U.S. military installations and extreme weather: an Oklahoma case study on preparation

ABSTRACT

The readiness and execution of national security missions by The United States Department of Defense (DoD) hinges on military installations being equipped with infrastructure that can support the actions needed to protect the U.S., including extreme weather responses. Extreme weather threatens human lives, property, and military operations nationally. Thus, it is paramount to mitigate these impacts and improve preparedness. Oklahoma is home to five federal military installations, all of which are susceptible to hazardous weather, such as severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, and flooding. At a local level, hazardous weather events can be quite costly in a variety of ways, including disrupting operations, causing economic losses, and leading to injuries. This case study examines the preparedness and impacts of extreme weather events as well as climate change considerations at two Oklahoma military installations (Tinker Air Force Base and Fort Sill). Interviews and a focus group revealed weather-related decisions at these installations were unit-specific and dependent on the weather event. These installations have both short- and long-term preparedness plans for different weather scenarios. The impacts of these weather events ranged from delays/cancellations of training to installation closures. Lastly, climate considerations from DoD have been, and continue to be, included in planning. This study highlights the nuances across different military installations as a function of their differing roles; there is not a ‘one size fits all’ preparedness plan that will work across the board. Further, there is much room to improve military-civilian collaboration to mitigate the effects of extreme weather events and climate change on military installations and their operations.

KEYWORDS:

• Decision-making
• extreme weather events
• military installations
• weather preparedness
• weather impacts

Acknowledgments

The authors thank officials in the military installations in Oklahoma who participated in the study, and the research team at the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High Impact Weather Research and Operations (CIWRO). The authors also thank Drs. Christopher Fiebrich, Randy Peppler, and Joshua Hatzis for their feedback, guidance, and support. Finally, the researchers thank the reviewers who provided deeply thoughtful and insightful feedback to strengthen the content of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

This study received approval from the University of Oklahoma Institutional Review Board (IRB) to collect human subjects’ data. In line with that approval, only researchers identified in the IRB package have access to the data collected.

Notes

1 OK-First (Oklahoma’s First-response Information Resource System using Telecommunications) is an outreach program of the Oklahoma Mesonet that provides Oklahoma’s public safety community with weather education and access to critical real-time weather data (http://www.mesonet.org/index.php/okfirst/about_ok-first).

2 Participants were asked to focus their responses on weather events occurring during the period 2015 to 2019, the five-year period preceding the disruptions experienced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, 2019 was the fifth consecutive year where more than ten billion-dollar weather and climate events impacted the U.S., making it a potentially salient and easily recalled time period for participants to recollect recent events, decisions and impacts.

3 The 557th Weather Wing delivers worldwide weather products to Air Force and Army warfighters, unified commands, National Programs and the National Command Authorities. In addition, the wing provides twenty-four hour technical assistance on all standard weather systems and equipment (https://www.557weatherwing.af.mil/Units/557th-Weather-Wing/).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in the form of a Research Assistantship by NOAA’s Office of Atmospheric Research [grant number NA16OAR4320115].