Navy’s vast Virginia base reviews procedures after sailors at sea had cars towed

The Navy’s largest base is reexamining its parking and other procedures after towing dozens of cars belonging to sailors away at sea, an official said Thursday.

Some sailors assigned to the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge returned to Naval Station Norfolk, Va., earlier this month to discover that their vehicles had been towed from an on-base parking area near the waterfront, according to news reports.

The base is examining lessons learned, including “waterfront notification, command coordination and procedures for addressing personally owned vehicles when temporary parking restrictions overlap with a ship’s scheduled underway period,” said Kelly Wirfel, a base spokeswoman.

The base didn’t say how many cars were removed Aug. 28 to clear parking space for a Morale, Welfare and Recreation-sponsored concert the following day featuring Teddy Swims and Miranda Lambert.

But Norfolk public media outlet WHRO reported Monday that about 90 Kearsarge sailors returned after 10 days at sea to find their cars missing.

Some of them said they had not known that parking in the lot, normally available for authorized waterfront parking, was temporarily restricted to support concert setup, emergency access, security and logistics.

Sailors are allowed to park at the location when they are at sea provided the underway time is 14 days or fewer, Wirfel said.

The sailors retrieved their vehicles from the base’s impound lot after paying a towing fee, Wirfel said. She did not say how much they were charged but said storage and impound fees were waived.

The incident followed the placement of physical barriers, cones and caution tape at the parking area to restrict parking in preparation for the concert.

Those preparations started a little more than a week before the concert, but the base also officially notified the entire waterfront about the parking restrictions on Aug. 10, Wirfel said.

Kearsarge and other ships on the waterfront received notifications on multiple dates, she said. The ship was in port when the initial notices went out and when barricades were first placed.

Wirfel wouldn’t say when Kearsarge departed or returned to Norfolk, citing long-standing Navy policy against divulging ship schedules or movements.

An unidentified sailor’s spouse interviewed by WHRO disputed the adequacy of the advance warnings from the base.

“If they had notified the Kearsarge properly, I doubt there would have been as many vehicles towed, least of all the (commanding officer’s) personal vehicle,” the spouse said. “One or two sailors could have missed signs and a barrier. Dozens? No.”

Kearsarge is preparing for an upcoming scheduled deployment, regularly departing and returning to Norfolk as the ship trains with Marine units stationed in North Carolina, according to the WHRO report.