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| Governor Ron DeSantis and Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan answer press questions in the wake of a deadly shooting today outside of NAS Pensacola 12-6-2019. |
As the community and the country mourn the killed and the injured in the shooting incident aboard NAS Pensacola today, I cannot help but think about the tremendous response to this tragedy that occurred and that I witnessed.
At 6:50 AM this morning as I was headed to work in the facilities management annex aboard NAS Pensacola-- the traffic on Navy Blvd suddenly came to a screeching halt. Navy Blvd., the three lane artery leading to NAS Pensacola suddenly became a parking lot, backed up for miles.
Then, one by one, the emergency vehicles started screaming by the stopped traffic trying to get to work--the police cars and ambulances were heading south toward the base using the northbound lanes---sirens blaring and at a high rate of speed. Obviously something incredibly serious had occurred. I counted more than 80 Sheriff's Office Vehicles, Pensacola Police Department Vehicles, Fire Trucks, Ambulances, Swat vehicles, and EMS trucks. I took a facebook video describing the chaos at the time.
I immediately thought about my co-workers and the employees I supervise. Thankfully the three personnel that were already aboard the base were secure in our building which went into lock down. And I was subsequently able to reach the rest of the personnel from our annex via the telephone-those who had not yet made it to work. All were safe and accounted for.
As I spoke to various national and local media outlets today including, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, The New York Times, and Channel 3--I wanted to emphasize the one and only positive aspect of today: The tremendous, incredible response to this event.
I am so proud of all of the first responders today--the Navy Security Forces and also the first responders of Escambia County--the Sheriff's office, Pensacola Police Department and EMS and ECFR. Seeing this event unfold from the front gate, and just how quickly a massive and overwhelming force of the "Good Guys" came to help--it made me proud. It was AMAZING.
So while we are all keeping all victims of today in our prayers we can all take comfort in knowing that in this country and in this community--If a bad guy tries something like this--there will be an overwhelming, massive response and the outcome for the bad guy will not be good--they will be killed or captured in short order.
Today I'm thankful this tragedy was not worse and that the threat was neutralized by Escambia County Sheriff's Office Deputies and that the wounded were attended to by the competent and professional men and women of Escambia County Public Safety.
We pray for the swift recovery of all of those who were injured, including two of our Deputy Sheriff's Officers.
And we pray for our community and our nation
Amen
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