2,500 Katrina evacuees headed to Cape base

About 2,500 evacuees displaced by Hurricane Katrina will be flown from the Gulf Coast to Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod by Wednesday and given food, clothing, medical care, cash, and housing at Camp Edwards for the next 30-60 days in a massive undertaking announced yesterday by Governor Mitt Romney and the Massachusetts National Guard.

Arriving in some cases with little more than the clothes they are wearing, the evacuees will come to a sprawling military base that includes sleeping quarters, a movie theater, a gymnasium, a cafeteria, and an unoccupied school that Romney said made it an ideal location to help the evacuees recuperate.

The operation is part of a nationwide effort by states to share the burden of sheltering the tens of thousands of residents displaced by Katrina, many of whom have been living in increasingly cramped quarters at the Houston Astrodome and other shelters across the Gulf Coast. The Federal Emergency Management Agency asked Massachusetts to take the evacuees in a conference call with state officials yesterday.

''We're happy that Massachusetts is going to be able to help," Romney said at a news conference at the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Framingham, where he was flanked by the adjutant general of the Massachusetts National Guard, a regional FEMA official, and several other state officials. ''We have instituted Operation Helping Hand, indicating that the compassion of the people of Massachusetts is as large as our hearts."

Romney also said 535 Massachusetts National Guard troops would depart for Louisiana today. They include military police, infantry, and medical personnel who will join several thousand troops from other states who are streaming into the hurricane-ravaged region. In addition, some local Guard troops might be called up to help run the shelter at Camp Edwards.

After flying into Otis, the evacuees will be handed ID cards or bracelets and evaluated by medical teams, Romney said. The sick and injured will be sent to hospitals in Boston and elsewhere in the state for treatment, he said. Those not sent on to hospitals will be given clean beds and hot meals and will be evaluated individually during the next several days to determine their educational, health, and employment needs. The state will give them a cash stipend for sundries, and workers will help them find missing relatives in the Gulf Coast, Romney said.

During the coming weeks, Romney said that he expects the National Guard, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and volunteers to help run a shelter that resembles a village in its complexity and scope. He said the operation will need teachers to run the school on the base and law enforcement officers to patrol the border between the evacuees' living quarters and surrounding military operations. Counselors and ministers will help tend to evacuees' spiritual and emotional lives, he said. Volunteers will tackle more mundane tasks -- making beds and doing laundry, for example, he said.

Determining what will happen to the evacuees after 30 to 60 days poses the most daunting challenge, Romney said. He said the state departments of housing, labor, and health and human services would help to find those evacuees who want to remain in Massachusetts permanent homes and jobs. He hopes that local officials would take stock of their own communities to determine how many evacuees they might be able to accommodate.

Thousands of other evacuees might be coming to Massachusetts to stay with family and friends, Romney said. He asked businesses and local officials to help them settle here.

''We are going to do the job that needs to be done and help those that are in need," the governor said.

Romney said he had no estimate of the cost of the operation. He said he had spoken yesterday with Senate President Robert E. Travaglini and House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, who both ''were quick to say, 'Governor, whatever it costs, we're there,' " Romney said. FEMA would pay the bulk of the costs, he said. The state also has a surplus of $600 million to $800 million, some of which could be spent on the operation, he said.

''Cost is not one of our considerations," Romney said. ''Compassion is coming first."

Romney's plan supplants one offered Saturday by Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who had prepared to bring the evacuees to a triage center at Logan International Airport and house them at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in South Boston. Romney said he was grateful for the mayor's plan and ideas offered by other mayors, but he made clear that he would be running the operation.

''The key at this point for our municipal officials is to make sure everything is coordinated through the state," Romney said.

Menino said in an interview that he supports the governor's operation, which he learned about after he announced his own preparations at a news conference at City Hall. Shortly afterward, the two spoke by phone, the mayor said.

''I said, 'Governor, I just wanted these people taken care of,' " Menino said. He added that he had scrambled to make plans after US officials told his aides on Friday evening that evacuees might be arriving in Boston within hours.

Federal officials have yet to determine where the evacuees will be coming from, though many are expected to come from the Astrodome in Houston, Romney said. Some may stay for only a few weeks, while others may want to build a new life here, he said.

''There may be many that have nothing to go back to," he said.

Romney said a flight of critically ill patients might land at Logan, in which case they would be taken by ambulance to hospitals in Boston. The state has 2,000 hospital beds available, including about 400 that are vacant in the Boston area, Romney said. The governor said he was also preparing for the possibility that some of the evacuees might be prisoners who need to be taken into state custody.

Lieutenant Nicole Ivers, a public affairs officer for the 102d Fighter Wing at Otis, said the evacuees at Camp Edwards would stay in now-vacant three-story barracks-style brick buildings that normally house troops in training.

Each room has four beds, desks, and wall lockers; each floor has a day room and two large bathrooms with showers and toilets, Ivers said. Each building has a laundry room, and athletic fields and dining halls are within walking distance. Already yesterday, teams at Edwards were sweeping barracks, making beds, and setting up a security perimeter.