and wear gloves.
"Where are your gloves?!" she yelled at Petty Officer 2nd Class Kenneth Collier, who was helping hold up the fence.
"In the truck," he replied, rolling his eyes.
"Collier!"
"I guess you ain't been in Iraq," he retorted, before going off to get them.
Three of them lifted the fence as another sailor slithered under it. His arc welding torch sparked with a white-hot light.
As the sailors worked, they were periodically ambushed by the post-Ike funk of decomposing matter. At times it was faint or even nonexistent. Then the wind would shift and a withering stink would pass over.
Nearby, a large sailboat lay on its side, waiting for someone to put it back in the water.
On Sunday morning, a Navy crew was heading to the city's water treatment plant to help get its pumps back online.
Miles away, an odd but necessary parade set off from a distribution center, hauling trailers full of basic supplies and bound for some of the island's hardest-hit neighborhoods.
Led by a state trooper, two Humvees carried a group of Nassau sailors and Texas National Guardsmen, along with ready-to-eat meals, pallets of bottled water, bags of ice, shovels, the day's local newspaper, cots and face masks.
They passed flooded cars sitting by the curb or up in yards, looking like terrariums as moisture collected on the insides of their windows.
They had learned to pick out the houses where the residents had either never left or sneaked back in: They all had piles of destroyed furniture and appliances at the curb.
The trooper chirped his siren to get the attention of residents in their homes. As the convoy snaked through a neighborhood on the island's northwest, people began approaching. Most took ice and water, balancing it on their arms or bike handlebars.
Resident Benjamin Henderson took ice and food. The floodwater rose 10 feet on his street, sending him to live on the second floor with his friend and her son and granddaughter.
Everybody else on their block was gone. They stayed, he said, because they'd just been grocery shopping as the hurricane was approaching.
"We didn't want to abandon a refrigerator full of food," he said. "We spent all our money up and didn't want to go when we had no money."
Now they couldn't leave if they wanted to, he said, motioning to his flooded Buick nearby. So the military's daily visits have been vital.
"I hear the horn blaring and I know they're coming," he said. "It's wonderful."
Around the corner, Doris Petteway sat on a sofa by her second-story porch. She passed up a chance to leave for Austin, Texas, ahead of the storm, because it would involve more standing than her 80-year-old body could handle. She and her small dog slept in the bathroom as Ike passed over.
Afterward, she hung a flag outside her window so people would know she was in there. Then she opened her Bible.
"God bless you all," she told a sailor. "It's the only way I can make it through."
Further on, Petty Officer 2nd Class Kevin Paulk surveyed the damage as he rode in one of the trailers. After Hurricane Andrew tore through Florida in 1992, he and his family had no power for many weeks. They survived by heating canned food over a campfire.
"I volunteered instantly," he said. "I know how these people feel."
Across town, Seaman Adalberto Fuentes, another Nassau sailor, has joined that club.
Backpack on, Fuentes strode through the leaves, past downed trees that looked like overcooked broccoli crowns.
The neighborhood was Sunday-morning-post-disaster quiet, the only sound that of a Navy helicopter landing at the high school a few blocks away. Fuentes turned the corner at Avenue Q 1/2 and approached his childhood home.
"We've had storms and other hurricanes, but we never got hit," he said. "This time, it came for us."
He'd heard all sorts of things before he got here. Some people said it wasn't that bad; others told him that cars were flipped over and trees uprooted.
Luckily, he found Saturday that no water had gotten into the house. But the 2 feet of water that did come into the yard had done its share of damage.
A 10-foot section of his fence had keeled over into a neighbor's yard. Floodwater had pushed trash all the way under his house into the backyard, which was now full of soda and beer cans, Styrofoam cups and a pale blue kickball.
He reassured his mother and younger siblings, who had evacuated, that all was well. His plan was to enlist his cousin to help him clean things up, then go join the other work crews on the island.
Sailors expect to be there at least a few more days.
When he heard he was coming to Galveston, Fuentes said, his emotions were mixed. He felt bad for his family that their house had been hit but then felt good because he would get a chance to help his fellow islanders.
Fuentes sat down on his back step to smoke and wait for his cousin. Amid all the wreckage, a wooden birdhouse stood atop a slender pole by the garage. It amazed him.
"All these trees are so big and strong and they broke," he said. "But that little birdhouse is still standing."
Overhead, the birds in it were arguing with others in the trees. Above them, the blue sky was hung with harmless clouds. In the distance, the steady sound of machines.
