Published on Saturday, September 10, 2005
in the Kansas City Star, MO

Florida law officers in biggest out-of-state deployment ever

WAVELAND - (KRT) - Driving the debris-choked neighborhoods of Waveland, Bay St. Louis and southern Hancock County, Trooper David Rodriguez was more likely to spring from his Florida Highway Patrol car with a fist full of hand washers, an arm load of "meals-ready-to-eat" and a six-pack of bottled water.

He wasn't taking out his ticket book while working the roads of this storm-ravaged community, where the need for security and sustenance intersect.

He's here because the Waveland Police Department was virtually destroyed by a wall of water and because other local police agencies have been crippled. Local officers have lost their homes.

In one of the biggest "mutual aid" efforts in memory, Rodriguez and hundreds of other Florida police officers are here, also, because Floridians feel indebted to Mississippians and others who came so quickly to Florida's aide during the horrific hurricanes of 2004. In all, 697 police, including 321 employed by Florida and 376 from sheriff's departments and municipal police departments from one end of the state to the other.

In Waveland and throughout Hancock County, they are welcomed.

"You don't know how much we appreciate it, you just don't realize it," a grateful Larry Santeford, 59, told Rodriguez and his sergeant, Dwayne Cooper.

The two troopers from Naples met Santeford and his wife, Alice, on a hot afternoon pushing a wheelchair already carrying two bags of quickly melting ice in Waveland. They gave them hand wipes to fight against disease.

"With as many hurricanes as we have been through, we're glad to help because this could have been us," Rodriguez said later, pointing to the massive destruction all round him.

A day after Hurricane Katrina turned coastal Mississippi into shambles, Florida police began rolling in.

Beyond the police and hundreds of civilian volunteers from Florida, there are about 600 Florida National Guard troops, 65 forestry firefighters and incident command specialists and more than 200 disaster medical specialists.

It's not just cops in patrol cars, it's heavily armed Florida National Guard soldiers who fought in Iraq now in Hancock County in HumVees. There are Florida state conservation officers patrolling in boats.

In southern Hancock County, police are working out of a mobile command posts brought from Florida by the by Polk County Sheriff's Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

"We brought our own mechanics, our own cooks, everything," said Polk County Florida sheriff's Maj. Francis Hart. His department is donating seven fully equipped patrol cars to the Waveland Department.

It is amazing that despite trauma to their homes and lives, many local law enforcement officers were back on the job last week, added Polk Capt. Dennis Russell.

"They are still working, still saving lives," Russell said. "They don't give up."

Next to the Polk command post is Orange County's state of the art mobile communications center.

Police technicians have stitched together a nearly seamless radio system allowing police from all the different agencies to talk to one another.

When Hurricane Andrew hit Miami more than a decade ago, police, fire-rescue and other agencies had radios that couldn't talk to each other. That's been fixed.

To local police battered, bewildered, sometimes homeless, cops like Rodriguez are a godsend.

"They have pulled us out of the depths," Waveland Police Chief Jimmy Varnell said of the reinforcements. "We were in bad shape and they nursed us back."

"They have put some sunshine in some dark, dark places," said Varnell, who suffered through the hurricane clinging in the wind driven water with more than 15 other officers to a tall, redtip bush for more than six hours. Unbelievably fast-rising water forced 29 members of the department out of the building. Some made it to the roof, others to the bush where they rode out the maelstrom. None were hurt.

Law enforcement has come from other states, too.

The massive outpouring is also the first time Florida National Guard troops have been deployed outside he state.

"When you have a disaster of this magnitude, borders are immaterial," said Mike Stone, chief spokesman for the Florida Division of Emergency.

"We're there because there is an overwhelming need to help our fellow man," Stone said. The Mississippi campaign is the first time assets of such magnitude have been sent to another state, Stone said.

Civilian police are not the only law enforcement.

The smell of diesel exhaust hangs thick at the Florida National Guard's "Camp Haywood" at a Bay Middle School just off U.S. 90 in Bay St. Louis. More than 425 soldiers from infantry, transportation and engineering units operate out of the camp, named for a 54-year-old Guard member who had to stay behind because he is suffering with cancer.

HumVees head out and return from security patrols while bigger vehicles stared making their way to the many damaged schools in Hancock County.

Another major task for Florida troops is getting Hancock County's hard-hit schools back in working order, making them first safe havens for kids to play, then opening their doors for kids to learn again.

Glass crunched below their heavy boots as he and other members of a Guard engineering unit called REDHORSE, trudged through a lobby near the gym at a middle school at Stennis Airport.

There was water in most of the buildings. Many other schools were worse off.

"Kids flock to schools," said Sgt. Richard Dumm, an aircraft examiner from Jacksonville. "We're trying to keep it safe for them."

REDHORSE helped get nearly 60 schools open during Florida's four hurricanes of 2004.

The Florida Guard's commander, Col. Joseph (Mickey) Duren, was saddened by the damage Katrina did to schools.

He saw band instruments in the muck and mud of one school. He has children who are accomplished musicians, and he imagined their own school band room. He vowed to help the county in every way possible at its schools.

"This storm can change the path of a child's life," Duren said.