U.S. Air Force bases caught off guard by climate change
Extreme weather is incurring expensive repair costs, forcing the Air Force to curtail operations.
NEXUS MEDIA
APR 5, 2019, 8:53 AM
By Molly Taft
Greg Brudnicki, mayor of Panama City, Florida, has lived in the community for 55 years and said he has never seen a storm like Hurricane Michael. The cyclone barreled through the Florida panhandle in October, flattening beach neighborhoods and piling 20 years’ worth of debris on Panama City alone.
Tyndall Air Force Base, located 12 miles east of the city, provides more than 30 percent of the city’s economy, Brudnicki says, and, like much of the surrounding area, it was completely decimated by Michael.
“It just looked like somebody went through and kicked down all the buildings,” said Brudnicki, who toured the base shortly after the storm. “It looked like missiles came in and blew the place up.”...
...Tyndall is just one of several military bases hit by extreme weather in the past year, and the high cost of repairs foreshadows a major upcoming problem for the U.S. military. Last week, the Air Force announced that it was seeking $5 billion for repairs to two bases following recent extreme weather events, Tyndall and Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base.,,
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