I do not know the condition of the planes in the maintenance hangers, but an aircraft getting periodic maintenance is literally a totally disabled aircraft.
In civil aviation it is called a 100 hour inspection. Were you to look at one, you would wonder if it will ever fly again.
I suspect that military aircraft are maintained under a “progressive” method, similar to the airlines, but still the airplane is unflyable until put back together.
I doubt they had the manpower or the parts to restore 20 or 30 aircraft to flyable condition in a 3 day or so notice.
Don’t forget that this started out as an ordinary Florida type storm and only turned into the monster in the last few days.
We all learned a lesson from this storm. Here in Piedmont North Carolina, we expected a tropical low pressure system that had wound down to a heavy rain area with some flooding.
Instead we had a train wreck.
In my days on the flight lines in the 70s, most maintenance was done on the flight line. A plane was pulled into the hanger only for phased maintenance or a serious problem.
In civil aviation it is called a 100 hour inspection. Were you to look at one, you would wonder if it will ever fly again.
I've often wished that people, especially liberals, could see a plane in the hanger for one of the major phased maintenance periods. No engines, no radar, no seats, no instruments, numerous cables and hoses hanging everywhere, many, many panels (called doors) removed and the equipment inside removed. They would stop dead in their tracks and ask, "Who the hell is going to put this thing back together?" And the answer is: mostly 20-25 years old young men and women.