Rex Holmlin has only been on the job for a couple of months, but he has already taken a leave of absence. The Better Jacksonville Plan’s Downtown Library project manager packed his bags Wednesday night and quietly left town Thursday morning.
He’ll be back, though; he just has a little clean up job to take care of first.
Holmlin, who came to Jacksonville from the Orlando area, spent four years in the Army as an engineering officer. Since leaving active duty, Holmlin has spent 23 years as a reserve. Over those nearly three decades Holmlin developed a specialty — disaster recovery.
In 1992 Holmlin went to the Miami-Homestead area to help those who were ravaged by Hurricane Andrew. Upon his arrival Holmlin found houses that had been blown apart and strewn for miles. He helped thousands of people recover and rebuild their lives.
Today, Rex Holmlin is New York City, and he has no idea what to expect. He’s seen the still pictures and live shots on TV, but he admits he’s really not sure what he’s getting into this time.
“It’ll be different,” he said, after a long pause and search for the right words.
The Sept. 11 suicide attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. shook the United States to its core. It brought the nation to its knees, emotionally and financially. As a country, we will recover in both aspects. However, the job of physically removing the mountain of debris left when the two towers of the World Trade Center collapsed is a whole other matter.
Holmlin got his orders Wednesday and left within 24 hours. When he’ll be back is anybody’s guess.
“I will be out of pocket for a few weeks,” he said. “I’ll be on active duty with the United States Army and I am leaving for New York first thing tomorrow [Thursday] morning. I’m going to go home, pack and go.”
Holmlin said he’ll be staying somewhere outside, but near, the city. Once he crosses into Manhattan, though, the real work will begin and Holmlin will put his 23 years of experience to the test.
This time Holmlin will be exposed to a man-made disaster as opposed to natural disasters. Over the years he has led recovery efforts related to hurricanes Marilyn, Georges and Andrew. Of the three, Andrew was by far the most costly and expansive.
“For Andrew I was with the Corps of Engineers Debris Recovery Effort,” explained Holmlin. “The hurricane caused $172 million worth of damage and we collected 20 million cubic yards of debris.”
(To put that in perspective, assume a football field was actually 100 yards by 100 yards — a square. Then form a 100-yard by 100-yard by 100-yard cube. That cube would hold one million cubic yards. Holmlin and the rest of the recovery team amassed 20 times that amount of debris.)
Holmlin has also taken his experience to the classroom, serving as an adjunct professor for FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Association.
Unlike hurricanes, where Holmlin has an idea of what to expect, New York City’s devastation will present Holmlin with an atmosphere with which he will not be familiar. Yes, hurricane damage creates moods of despair and even death, but hurricanes come with warnings and damage expectations. What Holmlin will encounter in New York City may be indescribable, even after he gets back to Jacksonville.
Still, he has a job to do, one that makes building a library seem a bit trifle.
“You focus on doing the mission and your role is to help people,” said Holmlin. “For the families and loved ones, the job is given to us and we do it so we can help bring closure to them. There are a lot of aspects here that are much more different than anything we’ve seen before.”
As for the $95 million library, Holmlin said it was in good hands.
“They will probably accomplish more with me gone,” he said. “The project manager is Heery International and Anet Willingham is the architect. She’s really sharp, experienced, knowledgeable and a great person.”
Larry Provonest will assist Willingham. Roy Keski of Heery is the project manager of the new branches and Tim Pommell heads the branch renovation projects.
“We have a schedule worked out and everyone has their tasks,” said Holmlin. “Without me holding them back, they will probably get more work done.”