COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Hurricane Francine quickly approached the Louisiana and Mississippi coastline as a category 3 Hurricane, leaving Columbus Air Force Base leadership with less than 24 hours to make the decision to evacuate over 200 aircraft or shelter in place.
Tech Sgt. Jason Fant, 14th Operations Support Squadron weather flight chief, rubbed his eyes after hours of studying storm tracking data for Hurricane Francine and predicted impact zones. His forecast briefing could save lives or cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to the installation if wrong. Ironically, Fant works best under pressure.
“When the National Hurricane Center drew a path for the storm, that same day I notified Wing leadership of the inbound tropical storm developing to a hurricane making landfall,” said Fant. “It allows them as the decision makers to try and make the correct decisions based on the information we provided to them.”
The final decision rests with the installation commander on whether to evacuate the entire 200+ aircraft fleet, 3,500 Airmen and their families residing on the base, or shelter in place. That decision is influenced upon the timely and accurate analysis provided by Fant and the weather team.
The wrong decision could have disastrous outcomes as the loss of aircraft or pilots could severely impact not only the base’s mission, but the wider Air Force. If equipment is destroyed by a severe weather event, it can delay the receiving units in getting new pilots and degrades their ability to execute their missions, ultimately impacting the Air Force’s overall ability to project global reach.
“This is where we make our money, a lot of effort goes into getting prepared for these weather events,” said Fant. “At 10 p.m., I’m looking at the weather; at 5 a.m., before work, I’m looking at weather. We are trying our hardest to provide the most accurate and timely information.”
The weather flight are the professionals who spend countless hours storm tracking and analyzing data specifically to help safeguard people and assets. CAFB residents are instructed to adhere to the guidelines provided by leadership and stay aware of the alerts from the CAFB Weather Facebook page, warning systems like the base giant voice and apps such as AtHoc.
“Listen to what the installation leaders have to say and then follow local procedures to stay on top of all the guidance they have,” said Fant. “The best thing is to stay informed and be proactive instead of reactive.”
Two weeks later, twenty aircraft, pilots and aircrew from Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, evacuated to CAFB in preparation for landfall of Hurricane Helene. Additional hurricanes are forecasted for the month of October and the Columbus Weather Flight will be ready to handle the pressure.