Posted on 09/19/2004 9:29:23 AM PDT by Ragtime Cowgirl
PENSACOLA - The home of the Blue Angels was battered by Hurricane Ivan.
It will be weeks before the Pensacola Naval Air Station will be back to normal after hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to hangars and historic buildings.
"We were the first ones to show up, so we're the first ones to clean up," said Petty Officer Wayne Buchanan, 25, an electronics teacher.
Nearly 180 years after President John Adams commissioned this Navy base on the strategic shores of Pensacola Bay to help protect the Gulf of Mexico, the air station where Navy aviators earn their wings is bruised and broken. All 2,000 buildings on the base, including 577 homes, are believed to have been damaged.
But no one was injured. "That's the best news we had," Pruitt said.
All but 200 of the base's 12,000 population, including students, were evacuated.
Its picturesque historic port is reduced to windowless, doorless and roofless buildings, some of them partially collapsed.
The careful symmetry of Barrancas National Cemetery, where graves date to the Civil War and more than 30,000 veterans are buried, is disrupted by fallen oaks.
Modern bayfront barracks are sodden, the tin roofs ripped and rolled.
Only the fortified walls of the two-centuries-old Fort Barrancas, which stands on the bluff that lured Spanish explorer Don Tristan de Luna in the 16th century, appear untouched.
"Down by the port area was almost catastrophic," said base commander Capt. John Pruitt, who spent Hurricane Ivan holed up in the base's fortified command center. "We were stunned."
In 1992, after Hurricane Andrew tore through southern Miami-Dade County, the U.S. Air Force abandoned Homestead Air Force Base rather than rebuild.
But Pruitt said there's no such talk about Pensacola. The Navy is very mindful of trying to sustain historical structures.
Fresh after arriving from Nantucket, Mass., where the Blue Angels - the Navy's flight demonstration team - canceled a performance for this weekend, the team's leader, Cmdr. Russ Bartlett, toured the base with Chief Petty Officer Louis Arrazola and Master Chief Petty Officer Kevin Harris.
"It would be disingenuous to be flying air shows when we can be doing good work here," said Bartlett, who had ordered the Fat Albert C-130 transport plane used to support the Blue Angels team to be unloaded to make way for some cargo missions to ferry supplies and resources to the base.
[Last modified September 19, 2004, 06:04:21]
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Thanks! Great photo; good to see the old girl weathering it well.
We visited in 99, but don't get down that way very often.
I remember several large buildings & shore displays; they would have presented the main hazard as parts of them pelted the ships.
Did the Blue Angels ever fly the F15? Perhaps the Thunderbirds?
I recall seeing the Blue Angels out at China Lake, California in 1974 flying the A4. What an awesome sight!
BTT
Anchors blown aweigh
Cool way to ride out a hurricane. You can bet they're not going to find a battleship tossed three miles inland.
I've heard that it took severe damage just like the rest of NAS.
Thanks. Damn shame. It's marina pile-ups when I'm most glad I have a steel boat.
Every time I saw a photo of a boat owner tying up to the dock and doublechecking his knots I had to think that he was just plain crazy to underestimate the force of those winds and waves.
In SC, we had terrific deep rivers we could run up, for many miles. In a lot of FL, the marina is the only option. In general, steel boats use their fiberglass neighbors as fenders, and come through with cosmetic damage. Their fiberglass and wood boats get crushed and splintered against pilings and each other, and sink. Even when steel boats are carried inland or beached by the wind, waves and surge, they can be refloated with no loss of hull integrity.
Emergency - assignation plot The careful symmetry of Barrancas National Cemetery, where graves date to the Civil War and more than 30,000 veterans are buried, is disrupted by fallen oaks.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1220055/posts?q=1&&page=51
They'll be back. My brother was approached back in the late 60's by the Angels (he was a fighter instructor pilot at Cherry Point) to become one of them.
He crashed and hurt his back before he could get the transfer. So they put him in helicopters and went to Viet Nam (USMC Air Recon). All he got out of it was 39 Air Medals, 3 Purple Hearts, 3 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and a lot of satisfaction in serving his country for 3 consecutive tours (e.g., 3 straight years in Nam).
Thank you so much for this post.
I've forwarded the links to the pics to hubby, who forwarded them to his Navy buddies.
They have, all, been very concerned about the damage to this very beautiful, old base.
They went through AOCS, and flight training there.
After two tours in Viet Nam, hubby was stationed there as an instructor in VT-4.
We used the marina quite a bit before we married, and as a family with a toddler.
Seeing those pics just makes me want to cry.
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