OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Nebraska -- More than 3,000 Team Offutt members have been displaced from their work centers due to flooding and are being rehoused in other facilities throughout the base.
The base starting taking-on water March 15 and within 48 hours about one-third of the installation was flooded. While displaced units wait for their new offices to be equipped, they have a location they can go to access a computer and phone.
Following the flood, to maintain mission readiness and efficiency, the 55th Communications Group immediately started to build a cyber café in the Warhawk Community Center.
“The community center was decided to be the best place to provide communications support,” said Master Sgt. Kristoffer Golden, 55th CG network infrastructure section chief. “With the size of this facility, we have been able to properly prioritize where we can put a large amount of users.”
The team has set up more than 160 work stations for displaced members to utilize.
“It is important that we provide communications support to the wing because everything requires communications across the base and providing this capability is important to mission efficiency,” said Golden. “Users are able to come in and sit down at a laptop and log in to their email, get work done and use phones.”
During the process of setting up the cyber café, the communications team was responsible for setting up tables and identifying where to place network switches to provide network connectivity.
While the cyber café is a great resource to many, the communications team is hoping their pre-flood preparations will help many Team Offutt members to be reunited with their former equipment sooner than later.
Over the weekend, the 55th CG dispatched technicians out to different facilities that are now underwater to move equipment before the flood came in.
“From Friday at noon we started talking about this flood, and throughout the weekend seeing the water rise and rise we were doing equipment removal through buildings and seeing water cover an area we were at a half hour a go,” said Tech Sgt. Daniel Wyman, 55th Communications Group cyber transport NCOIC. “It’s an act of nature, and I feel for those who were impacted by the flood but as far the mission goes we are going to continue operations.”