JULY/AUGUST AIRFORCEMAG.COMcontrol facility. e two organizations will move into their
new homes at the same time, instead of clearing one before
the other comes in. Col David Norton, 55th Mission Support
Group commander, said NC3 infrastructure can be rebuilt
next to the modern STRATCOM building on higher ground.
Other structures will go up in nearly the same locations
as before. “Just because it ooded and it was so devastating
doesn’t mean that we need to just walk away from that por-
tion of the base,” Norton said. “We still have to have these
operational facilities right around the ramp where all the
aircraft park.”
Many more decisions about next steps have yet to be made.
Hansen said the base is prepared to restore salvageable build-
ings and begin the demolition and rebuilding process for
others. O cials will list their priorities “based on providing
global combat airpower and the training required to support
that e ort,” he added. Two top jobs are repairing the simula-
tors and getting maintenance facilities back to 100 percent.
Operations and maintenance money must be obligated
by Sept. 30. Military construction dollars would be available
until the end of September 2023. e Air Force must send
Congress a detailed plan for using the emergency money by
the end of August.
“ at probably remains to be seen exactly how the higher
headquarters will sort through the nances of it,” Norton said
of the supplemental funding. “Here at the wing, certainly it’s
a good problem to have. But it’s also going to be a lot of work
for folks to push through such a large tranche of funding in a
relatively short period of time.”
O cials hope to restore full mission capability—albeit with
temporary facilities and other limitations while the campus
plans roll out—by 2022. ey recognize that interim solutions
will add to the total restoration cost, but say it’s necessary to
restore combat availability and training capacity, as well as
to avoid rushing into hasty construction decisions.
Nearby assets, such as Tinker AFB, Okla., and facilities in
Lincoln, Neb., will also lend support for operations while the
future O utt takes shape.ADJUSTING TO REALITY
In the future, o cials won’t install electrical components
lower than ve feet on a building’s rst oor. Critical in-
telligence equipment will stay
on the second oor or higher.
ey’ll elevate the foundations
by a few feet as an extra bu er
against ooding. Local building
codes already require preparing
for high winds, and o cials
insist they don’t have to alter
disaster-response protocols.
“We do exercise all these
activities, and we look at les-
sons learned from other bases,”
Goodfellow said. “We were pos-
tured quite well.”
Hard work, local hospitality,
and humor have kept O utt
a oat: e 343rd Reconnais-
sance Squadron updated its patch to give its raven mascot
a mask and snorkel, dubbing itself the “343rd Underwater
Squadron.”
“You almost became a Navy base,” Facebook user Brian
Skon commented.Photo: TSgt. R. Denise Mommens/ANGPhoto: 343rd RS/USAF
e surrounding community stepped in to host the annual
base picnic, typically held at O utt’s recreational lake.
A local pizza maker who lost his own home fed Team O utt
just weeks after the storm. More chaplains arrived to comfort
residents alongside mental health professionals.
Parts of the base were still under water when Air Force
Magazine visited in June, but elsewhere it can be hard to see
signs of the storm—unless you know where to look.
Damaged furniture and equipment are piled up inside
now-dark o ce buildings. Sustainment work on a British RC-
135 was in full swing even as broad chunks of drywall were
removed to save the structure in other areas of the building.
A satellite communications building smells like a beach,
surrounded by sand and dead cornstalks.
A local project to raise the nearby levees’ height, which
was supposed to start after the winter snow melted and likely
would have saved O utt from most or all of the water, is slated
to take two years to complete—and can’t start until the wa-
terlogged ground dries. And though the worst weather has
passed, O utt remains wary of its neighboring river.
As the US Army Corps of Engineers in late May prepared
to let out more than twice its early summer average of water
from Gavins Point Dam, S.D., then-55th Wing Commander
Col. Mike Manion warned the community that water levels
could swell to nearly 31 feet in Omaha, Neb.—about four
feet below the March 17 crest. At the same time, more snow
accumulation than usual threatens further problems as the
melt-o ows south from Montana to Nebraska.
e storm soaked signals intelligence data and analysis
products—much of them paper—were left inside secure
facilities, including the two-story 97th IS building. ose
documents must be destroyed, but because SCIF alarms are
dead, more than a dozen security forces personnel are posted
around the clock to prevent unauthorized access.
To dispose of the data, O utt hands the les over in barrels
to a contractor, then tails them in a chase car to ensure all end
up at their intended incinerator or a macerator.
O cials said they weren’t sure what information those pag-
es held or whether losing it will impact missions or national
security—noting it hadn’t so far. But that’s just one example
illustrating what O utt has lost, and the ripple e ects it may
yet feel.
“Long recovery ahead,” Manion wrote on Facebook May 29,
undaunted by the challenge. “ e 55th Wing nds a way to keep
the mission going.” ✪The Nebraska ANG’s 170th Group and 55th Operations
Group workspaces at O utt sustained significant damage.The 343rd Reconnaissance
Squadron created a
commemorative patch to
remember the floods.lower than ve feet on a building’s rst oor. Critical in-