Due to the damage of recent floods and storms, the Air Force submitted a request to Congress for $4.9 billion to repair its bases.
According to The Hill, on Tuesday, Heather Wilson, the Air Force Secretary said that service members “desperately need the supplemental funding to recover from the natural disasters that hammered’’ Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida and Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.
‘’There are other decisions we’ll have to make if we don’t [have supplemental funding] by May or June. These are just the first decisions that we had to make yesterday… 61 projects in 18 states are not going to happen because we have not gotten a disaster supplemental for Tyndall,’’ Wilson said at a Heritage Foundation event in Washington, D.C.
A lot of hurricanes struck the U.S. the past year. Hurricane Michael passed through Florida and dealt heavy damage to Tyndall, battering the base and damaging several F-22 Raptor fighter jets – the most advanced and expensive fighter of the Air Force.
The flood waters from the Missouri River damaged the Offutt base which is home to the U.S. Strategic Command as the waters reached up to seven feet deep in some places last week. More than 3500 military personnel were relocated because of the flooding and the Air Force moved nine aircraft to a safer location.
This Tuesday, Air Force officials said that $1.2 billion are needed for this fiscal year only, ending in September 30, and $3.7 billion in supplemental funding over the next two fiscal years for Tyndall and Offutt.
This is what they said in the statement:
“Without supplemental funding now, the Air Force must cut critical facility and readiness requirements, driving Air Force wide operational risks and negatively impacting the recovery of Tyndall and Offutt.”
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