GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) - North Dakota National Guard members have been building a military tent city for soldiers working to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Members of the 119th Fighter Wing, known as the Happy Hooligans, arrived Sunday night in Gulfport, just miles from the coast and not far from some of the worst damage left by Hurricane Katrina.

"Everybody in this camp knows, if they need something done, they'll call us," said Terry Jacobson, the Fargo-based Air Guard's state command chief.

The 119th, which has 63 members on the relief mission, has been equipping the Trent Lott National Guard Complex with electricity, air conditioning and living quarters for the hundreds of military personnel flowing into the camp.

"They put up enough tents to bed us down, and then we started bedding down the rest of the camp," said Air Guard member Steve Bertsch.

On Wednesday, with help from Guard units from other states, the 119th began building tents for 550 military personnel. Shaped like a Quonset hut, the tan, cloth-covered tents can sleep 14 people, and they have air conditioning and lights.

Bertsch, who is from Fargo, is among five members who alternate days flying search and recovery missions in Gulfport while providing fire protection for the tent city.

The unit, which receives help from a seven-member squad from Delaware, discovered a couple of bodies so far, said Jacobson, who is from Moorhead, Minn.

Bertsch was struck by the family photos that seemed to be scattered everywhere.

"When we first got there, we started trying to pick them up and just collect them and leave them somewhere where they'd be safe," he said. "There's so many scattered about everywhere, and you know they mean something to someone."

Sgt. Chris Heise, of West Fargo, also with the 119th, saw some of the devastation while scouting land for a tent city addition.

"The stench, the smell, is unbelievable," he said.

Another group of North Dakota and Minnesota Guard members has been waiting to get started at a camp about an hour's drive north of the 119th.

Sixteen members of the 136th Quartermasters Battalion, a water purification unit based in Devils Lake, arrived at Camp Shelby, near Hattiesburg, Miss., on Monday night.

"I haven't seen a logistical movement like that since '91," Staff Sgt. Scott Mai said Wednesday, referring to his time on duty during the first Persian Gulf War.

Hundreds of military vehicles waited in the camp's six lots, some just arriving, others preparing to leave on their mission, Mai said.

Mai and his fellow Guard members spent all of Wednesday awaiting their assignment. Most passed the hot Mississippi afternoon dressed in full fatigues. The men were eager for orders, which they hoped would come Thursday, but they understood the difficulty of coordinating such a large campaign, said Lt. Ray Ripplinger.

"Normally they'll take a month to plan (a similarly sized operation)," Ripplinger said. "We've done it in three or four days."

A road caravan of 11 others in the unit was still on its way Wednesday to Camp Shelby. They were bringing a second reverse osmosis water purification unit, capable of cleaning up to 3,000 gallons of water an hour.

The Guard members expect to be supporting a logistics base for other troops helping with hurricane relief, Ripplinger said.

The 119th and 136th are both on 60-day orders, although that time could be extended.