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

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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.

Both are smaller bases that officials say were completely unprepared for the severe impacts of October’s Hurricane Michael and recent floods in the Midwest. Both of these weather events have distinct links to climate change: Michael gained strength from unusually warm waters off the Panhandle, while heavy late winter storms paired with unusually balmy weather supercharged runoff that helped lead to the Midwest’s disaster.

It’s easy to gloss over big price tags when it comes to the military — after all, the Department of Defense’s 2019 budget is a cool $686.1 billion. But last week’s ask isn’t cheap.

“This is a big number,” said John Conger, the director of the Center for Climate and Security, a nonpartisan think tank focused on the security risks of climate change. The $5 billion “is more money than the Department requested last year for all its hurricane recovery,” Conger said, explaining that DOD infrastructure was less impacted by hurricanes Maria, Harvey, and Florence, which struck in 2017, than it was by disasters from this fiscal year.

Tyndall is facing particularly expensive repairs — and ones that need to come quick. Officials said last week that if Congress can’t find $1.2 billion of the requested $5 billion by May 1, work at the Tyndall base will halt completely. And it’s not just jets in Florida that are in jeopardy. Since money to make immediate repairs to the two bases came from other operating budgets, the Air Force will also be forced to cut projects at 61 bases in 18 different states and cancel nearly 20,000 pilot training hours to make up for the money it already spent.

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