Homestead Air Force Base. 2 comments
We set out for Homestead Air Force Base in Pete's battered truck a few days after working on his roof and dealing with the missing passenger window, which had been smashed by a tree limb. Pete insisted I see the base firsthand; at the time, nobody knew what would become of the Base since it had been pretty much destroyed.
I had never witnessed destruction like that from a hurricane before: cement-block houses with flat roofs, built specifically to withstand hurricanes, just blown away. And there wasn’t enough left of base housing to tell where I had lived for several years.
Most of the planes stationed at Homestead Air Force Base were flown to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa before the storm, but those under repair and unable to fly were put in the massive Black Hangar on the flight line, and part of that hangar had been destroyed, with half a dozen F-4 Phantom fighters squashed into one corner, where they were smashed and twisted like wadded-up tin foil.
What affected me the most was driving out to the canal running through the base, built to keep water off the base and runway. A mile or two from the runway, but still on base, stood a pumping station and locks. The locks could close to block the canal or open to let high water flow out to Biscayne Bay. Two huge pumps with six-foot impellers and large diesel engines, each the size of a car, would pump tens of thousands of gallons of water to keep the base from flooding, so that takeoffs and landings would still be possible.
One of my jobs during hurricanes was to go out to those pumps, stay in the reinforced concrete building that housed them, and keep them running so Homestead Air Force Base didn’t flood. Driving a 2.5-ton Air Force truck tall enough to get through high water, and armed with only a few cases of C- rations, a two-way radio, and my own personal 357 Magnum Smith and Wesson revolver, for any alligator problems I may have, I had done that twice before during other hurricanes, and considered it more of an adventure that paid me double-time more than anything else.
When Pete and I arrived at the Base Canal Pumping Station, everything—the two diesel engines, the pumps, and the entire concrete structure— was gone….probably at the bottom of Biscayne Bay. Had I been there, I too would have disappeared.
theboondork
If you accidentally stumble into a bush like this, you might not be able to get out without help!
It looks like one of my neighbors is towing a small barn around… maybe he’s got a small cow.
Sometimes the sun goes down in a blaze of fiery colors, other times it sinks below the horizon so softly you hardly notice.