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Journal-News.com

Fairfield Twp. trio aid Gulfport

GULFPORT, Miss. — Bravery is traveling hundreds of miles from your home without pay and without health insurance to ride on night patrols in a city still reeling from natural disaster.

Such is life for Fairfield Township police officer Rick Jones Jr., who — along with Capt. Alan Laney and nurse Karen Hundley — is traveling to Gulfport today to volunteer their services.

Jones will be running night patrol in the city with local police while Laney and Hundley work marine search and rescue patrols.

The power is still off in large parts of the southern port city. There are lines for everything: food, water, ice, gas and banking services. Local police said nighttime unrest is beginning to pick up as some residents get frustrated with circumstances and others are finding fuel for their vices.

Harrison County Sheriff Department Maj. Wayne Payne gave Jones an idea of what to expect as he rides shotgun on 12-hour night shifts in the next few days.

"People south of the railroad tracks here where the devastation is really bad, looters are just

going through these wrecked homes and taking those people's personal things," a bleary-eyed Payne told Jones. "It's just thugs and we've got a place for them."

Gesturing over Jones' shoulder, Payne pointed to the Gulfport jail, where more than 100 people have been arrested for looting in the 11 days since Hurricane Katrina hit the coast.

Jones said nighttime crime has increased in the city to the point that it's not safe for officers to ride alone.

"People are getting beer and the drugs are getting back in. People are getting back into their bad habits again and they're getting a little bit out of control," he said.

He and Laney seemed eager to get to work to help the local officers in spite of the danger.

"I've never had an anxious moment in all my years as a police officer," Laney said. "I've been shot at and stabbed and I've seen things no one should see. When I get home and think about the things I've done, that's a different story."

On their way to find an assignment, the trio stopped at the Industrial Seaway, an interior waterway with access to the Gulf of Mexico where many shrimp fisherman sought refuge from the hurricane. Boats there were stacked on top of one another, pushed up on the banks and sitting half submerged.

Payne said some of the fisherman there are trapped on their boats and are in need of supplies. Others didn't fare so well, he said, and are being picked up by recovery teams. Laney and Hundley will be on assignment here today.

Biloxi resident and shrimp boat owner Hung Dinh surveyed the damage from the bank Thursday morning.

Dinh said his ship, "Miss Rose," was damaged beyond repair in the storm.

Many of the fisherman are barely able to live on the pay they get from the shrimping, he said. With the boats stuck in the seaway and others destroyed, many families have no income and no means of recovery.

"I have no insurance and I have no money to get another boat," he said. "We've got nothing and we need help. We better move somewhere for our lives and for our kids."

When asked if he would try to get back into shrimping, he said he had had enough of both hurricanes and fishing for the rest of his life.

Hundley, Jones and Laney were able to make their 11th local connection as well Thursday afternoon. Over the past week, folks from Ohio have passed along names of relatives to check on. Katherine Wright, sister of Fairfield resident Gean Harris, was without power and had damage to her roof, but was otherwise OK.

Wright and her husband Chester were just able to flee the storm to stay with friends in Florida.

"It was awful," she said. "There was a time where I didn't know if we were going to make it."

Without power for now, she said the two will have to wait to make needed repairs to the roof and to clean up water damage inside the home.

Late Thursday, the two Fairfield Township officers had a chance to rest while paperwork was being completed so that they could assume their night patrols.

"We're ready," Laney said. "We came here to work and to do what is needed."