Gov. Bill Owens on Thursday pledged up to 700 Colorado National Guard troops to help clean up and restore law and order in hurricane-ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi.
A group of about 450 Army and Air National Guard members is scheduled to leave over the next few days, with 250 more expected to follow, said Major General Mason Whitney, Adjutant General of the Colorado National Guard. They could be in the Gulf Coast region for as long as four weeks, Whitney said. A small advance party already has left the state for Louisiana.
Owens, who said he will make several media appearances today to encourage private donations to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, said he was glad to help the recovery work underway along the southern coast.
“In times like these, Americans do what they’ve always done,” he said. “We reach out to help one another.”
All of the Colorado soldiers and airmen, some of whom returned from Iraq as recently as April, volunteered for the mission, Whitney said. They will travel with enough food, water and fuel to be self-sufficient for 10 days, he said.
The deployment is Colorado’s response to a request for help from the National Guard Bureau, which coordinates National Guard activity nationwide from Arlington, Va.
Of particular need, Whitney said, are Colorado’s military police officers.
“Obviously, there’s a problem with looting down in New Orleans, so they need military police personnel,” Whitney said.
Jefferson County deputy sheriff Derek Richter, a 2001 Pomona High School graduate, got word Thursday morning that he would be deployed, he said. The 22-year-old guardsman with the 140th security police squadron has been watching the devastation on television all week, he said.
“It looks crazy,” he said. “But I’m excited to go and do it. This is the Super Bowl for the National Guard. This is what we train for year-round – riot control, basic law and order, patrolling operations.”
Richter, 22, served as a Jefferson County Sheriff’s cadet for 3 1/2 years, and did a military police stint with the Army in Iraq from January 2003 to March 2004.
In the wake of the hurricane, local National Guard shortages due to overseas deployments hindered the immediate recovery effort, Mississippi National Guard spokesman Lt. Andy Thaggard told The Washington Post this week.
“Missing the personnel is the big thing in this particular event,” he was quoted as saying. “We need our people.”
According to an Aug. 1 report, about 5,800 members of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard forces – about 40 percent of their combined total force – are currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, National Guard Bureau spokesman Brad Swezey said.
Already, more than 15,000 National Guard fighters from more than 15 states are in the area or on their way – a number that is expected to grow to 30,000, Swezey said.
Richter said his family is worried about his mission to Louisiana.
“But they’ve told me, ‘At least it’s not Iraq,”‘ he said.
Staff writer Jim Hughes can be reached at 303-820-1244 or jhughes@denverpost.com.
