Tyndall progress report

PANAMA CITY, Fla. — Tyndall Air Force Base is undertaking most of its missions again and is planning repairs - designing and demolition work - 11 months after Category 5 Hurricane Michael. During the third Industry Day event at Florida State University-Panama City, Tyndall officials gave updates on rebuilding. Col. Brian Laidlow, commander of the 325th Fighter Wing, said airmen have implemented temporary fixes to bring missions back online. "Today at Tyndall we’re doing nearly all of our pre-storm missions. We’re doing it with about 80 percent of our people and we’re doing it at only half of our facilities because that’s all that survived.” Permanent repairs, planning and pre-design, demolition and design work are underway, according to a presented timeline. Permanent construction is expected to go into fiscal year 2024. Tyndall will get up to three squadrons of F-35s starting in 2023 and remains the “preferred alternative” as the future home of 24 MQ-9 remotely piloted aircraft, Laidlaw said. (Source: Panama City News Herald, 09/12/19)