WEBVTT

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- [Man] All the work we do out
here is for the warfighter.

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- [Brian] Obliterated buildings,

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heavy equipment tossed around like it was

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a child's toy, massive destruction.

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When Hurricane Michael roared

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directly over Tyndall
Air Force Base, Florida,

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on October 10th, its
150-plus miles-per-hour winds

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and powerful storm surge
took a physical toll on some

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of the Air Force Civil
Engineer Center's research

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and development laboratory
buildings and equipment.

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- Anybody who's been through a major flood

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in the Midwest, that's
exactly what it looks like.

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Water damage, the high
water marks in the building

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are anywhere from eight to 12 feet.

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- The power of the storm picking
up 6,000, 7,000-pound items

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and floating them and
dropping them in the woods.

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It's just inconceivable,
there's no words for it,

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but we're gonna pull through this.

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- [Brian] In just a matter of days

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after the storm had passed,
available personnel were

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on site, safely assessing, cleaning up,

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and salvaging as much as possible.

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- We had several of the
watertight hard-shell cases

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that floated around during the storm,

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and we opened the boxes, and
they're perfectly dry inside.

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So, as a result, we've
recovered over a million dollars

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in small, unmanned aerial
systems, or drones.

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We've also recovered several
million dollars of EOD robots.

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- That's always exciting
to see the human spirit,

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to know, hey, yeah, we definitely suffered

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a setback, but it's a temporary setback.

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- [Brian] Four total
sites on Tyndall make up

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the R&D aspect of the Air
Force Civil Engineer Center,

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and three of the four only received

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minimal damage with no stormwater surge.

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The fire research and training facility,

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the explosives range, and the main lab

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are still intact and operational

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as toured and verified
by Air Force Installation

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and Mission Support Center Commander,

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Major General Bradley Spacy.

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And not all the news
was bad for this site.

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- We've had all these buildings
structurally inspected

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by the Army Corps of Engineers,

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and most of the facilities
that did not collapse

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are still structurally
sound and can be reused.

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And really, at the end of
the day, the research lab

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is about the people and the data.

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And all of our servers survived.

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That's what is the heart
of the research lab

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and the heart of what we do.

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- [Brian] Reporting for
the Air Force Installation

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and Mission Support
Center, I'm Brian Goddin.