Navy Personnel Command Gets Back to Business

May 10, 2010 - MILLINGTON, Tenn. (NNS) -- Just a week after torrential rains sent up to four feet of water across Naval Support Activity Mid-South (NSA) Millington, Navy Personnel Command (NPC), with the assistance of NSA personnel, have restored the majority of services that support the fleet.

The May 1 flooding caused base-wide power and phone outages, interrupted internet access and damaged the servers that provide NMCI services to the more than 2,000 military, civilians and contractors that work at NPC as well as PERSNET which hosts a variety of systems that provide services to the fleet.

"We are incredibly lucky that no one was injured May 1st," said Rear Adm. Don Quinn, commander, Navy Personnel Command. "We, the entire Millington military community, all came together to support the local families who lost their homes and possessions and then turned to restoring our mission of supporting personnel in the fleet.

"Many of our NPC buildings were damaged by the flood. At least three buildings' first decks are still uninhabitable," said Quinn. "Most heavily damaged include the Reserve Personnel Management Division, the officer detailer offices and the computer server buildings."

The Reserve Personnel Management Division has relocated to the local Navy Operational Support Center and minimal services have been restored.

"We're open for business, and we're providing basic services now and hope to be at 90 percent by the end of this week. We expect to steadily add to the services we're providing as they become available" said Capt. Greg Smith, assistant chief for Reserve Personnel Management.

"We ask for patience as we bring more processes back online. We want to assure members of the Reserve force that their information is secure and that they can be proud of the way their fellow Reservists, active duty counterparts and civilian peers all pulled together to protect the computers and files that make up their records," said Smith.

The NPC Customer Service Center was also located in a heavily damaged building.

"We were able to relocate agents and get them back on the phones in a short period of time but ask that, for the next few days, only those with emergency questions call," said Fred Chambers, director, Customer Relations Management department.

"In addition to taking calls, we have begun processing the electronically submitted selection board packages. Members can check the status of their packages by logging into www.npc.navy.mil and select 'selection board status' in the upper right-hand box," Chambers said. "Also I would ask those who submitted any information via fax after 30 April to resubmit the information electronically."

Electrical power and most phones were restored by May 6 and some personnel began to return to business.

"The www.npc.navy.mil Web site is back online, but at this time we have no ability to change or add information to the front page of the site. We will update information as soon as we can but until then we are still using social media avenues to inform the fleet," said Lt. Cmdr. Barbara Mertz, NPC public affairs officer.

Some selection boards were affected by the flood, the E-8 Active Duty board was suspended and the O-4 Staff Board was postponed along with some Admin Screening boards.

"The systems that support officer statutory boards are back up and have been tested. However, some systems that support Enlisted Boards are not up. Once the final systems are up and tested for the enlisted boards we'll update the schedule," said Capt. Leo Falardeau, NPC assistant commander for Career Progression. "The active 0-4 Staff Board has now been rescheduled to convene on May 20. No boards have been cancelled. Everyone will still get their chance in front of their board."

According to Falardeau, the Active E-7 Board is a priority and NPC is working to minimize impact on the fleet to have a full as possible "induction season" for the new chief selects.

Today, PERSNET is back on-line. It hosts BUPERS on Line (BOL), Electronic Military Personnel Records System (EMPRS), Electronic Service Record (ESR), Web-Enabled Record Review (WERR), Career Management System/Interactive Detailing (CMS/ID), Perform to Serve (PTS) and Fleet Rating Identification Engine (FleetRIDE), Physical Readiness Information Management System (PRIMS) and the Navy Standard Integrated Personnel System (NSIPS) which serve the whole Navy and all are back on line.

"Navy Personnel Command is basically open for business," said Ann Stewart, deputy commander, Navy Personnel Command.

"We still would like the fleet to have some patience with us as we finish bringing the systems back up and getting the last of our folks relocated into new spaces," said Stewart.

She also asked the fleet to limit calls to emergencies this week as they move people into offices and set up phones and computers.

The NSA base commanding officer has warned it could take months to complete the building renovations for NPC's most severely damaged spaces according to Stewart.

Stewart is committed to being back to providing full level of service to the Fleet soon as possible.

"As we continue to do reconstruction over the next months there may be short periods of power outages and loss of connectivity and we would appreciate people's continued understanding while we recover from this significant event," said Stewart.