On October 10, 2018, Hurricane Michael made landfall in the Florida panhandle as the eye of the storm passed directly over Tyndall Air Force Base with sustained winds of 155 miles per hour. The Category 5 hurricane destroyed most of the installation and much of the surrounding area.
Following the storm, the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center formed Task Force Phoenix to help Air Combat Command and Tyndall’s 325th Fighter Wing clear debris, assess facility damage, preserve recoverable facilities, and evaluate the status of other structures.
Tyndall PMO
In November 2018, AFIMSC shifted its Tyndall operations from a short-term response to a long-term recovery and rebuild. The AFIMSC-led Tyndall Program Management Office was established to replace Task Force Phoenix and take charge of repairing, reshaping and rebuilding Tyndall to support near-term resumption of mission operations and long-term redevelopment and reconstruction thus transforming Tyndall into the Installation of the Future.
Offutt PMO
In March 2019, nearly one-third of Offutt AFB, Nebraska, was flooded when record rainfall and melting snow forced the icy waters of the Missouri and Platte rivers over the nearby levees. The following month, AFIMSC established a PMO to support recovery operations at Offutt.
In the summer of 2019, Congress approved supplemental funding for Air Force disaster relief and recovery. Combined, Offutt and Tyndall represent a MILCON investment of more than $4 billion.
Natural Disaster Recovery Division
Recognizing the importance of a single unit focused on recovery, in April 2021 the Air Force established the Natural Disaster Recovery Division, a part of the Air Force Civil Engineer Center’s Facility Engineering Directorate. AFCEC is a primary subordinate unit of AFIMSC. The new division brought the Tyndall and Offutt PMOs into a single organization to provide more efficient oversight and management of the two rebuild programs. In addition, the NDR manages the MILCON projects at Joint Base Langley-Eustis for the permanent move of the F-22 mission formerly at Tyndall.
Since the initial groundbreaking in 2020, the extensive construction work at the three bases has continued at a steady pace, providing more resilient and energy efficient buildings and infrastructure. Among the dozens of projects are Tyndall’s F-35 flightline campus, the single largest MILCON contract in Air Force history; an extensive Non-Kinetic Operation Campus at Offutt; and a new Consolidated Operations and Maintenance Hangar at JBLE.
Learning from the Tyndall and Offutt experiences, the NDR established a capability to respond to natural disasters or other unplanned events impacting Air Force installations around the world. The NDR’s Disaster Recovery Response Team is poised to rapidly respond and provide damage assessment and initial mitigation, planning, programming, and reconstruction efforts to enable the continuation of mission operations at the effected installations. When Typhoon Mawar struck Andersen AFB, Guam in May 2023, the DRRT deployed to the island to assist base personnel in restoring operations.
Early on, the NDR began working with AFWERX, the innovation arm of the Air Force, to identify, evaluate and field some of the latest innovations and technologies to be included in the rebuilding of Tyndall. It also developed processes to identify, vet, and adopt innovations to make Tyndall the Installation of the Future and for possible fielding at other bases.
Building on the work of its predecessor organizations, the NDR continues to make history by transforming the landscapes of Tyndall, Offutt, and JBLE and supporting installations as they recover from natural disasters.
(Current as of July 2024)