Hurricanes Katrina and Rita disrupted the lives and work of many people, among them thousands of Navy families. A Pacific Northwest naval officer is leading the efforts to help these shipmates recover.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mullen appointed Rear Adm. Robert Passmore, deputy commander, Navy Region Northwest, to head up the newly established Task force Navy Family (TFNF), headquartered in Washington, D.C.  The Navy established TFNF to provide 12 different categories of relief for approximately 22,000 Navy families.  The 60-member team of subject matter experts is dealing with issues such as housing, medical, transportation, school and childcare.

Estimates expect TFNF to last between three to six months. The goal is to get emergency assistance to these people, and then return them to the existing support channels.

According to Passmore, the relief efforts will not end in days or months, but rather years and decades.

“The area affected by Katrina and Rita accounts for land about the size of Great Britain [It ranges] from Mobile, Ala., to Texas,” he said. “My first feelings were ‘you cannot capture the disaster with a camera.’ It is like the entire area had been blown up from New Orleans to Pascagoula. It is completely leveled. Some towns that used to exist are gone. We flew over a town that is just gone - nothing left.”

As TFNF commander, Passmore depends on his deputies and staff members to ensure the organization flows smoothly and accomplishes its mission.

“One person alone could not do the job,” he said. “You need people who understand Washington D.C., as well as know people in this area and draw on that expertise. I didn’t have that knowledge, so having Adm. Robert Reilly, TFNF deputy military commander, and Debra Edmonds, TFNF civilian deputy, on the team has been essential. I had been in the disaster area and seen some of the places where I thought we could help so we focused the team in certain directions to provide relief for those families.”

The assistance provided by TFNF has given deploying military members the chance to slowly rebuild their lives before they leave for an extended period of time.

“I received a phone call from a young man who is getting ready to deploy to Iraq and he has absolutely nothing,” said Janet Passmore, TFNF ombudsman. “He and his family literally had to swim out of their house. We are trying very hard to find his family permanent housing so he can deploy. He needs to know his family is safe and in good hands.”

For Adm. Passmore and his team, taking care of Sailors and their families during this time of rebuilding is what the TFNF is all about.

“We are also linked very closely to Millington right now, Bureau of Naval Personnel (through BUPERS Online),” he said. “It is how we are collecting all the data from the families. When we stood this up, our goal was to deal with every Navy family, to make sure every family has a plan to return to a normal life, whatever that was pre-Katrina and pre-Rita. It is all about every family and what we can do for them.”

To ensure that families are well on their way to recovery, TFNF is still keeping in contact with those they have helped.

“We are collecting current contact information and making follow-up phone calls to see how things are going,” said Janet Passmore. “We try to provide ombudsman services from a centralized location here in D.C., and if our families need support, we would direct them to an ombudsman on site.”

In addition to assisting the families, TFNF is also creating a disaster preparedness plan that will help if they are ever faced with another disaster.

“This one event, though major, has allowed us to set up a process and structure that can be repeated in the future. This is the first time we’ve done anything like this, so we have a representative from the Center for Naval Analyses that is documenting everything we do so the next time a situation like this comes up, we’ll have process in place. It should be much simpler to stand it up the next time the Navy needs to react quickly,” said Passmore.

With the relief efforts still continuing, Passmore is pleased with how well the Navy and other branches of service worked together to get the job done and help families recover.

“It has been truly inspiring to see corporations, people in the Navy and every organization in the country wanting to help,” he said.