1 00:00:00,650 --> 00:00:04,730 - [Narrator] Three years after a major flood, Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska is still 2 00:00:04,730 --> 00:00:05,730 recovering. 3 00:00:05,730 --> 00:00:11,019 Aircraft of the 55th Wing our based there and serve critical national security roles. 4 00:00:11,019 --> 00:00:16,990 Those planes include the RC 135 Rivet Joint reconnaissance plane, and the E4B Night Watch, 5 00:00:16,990 --> 00:00:19,609 more commonly known as the "Dooms Day Plane." 6 00:00:19,609 --> 00:00:24,449 Those aircraft had to be relocated to a nearby commercial airport as the base recovers, and 7 00:00:24,449 --> 00:00:27,800 while an aging runway is being rebuilt. 8 00:00:27,800 --> 00:00:31,839 Major Eric Armstrong is the deputy director of the effort to rebuild Offutt. 9 00:00:31,839 --> 00:00:40,160 - [Eric] In March of 2019, the Mid-West experienced a bomb cyclone event that brought severe snowfall, 10 00:00:40,160 --> 00:00:44,440 followed by warmer temperatures almost immediately afterward, and rain, causing all that snowfall 11 00:00:44,440 --> 00:00:48,700 to melt off across the Dakotas in Northern Nebraska. 12 00:00:48,700 --> 00:00:54,680 All of that water worked its way through the water system watershed, down into the Missouri 13 00:00:54,680 --> 00:00:55,680 River. 14 00:00:55,680 --> 00:00:57,940 And the water backed up along the levee system. 15 00:00:57,940 --> 00:01:01,830 The levies at the time were about three feet lower than they are now. 16 00:01:01,830 --> 00:01:10,500 And the levy to the South of base was overtopped, and water moved across the fields and eventually 17 00:01:10,500 --> 00:01:11,940 onto Offutt Air Force Base. 18 00:01:11,940 --> 00:01:20,720 Where we're sitting right now on the morning of March 19th, 2019, the Wing had a crisis 19 00:01:20,720 --> 00:01:24,820 action team meeting right inside the building to my left here. 20 00:01:24,820 --> 00:01:29,280 And at the time, there was just a little bit of water in this ditch that you see behind 21 00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:33,440 us, and we weren't sure what the scope and scale of what that was gonna look like. 22 00:01:33,440 --> 00:01:38,770 However, in less than 12 hours later, this area right here was under about 5 1/2, 6 feet 23 00:01:38,770 --> 00:01:45,570 of water, 4 feet inside the buildings, and the area from that point was basically a total 24 00:01:45,570 --> 00:01:47,070 loss. 25 00:01:47,070 --> 00:01:52,560 So this is the Demolition and Site Prep Phase of the reconstruction of the flood damage 26 00:01:52,560 --> 00:01:54,560 at Offutt Air Force Base. 27 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:58,840 And what we're seeing are the operational facilities, so the OSS, the operations group, 28 00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:07,570 the wing headquarters, and the 55th ISS buildings, which have been removed of all of the furniture, 29 00:02:07,570 --> 00:02:09,569 fixtures, and equipment. 30 00:02:09,569 --> 00:02:13,909 And asbestos mitigation is complete inside those buildings, and we're ready to begin 31 00:02:13,909 --> 00:02:21,510 tearing them down in order to build new foundations and pads up above the flood height level for 32 00:02:21,510 --> 00:02:27,799 a 100-year flood, and construct new replacement operational facilities for the 55th Wing. 33 00:02:27,799 --> 00:02:31,269 We're making the most of the real estate we have available to us in Offutt Air Force Base 34 00:02:31,269 --> 00:02:33,519 as this is the Demolition and Site Prep Phase. 35 00:02:33,519 --> 00:02:40,549 Eventually, we'll be building eight new campuses or facilities dedicated more specifically 36 00:02:40,549 --> 00:02:44,709 to the mission that the 55th Wing needs. 37 00:02:44,709 --> 00:02:50,340 We'll have an Operations Campus, a Security Forces Campus, a Nuclear Command and Control 38 00:02:50,340 --> 00:02:53,400 Alert Facility Campus. 39 00:02:53,400 --> 00:03:02,559 All of those facilities will regenerate us back to the 100% 55th Wing mission capability. 40 00:03:02,559 --> 00:03:06,849 - And that's not the only construction, the 70-year-old runway that services critical 41 00:03:06,849 --> 00:03:11,549 planes with national security missions is being reconstructed. 42 00:03:11,549 --> 00:03:15,190 We received an update from the base construction lead. 43 00:03:15,190 --> 00:03:19,459 - So the old runway had exceeded its life expectancy. 44 00:03:19,459 --> 00:03:25,329 We were pushing 70 years on what we consider a 40-year life cycle for a runway of this 45 00:03:25,329 --> 00:03:26,329 nature. 46 00:03:26,329 --> 00:03:31,560 We were seeing a lot of decay, general joint damage and spalling. 47 00:03:31,560 --> 00:03:38,359 It was delaying the mission, so we had to perform multiple emergency procedures increasingly 48 00:03:38,359 --> 00:03:39,950 over the years. 49 00:03:39,950 --> 00:03:46,299 And then we had to take more and more downtime, plan downtime to come out and repair the runway, 50 00:03:46,299 --> 00:03:50,530 that delayed the mission throughout the years. 51 00:03:50,530 --> 00:03:57,030 So here today, we're paving both concrete and asphalt, and we have crews putting in 52 00:03:57,030 --> 00:04:01,659 lights and other types of conduit to prepare for reopening in September, October of this 53 00:04:01,659 --> 00:04:02,659 year. 54 00:04:02,659 --> 00:04:11,092 So the new runway is going to be a mixture of concrete and asphalt. 55 00:04:11,092 --> 00:04:16,709 Approximately, the runway itself will be the same width, but the paved surface will be 56 00:04:16,709 --> 00:04:17,709 approximately 100 feet narrower. 57 00:04:17,709 --> 00:04:19,619 - [Interviewer] And how are pilots gonna like it? 58 00:04:19,619 --> 00:04:21,669 - I would hope the pilots love it.