Navy locates most San Diego sailors, families

Navy locates most San Diego sailors, families
By Mark D. Faram - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Oct 25, 2007 18:24:34 EDT

MILLINGTON, Tenn. — Forty-eight hours into the Navy’s San Diego wildfire disaster muster, officials say they have accounted for 95 percent of their people in the San Diego County area. Now, officials say they will begin to focus on those most affected and get them help.

As of early Thursday afternoon, Navy officials had accounted for 156,953 of the 165,117 total people with close Navy ties in the San Diego County area. Of those, 8,039 had been evacuated from their homes and one Navy civilian had been reported killed: Thomas Varshock, 52, of Tecate, Calif., worked as a geo-technical engineer for Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest in San Diego, the Navy said.

As yet, there was no information on how many sailors’ or Navy civilians’ homes had been destroyed.

“We’re glad that we’ve accounted for the 95 percent, but there’s still 5 percent out there we’re actively looking for right now,” said Capt. Hank Vitali, who is in charge of the Emergency Communications Center in Millington, which is helping coordinate the search for the remaining sailors, both active and reserve, as well as Navy civilians and their dependents. “That last 3 to 5 percent is always the toughest to find, but that’s our job and we’ll get it done,” he said.

To locate the stragglers, Vitali has uniformed sailors manning phones and computers in Millington.

“We use any way we can find to locate them: cell phones, civilian e-mails,” he said. “The number one priority is to account for all our people.”


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/10/navy_disaster_muster_071025w/