Navy Turns to Halliburton for Help on
Damaged Bases
NY Times
By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr. Published: September 4, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 - Facing extensive damage by Hurricane Katrina to naval
installations in Mississippi, the Navy turned immediately to the Halliburton
Company's KBR subsidiary for tasks like restoring electricity, repairing roofs
and clearing debris at bases that are urgently needed for response efforts.
It is a familiar role for KBR, which under longstanding contracts has
delivered the engineering equivalent of first aid to the Navy and other
military and government agencies after natural disasters for more than 15
years. This time, the Halliburton unit's performance is likely to be watched
especially closely, as its work under separate contracts in Iraq has come under
extensive criticism in the past two years.
The Naval Facilities Engineering Command turned to Halliburton after the
hurricane under terms of a five-year contract worth up to $500 million, renewed
in 2004 after competitive bidding, that calls on the company to provide
immediate services on demand after natural disasters, in humanitarian crises or
in military conflicts. Last year, the Navy invoked the same contract after
Hurricane Ivan hit Florida.
Although Halliburton has not yet been asked to work on installations around
New Orleans, it said on Friday that it would begin performing damage
assessments there "as soon as it is deemed safe to do so."
The Navy faces urgent problems repairing installations such as the Naval
Construction Battalion Center at Gulfport, Miss., which was heavily damaged and
has become a crucial staging point for recovery operations in the coastal area
hit hardest by the hurricane.
Almost all the base's personnel were evacuated before the storm, and there
were no military casualties reported, but many buildings were damaged, power
and communications were out, and roads were blocked or flooded.
But even as the Halliburton contract was being announced on Friday, the base
was getting back in business, feeding 1,200 personnel each day, sheltering 350
Federal Emergency Management Agency employees in a warehouse, preparing to
build a tent city for FEMA, supporting 1,000 employees of Mississippi Power,
and deploying Seabees into nearby communities.
Even as it prepared for new jobs in the disaster area, both under its
military contract and in its broader civilian role as a major engineering and
construction company involved in ports and oil services, Halliburton and its
employees faced problems of their own from the storm.
The company said on Friday that it had 3,000 employees working in the
affected region and that "many have suffered devastating losses with many homes
and vehicles flooded and some with a total loss of all of their belongings."
The company, headed by Dick Cheney before he became vice president, has close
ties to the Bush administration, and earlier this year confirmed that it had
hired Joseph M. Allbaugh as a consultant on issues including disaster relief
and homeland security. Mr. Allbaugh was the director of FEMA during the first
two years of the Bush administration.
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