Davis Park Base Camp Closes in Greensburg

June 11, 2007

News release from Department of Agriculture:

Greensburg, June 11 - After 37 days and over 36,000 meals served, the Davis Park Base Camp, located in Greensburg, Kansas, will cease operations on June 11. The Base Camp, setup to provide hot food, showers, laundry service, and temporary housing for emergency responders, will no longer be needed to support workers who have been helping with tornado recovery operations in Greensburg, Kansas.

The Davis Park Base Camp was first set-up on May 8 by the Boise Incident Management Team (IMT), who is part of the National Incident Management Organization (NIMO). The Boise IMT arrived on May 7 in Greensburg. They immediately started setting up the Base Camp with help from the San Juan Hotshots of Durango, Colorado. The Hotshots cleared the park of fallen trees and tornado debris, and worked to setup tents and camp facilities. The first meal served, along with sleeping tents and showers, were available to workers within 24 hours on May 8. The camp was established in Greensburg to provide emergency responders with quality logistical support and clean, hygienic facilities to maintain their health and welfare during their rescue and recovery efforts.

During the past 37 days, emergency responders were provided daily with 2 hot meals and a sack lunch, temporary housing in 40 sleeping tents, hot showers and laundry service. The May 4 tornado destroyed 95 percent of Greensburg including community water, power and sewer services. The base camp provided workers with these basic necessities in order for them to perform their jobs in a safe and healthy environment. The camp was very popular with emergency responders, furnishing them with a place to rest and break away from the hectic and stressful environment they worked in. Hundreds of workers used the camp nightly for sleeping and showering.

Although emergency workers will continue recovery efforts, a great deal of clean up of Greensburg has been completed. Workers have hauled over 278,675 cubic yards of debris filling 29,500 truckloads. The debris removal process is approximately 80 percent complete. Other organizations will take over the feeding and other support services workers will continue to need after the base camp is closed.

The Boise Incident Management Team is part of the National Incident Management Organization (NIMO), a newly formed national organization within the U.S. Forest Service. NIMO's purpose it to support wildland fire initiatives and incident management. Two full-time, seven-member Type-1 National Incident Management Teams have been created and are based in Boise and Atlanta.

The Boise IMT was ordered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under the National Response Plan to provide logistical support to the tornado disaster area. NIMO's other mission is to work on wildland fire initiatives such as seeking non-traditional partnerships with other agencies to improve capability and capacity for fire and non-fire incidents; accelerating and increasing fuels treatments across the United States; and evaluating and developing a more effective fire management model for large, complex wildfires.

|

|

|