Health officer deployed to coast after hurricane Published Dec. 5, 2012 By Airman 1st Class Jake Eckhardt 375th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- Public Health Service Lt. Cmdr. Julie Chodacki, 375th Air Mobility Wing Comprehensive Airman Fitness coordinator, was part of a federal deployment team sent to New Jersey Nov. 3-15 to help people affected by Hurricane Sandy. The team provided shelter, medical services and power. "One minute I was at First Friday at the Scott Club, then the next minute I was packing for New Jersey," Chodacki said. "My team and I was on 6-hour notice to get to the airport if we were needed." Chodacki was the acting deputy operations branch chief during her time there. She oversaw all medical and ancillary services, preventative medicine and pharmacy night shift operations for the federal medical station. Chodacki and her team set up and maintained a 250-bed federal medical station for special medical issues. "We provided care for people who had medical issues that made them too sick for a regular shelter but not sick enough to be hospitalized, such as a person who is dependent on oxygen," she said. "That person has nowhere to go if the power is out." The team provided a full range of medical services, including mental health, physical therapy and a pharmacy. "We were just there to provide a helping hand," she said. "The local hospitals had limited space and their emergency rooms wouldn't have been able to help everyone." The Public Health Service is one of the seven uniformed services, but isn't military. PHS officers work for the Surgeon General of the United States and the Secretary of Health and Human Services. They are detailed to various governmental agencies, including the DoD to provide public health care. "We deploy when there is mass threat to people's health," she said. "It is our job to react when there is something like national disaster or disease outbreak." Chodacki said she and her team witnessed people lose a lot of what they held dear to them. More than 105 people were killed and 8.5 million homes were left without power after Hurricane Sandy. "Many people lost their homes and their sources of income," she said. "We had a World War II veteran who was a patient of ours while we were there, who lost his wife because of the hurricane. She passed away in the hospital while he was in our shelter. As board certified clinical psychologist, Chodacki's responsibilities at the 375th AMW include chairing the Integrated Delivery System (IDS), directing the Community Action Information Board (CAIB), and teaching resilience skills classes. She noted that the building blocks of resilience apply across all of her various duties. "I told folks there that the problems are temporary; problems are local not global, and that they were not helpless," she said. "We did the best we could with what we had."