Officers honored for volunteer effort

Local police spent two weeks in hurricane-hit areas

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For Henderson Police Department Homeland Security Lt. James Green, receiving a key to the city of Henderson recently came as a big surprise.

Green and seven other HPD officers who volunteered to spend two weeks helping recovery efforts in areas of Mississippi and Louisiana that were hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina, received the keys during an award ceremony with Mayor Jim Gibson in late September.

"Receiving the keys was a little overwhelming," Green said. "We just went down and did our jobs. We got calls from the city councilmen while we were there. We were definitely supported."

Green said his department usually has a wide variety of responsibilities, including the preparation, intelligence and response sides of homeland security. His office also handles disasters including terrorism, flooding and power outages.

On Sept. 6, Green and officers Gustavo Leigh, Greg Francis, Tim Donelly, Earl Mitchell, Dave Wilson, Dave Roulette and David Woolman left Henderson for Mississippi to assist local police departments in any way they could.

On the first night of the trip, the team of officers stayed in the city of Seminary, Miss., in an elementary school gym. Officers spent the time in Seminary preparing their gear and holding both officer safety and body recovery training sessions.

"Huge waves of water had washed through a lot of the areas we were going into, so officers were going to be in buildings that had sustained that," Green said. "We needed safety training for that, and for dealing with the water that was left."

The group continued through Mississippi to Gautier, where the officers stayed in the classrooms at a local high school. Then it was on to Moss Point, one of the most devastated areas.

While in the area, Green said the team worked graveyard shifts, assisting the local police department, which only had about 25 officers. Many of those officers lost their homes and possessions to the hurricane.

While in Moss Point, Green was in charge of three other officers from the HPD as well as two other teams of four officers from other areas. Leading the 11 other officers, Green contacted the Moss Point Police Department to find out how he and his team could help. Four other HPD officers went to the Biloxi and Gulfport areas to assist them.

Green said when they arrived in Moss Point, about 90 percent of the city's street signs had been wiped out by wind and flood waters, and almost all of the local buildings were destroyed or badly damaged by a 4-foot wave that washed through the town.

Even the equipment the Moss Point officers carry with them on a daily basis was affected by the water. Many of the officers had damage to their weapons because the waters had been more than waist-high.

"One of our guys is an armorer and brought a cleaning kit with him," Green said. "So one of the things we could do for them was get their guns cleaned up and working again, and get them new ammunition. When you're a cop working in a potentially dangerous situation, you want to at least know your weapon is working."

While the HPD officers were in Moss Point, one of their main tasks was to support local police in day-to-day matters, including responding to domestic violence and traffic calls. They also spent much of their time assisting at the town's American Red Cross distribution center.

"We helped manage people and added stability and structure to the help areas," Green said. "We wanted to make sure people got the help they needed, and that no one was taken advantage of."

Green said the team of officers that went to Biloxi and Gulfport did similar things, helping pass out food and water, assisting local authorities with body recovery efforts and taking care of traffic control so the power company could work in the streets.

During their time in Mississippi, the Henderson officers, like most of the residents of the area, had to use portable toilet facilities and drink water from special stations. But Green said the hardest thing to adjust to was the destruction throughout the towns.

"We saw areas where there were just foundations," Green said. "In other areas some (buildings) were still standing, but they'll have to be torn down, and everywhere you'd look, there was an empty spot where there used to be a house."

On a helicopter tour of the area, Green said he also saw barge casinos that had washed 1,000 yards up onto land to sit where houses had once been and a 14-foot alligator swimming in open water.

"Everywhere you'd look, the first, second, third row of houses would be gone, as far as the eye could see," he said. "Highways and bridges were gone, all the boats from the marinas were gone. There were huge shipping containers that had been washed up onto shore all over the place."

Green said one of his most poignant memories was from a car wash, were the officers stopped to wash the salt off their vehicles when they were leaving.

"I looked across the road into an empty parking lot where an older woman was standing, sorting through the clothes that had been left there," he said. "She was picking things up one at a time and holding them up to check the size until she found a pair of pants to take back to her husband. That's what she was down to -- she had nothing, she was standing in an empty parking lot, looking for something for her husband to wear."

While they were at the Red Cross distribution center, Green said he and his team preferred to work among the people, and said that people were very thankful for the help.

When the Henderson team left, it was replaced by officers from Georgia.

The officers returned to Henderson on Sept. 20 and city does not plan on sending more police officers to the areas affected by the hurricanes. Green said it is possible that other city personnel could be sent to help. But he doesn't think it will be difficult to find volunteers.

"It was a matter of minutes, when we got the governor's request to send officers, before we filled the eight spots," he said. "I'm proud of our mayor, our governor and our police chief for saying, 'Yes, we'll help.' "