Agencies survey ruined facilities in the Gulf Coast

As the urgency of the post-Hurricane Katrina situation in the Gulf Coast begins to lessen, federal agencies with offices and employees in the area are assessing the damage.

The Veterans Affairs Department had two large hospitals severely damaged by the hurricane, and is one of the agencies missing the largest number of employees.

As of Friday morning, the VA still had about 800 missing employees, according to spokesman Terry Jemison. Most of the missing employees are hospital staff, with the largest number being nurses, he said. At least 160 who have checked in reported that they had lost their homes, according to a newsletter from the South Central VA Health Care Network.

According to VA officials, the New Orleans VA Medical Center has been evacuated, with just a few employees left for administrative and security purposes. The Biloxi, Miss., VA hospital is open, but the Gulfport division "sustained major damage" in the hurricane, officials said. It is largely evacuated with "a few" employees remaining. The facility's wooden buildings were basically destroyed and other buildings were flooded on the first floor.

VA administrators are asking employees who have not yet checked in to call its toll-free hotline at 1-888-766-2474 "as soon as possible" to give their name, position title, location and contact numbers.

In addition, VA officials report that many community outpatient clinics were "destroyed or severely damaged and are closed."

Many Social Security Administration facilities and employees also were affected by the hurricane. SSA officials report that 11 offices in Louisiana and three in Mississippi are closed.

According to SSA spokesman Mark Hinkle, the two closed offices in Mississippi -- the Gulfport and Moss Point facilities -- "sustained severe water damage," but SSA has not been able to access any of the offices in New Orleans, and as a result have not made any damage assessments.

Some of the open offices sustained damage as well. Hinkle said the Biloxi facility had broken windows and minor water damage, but not enough to keep it closed.

As for the SSA employees, Hinkle reported that all workers in Alabama and Mississippi have checked in, but that they are "still anxiously awaiting to hear from some employees in Louisiana." He said that as communication abilities improve each day, the agency is "getting more and more" calls from employees.

Some agencies fared better than others. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials report that on Sept. 2, they surveyed the agency's district office in New Orleans.

"There was no window damage, no water damage, and the office was secure," officials wrote in a statement. "It appears that nothing was disrupted, and the files and security items are safe."

The Postal Service, which had local facilities scattered throughout the area and also operated a large processing and distribution center in New Orleans, was not so lucky. USPS spokesman Bob Anderson described the condition of its numerous facilities in New Orleans as simply "under water." As many as 67 have no service and 62 have partial service, according to a USPS map of the area.

Like many other agencies, the Postal Service has not been able to gain access to its facilities in the city in order to assess their functionality.

Anderson said the New Orleans Processing and Distribution Center, where operations are suspended until further notice, usually handles "millions of pieces of mail each night." In addition to the building itself, the center contains million of dollars of equipment, such as canceling machines and bar code sorters, which may be destroyed.

The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the temporary closure of 16 national wildlife refuges in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, and the National Park Service announced that the New Orleans Jazz and Jean Lafitte parks, which are historical rather than natural sites, are "the most impacted properties," and are closed. NPS officials are "making plans for safe access into areas and assessing damages," according to the NPS Web site.

NASA's Stennis Space Center in South Mississippi and Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans also are closed to normal operations, according to an announcement on the agency's Web site. It said that preliminary estimates for hurricane damage "could reach $1.1 billion, with an estimated $600 million in costs at Stennis and $500 million at Michoud." NASA said it is planning to open Stennis "in a limited capacity next week." The agency said it has accounted for all of its employees in the area.