Braxton Taylor
Fort Eisenhower, Georgia, has been without water for days and has had much of its electricity knocked out, leading to evacuations of families and soldiers after Hurricane Helene.
The Army base in Augusta was closed down on Sunday following the storm, meaning no one who doesn’t work or live there is permitted on post. The base’s hospital has also been mostly evacuated amid issues with flooding and access to clean water.
“We’re tangling with two challenges: power and water,” Maj. Gen. Ryan Janovic, the installation’s commander, told Military.com in an interview on Tuesday. “It’s going to take some time to recalibrate systems and quality of life and safety here.”
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Janovic estimated the base would remain closed until at least Friday when utilities are expected to be brought back online.
Trainees at the installation, which houses some of the Army’s initial job training, will graduate next week instead of the following week as scheduled. For those soldiers, their graduation ceremonies have been canceled.
Basic trainees from Fort Jackson, South Carolina, who were set to show up at Eisenhower, were placed on hold, and their job training will be delayed. Fort Jackson has seen minimal damage from Helene and only minor power outages.
Potable water has been transported to Eisenhower from Fort Moore, Georgia, which sits more than 200 miles away on the other side of the state. The Red Cross has also been brought in to feed soldiers who have to remain on the installation. At least 27 homes have been damaged, but no soldiers or family members have been injured.
At least 130 people have died as a result of Helene’s devastating impact in the Southeast and North Carolina. Some 6,000 National Guard troops have been deployed across at least 11 states to clear roads and perform search-and-rescue missions.
Significant storms such as Helene are expected to become more frequent and severe due to the impacts of climate change. Those effects, experts and Pentagon planners have warned, will severely impact the military, both from a national security perspective with damage to land and droughts creating volatility in some regions, and on the homefront by destroying key infrastructure and causing training to grind to a halt.
A 2021 Defense Department study found that the lion’s share of its bases are at significant risk to climate hazards, particularly dangers that will become more prevalent at the end of the century. This includes many installations being in the direct path of typhoons, hurricanes, wildfires and droughts.
But those impacts are already happening. Between 2017 and 2021, more than $13 billion of damages caused by natural disasters have already hit bases across the globe. This includes in 2018 when half the structures on Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida were destroyed by Hurricane Michael, causing at least $5 billion in damages.
Most significantly, the Marine Corps’ iconic Parris Island Training Depot may need to be relocated as flooding and storms threaten to swallow the base in the coming decades.
“As extreme weather becomes commonplace, the Army must adapt its installations, acquisition programs, and training so that the Army can operate in this changing environment,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said in 2022 when the service released its report outlining the challenges it expects to face in the coming years, including flooding and storms that could severely affect training.
Related: Army Releases New Plan to ‘Mitigate’ Climate Change
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