Frances causes ‘little damage’ at MacDill

  • Published
  • By Nick Stubbs
  • 6th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFPN) --  Charley struck out while Frances was a base hit, but disaster readiness officials here said they are hoping Ivan is an opponent they will not have to face at all.

Following the second hurricane scare within one month, and Hurricane Ivan drawing a bead on Florida, emergency preparedness experts here said they are hoping bad things do not come in threes. With damages already estimated at more than $1 million, base officials are concerned that another hurricane would multiply those damages exponentially.

Emergency planning people here usually have to dream up readiness training scenarios, but after hurricanes Charley and Frances, and now Ivan, Mother Nature seems to have taken the job over from them.

MacDill weathered Hurricane Frances with no major damage but a lot of “little damage,” such as winds, rain and a surging Tampa Bay that filled the low-lying areas of the base with water, said Larry Clarke, 6th Civil Engineer Squadron readiness manager. Branches and some trees came down, and the wind left things a bit messy. Power was out in some of the residential areas because of an on-base failure, but most buildings lost power for no longer than an hour.

The storm surge from the west, and southwest winds after Hurricane Frances entered the Gulf of Mexico, pushed water from Tampa Bay onto the beaches and along the base. Sod along the east shore of the base likely will have to be replaced because of salt water poisoning, and there was some beach erosion behind at the family campground beach, Mr. Clarke said.

The driving range at the golf course was covered with bay water, but Mr. Clarke said it may survive the salty soaking. About 20 to 30 trees were broken or uprooted.

By Sept. 7, unit cleanup crews had most debris in neat piles by the curb. While the limbs and other debris were awaiting pickup, Mr. Clarke and his crew were awaiting Hurricane Ivan.

“I hope (Hurricane Ivan is) not something we have to worry about,” said Randy Ray, 6th CES disaster training chief.

Mr. Ray spent the weekend camped at Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Buccaneers, where he set up a command center to support MacDill in case the storm became more severe than expected.

Hurricane Frances pounded the area with strong winds and rain, but because it lost so much of its punch coming across the state and there was not a major threat of storm surge, there was no need to evacuate MacDill, as was done during Hurricane Charley, officials said.

“We evacuate because of storm surge,” Mr. Clarke said. “The buildings on MacDill are as wind proof as any, so unless it is a Category 4, we don’t really worry about wind.”

Still, precautions were taken. Aircraft were relocated to avoid possible damage, and crews were on standby to move quickly if things had turned for the worse, Mr. Clarke said. He had five of his people working over the weekend.

“This is getting a little tiring,” said Mr. Ray, who three weeks earlier set up a command center at the Florida State Fairgrounds because of Hurricane Charley. “Speaking personally, I’d like to have a weekend I don’t have to spend at the fairgrounds or Raymond James [Stadium].”

Mr. Ray said storms threatening MacDill so close together is unprecedented.

“We’ve been lucky twice,” Mr. Ray said. “I can’t imagine we would be in the path again, but you only get so many chances before you get hit.”

Base officials are keeping a watchful eye on Hurricane Ivan.

“We’ll be meeting [Sept. 10] to assess the storm and what our reaction should be, but it’s possible we could be looking at doing this (storm prep) all over again,” Mr. Clarke said.