TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — A mangled red, white and blue patrol plane still lies across what was once a park here where families played and picnicked, nine months after Hurricane Michael stormed out of the Gulf of Mexico with its 155-mile-per-hour winds.
And beyond that wreckage and other detritus, about 300 of this Air Force base’s nearly 500 damaged buildings are slated to be razed. The Air Force wants at least $4.25 billion to rebuild Tyndall at its current location on the Florida panhandle, a process the 325th Fighter Wing commander, Col. Brian Laidlaw, said could take several years.
“The Air Force doesn’t have financial resources in the bank to do all the repairs we need to do,” he said. Without mentioning climate change, and saying he’s not a meteorologist, Laidlaw added, “I don’t know that any of us ever plans to get hit by Category 5 hurricanes.”
View the complete June 12 article by Elvina Nawaguna on The Roll Call website here.