Idalia made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend near Keaton Beach just before 8 a.m. Wednesday, with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph, according to reports. It was a Category 1 hurricane after briefly reaching Category 4 overnight.
Dayton-area residents may see and hear increased aircraft traffic for the next couple of days as military aircraft are flown to shelter from Idalia, the base’s 88th Air Base Wing said in a statement late Tuesday.
Planes were expected to start arriving as early as 4 p.m. Tuesday.
This is a familiar role for the base.
When 22 airplanes and about 250 Air Force personnel from Florida and South Carolina needed a haven from Hurricane Ian last October, operations and readiness personnel at Wright-Patterson did not view their visits as an interruption of their work.
Last November, aircraft from the 14th Flying Training Wing at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi were slated to fly to Wright-Patterson to seek shelter from severe weather impacting the southern states at that time, as well.
“This is the mission of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,” Maj. Hollis Troxel, director of operations of the 88th Operations Support Squadron at Wright-Patterson, told this newspaper last October. “It goes right back to the 88th Air Base Wing motto: Strength through support.”
Arrival and departure times were subject to change this week, depending on the hurricane’s future direction and movement, the base said.
It’s not just the AIr Force evacuating ahead of the storm. The Navy Times reported this week that the Navy said it started moving ships from Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Fla. Monday and would continue to do so Tuesday. Ships remaining in port were to undergo complete heavy weather mooring, and aircraft not evacuating from area airfields were to head to hangars equipped to withstand hurricane winds, the Navy said.
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