Having first worked for the Red Cross, I ended up spending the summer working disaster relief for the U.S. Housing
and Urban Development (HUD).
HUD staged their disaster operations out of the Jefferson Proving Ground with house trailers for the disaster victims
set up on the runways of the old airport. The area that I worked in was the creation and delivery of the living
kits. (Staged in the JPG - BOQ (Bachelor Officers Quarters)).
We would make living kit deliveries on a daily basis to every home destroyed in south eastern Indiana. (South of Hgw.
50, East of I-65, North of Kentucky, and West of Ohio).
During the summer, I visited over 10,000 homes destroyed by the April 3rd tornadoes, delivering living kits with
dishes, towels, pots, pans, silverware, cleaning solutions, and bedding supplies, while driving a truck to and from JPG.
(As a side note, later during that same summer, I was looking out the front of BOQ when another tornado touched down
at the airport and destroyed several of the HUD house trailers).
Jefferson Proving Ground (and in northern Indiana, Grissom Air Base), each played a vital role in the restoration of
thousands of tornado victims' homes by supplying electric generators, cranes, bulldozers, disaster staging areas, and manpower.
As someone that worked that summer, I realize that many people have no idea how much the Jefferson Proving Ground was
involved in rebuilding the community... however... there are a few of us that witnessed it and remember, and we are still
grateful to all of the employees at JPG that did this great community service.
