Organizing a Voluntary Evacution of Yokosuka

Since my ship had left me on shore to participate in the rescue efforts, I was trying to find some way to contribute. Most Supply Officers are actually shore based, there are only so many positions on a ship. I was having a rough time though because just about every ship had already left for the relief mission and the base was quiet. Then the nuclear power plants started to leak radiation.

That changed the situation overnight. Many of the dependents of those on the ships suddenly did not feel safe being in Japan anymore. I could not really blame them since I was not entirely sure I was safe. As I watched the news coverage over the course of the weekend, the power plants only seemed to leak more radiation with each passing day. I was instructed to muster with the Temporary Placement Unit (TPU) Saturday and Sunday, that was a bit unusual since we usually have the weekends off absent being on duty.

The voluntary evacuation plans started Sunday afternoon. I was instructed to work with a Master Chief from my ship in coordinating a volunteer evacuation for the dependents of my ship. First we needed to establish a line of communication with the ship. Once this was done, we started to receive evacuation requests from the ship's crew. The personnel office on the CURTIS WILBUR would relay information on each family to us one at a time by email. We would then send these emails to the Personnel Services Department (PSD) for further processing. Eventually we created a list of all the dependents volunteering for evacuation.

I thought that was going to be the end of my duties, having submitted all the names for flights out of Japan. It ended up just being the beginning. This would be the start of a process that would take the better part of a week to complete. Much more information was needed than just the names of the people wanting to leave. We needed copies of their passports and several signatures. Unfortunately that meant most wives had to come into base and make copies of their passports. Master Chief and I ended up setting up a cubical inside PSD to make it easier for people to find us. That was where the majority of resources we needed were located.

I ended up calling each family one at time asking for different types of information. I needed basic information on who was taking private flights, passports and even family pets. Each packet of information was eventually assembled and the process of making flight reservations started in earnest. In the beginning we were criticized for moving too slowly. The problem was the amount of paperwork and number of people wanting to leave. We got the bulk of the paperwork completed after a few days and then were just waiting on reservations to be booked.