POINT MUGU : Eruption Strands Navy Reserve Unit
The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo has left a U. S. Navy reserve unit from Point Mugu stranded in the Philippines awaiting transportation home.
The 31-member unit, which left California on May 31, was scheduled to fly back Saturday from a two-week maintenance-training detail at the Cubi Point Naval Air Station. But the flight was canceled in the chaos that followed last week’s eruption, the worst ever documented in the Philippines.
“They’re close enough that they’re getting pretty well dumped on,” said Marilyn Moore, a Naval Air Reserve spokeswoman at Point Mugu.
Moore said members of the unit have been forced to await their turn among the 20,000 U. S. military dependents and reservists being evacuated.
One reservist, finding base telephones constantly tied up, managed to call his wife in Ventura County on Tuesday morning from a phone in a car whose driver picked him up when he was hitchhiking, Moore said.
A Navy ship is expected to arrive today to transport the unit to Okinawa or Cebu Island for a flight home Friday.
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