I saw Satellite pictures of before and after. They built it in a river bottom flood plain. What did they expect?
Take a canoe to work? How’s the fishing? That’s where I got my physical when I entered the Air Force.
Downstream from a dam is also NOT a good idea.
The base and airfield long pre-dates the establishment of SAC in 1946. This is the first flooding that has affected this part of the base to this degree over all of those years, to include 2011.
In the 2011 flood, the Corps of Engineers was to work with the AF to further mitigate the problem by expanding the protections already in place. To date, they have spent their time getting the federal permits to start work and accomplished nothing.
This year is unique. We had a lot of snow and cold temps so that the snow accumulation and river ice was melted within a few days because of the bomb cyclone weather pattern that brought the temps above freezing and brought heavy rains across the entire area which has dozens of tributary rivers to the Missouri where ice broke up over about a day and jammed the river flows; resulting in flooding. Offutt is just a tiny part of the overall flooded areas across NE, IA, and MO.
The existence of the facility as well as the surrounding farms, and towns has little to do with any flood plain and are certainly not new structures that have been built there. I’ve been here and lived a couple of miles from the base for 30 years this time around and even the 2011 floods had a small effect on Offutt. The circumstances this year are unique.
Offutt was an Army fort in the 1890s. It has been an Air Force base since the Army Air Service of 1917.
This is a once in a 200 year flood.
The land was cheaper plus it’s topo required a lot less grading. How could you go wrong?