Patrick SFB Express Suffers Damage, but Florida Exchanges Mostly Appear to Have Escaped Hurricane Milton’s Wrath

A waterspout spawned by Hurricane Milton touched down near the Patrick Space Force Base Express, causing major roof damage. But early indications are that most Exchange on the Florida peninsula escaped the worst of the storm.
As of Thursday afternoon, MacDill Air Force Base was still closed and there was no word of when it was open. MacDill in in Tampa, which was originally forecast to take a direct hit from Milton. But the storm took a right turn and made landfall as a category 2 Thursday evening in Sarasota, about 60 miles south of Tampa.
The storm continued east across the Florida peninsula, with high winds, flash flooding and storm surges on both coasts remaining concerns.
According to South East Area Vice President Tony Pares, MacDill recon teams are reporting no flood damage to Exchange facilities. The Exchange team expects to be able to fully assess damage at some point Friday.
Original indications were that Patrick, on the Atlantic coast, had suffered little damage. But later Thursday, Pares reported the damage to the Express roof, where the waterspout torn off dozens of shingles and strew them into the parking lot and areas surround the store.
Exchange teams have not been allowed inside the store to see if there was further damage. The Express’ gas pumps are in good shape but there was some damage to the canopy. The base is closed until further notice.
The SOUTHCOM and Homestead AFB Exchanges, both farther south, are in good shape and are ready to reopen Friday.
The Shades of Green store at Walt Disney World near Orlando has remained open—and had a 60% increase in sales on Wednesday. The store is in an Army MWR-run hotel for military families, who brought in the extra business when Walt Disney World and nearby attractions were closed because of the hurricane.
Milton hit Florida a little more than a week after Hurricane Helene, which caused flooding in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area and affected several Exchanges in the southeastern United States. The close timing of the two hurricanes created some lingering fuel issues in Florida and Georgia.
During a Disaster Support Group meeting Thursday morning, Vice President of Fuel Steven Davalos said that MacDill, Patrick and Homestead are the current top-priority sites for fuel. Fuel terminal closures have prevented deliveries to those stores but the Exchange is poised to act when it’s able to.
Davalos said that a carrier left Birmingham, Alabama, Thursday morning and would probably stage in Jacksonville on Thursday night. “Once road conditions and any other emergency conditions are cleared, allowing the driver to proceed, the first load Friday will go to either Patrick or MacDill—preferably MacDill, if we’re able to,” he said.
Fort Stewart and Robins AFB, both affected by Helene last week, saw increased fuel demand this week because many evacuees from Florida came to the installations. Davalos said that inventory at Robins look good but Fuel hasn’t been able to deliver as many loads a day to Stewart as it would like.
Planning, Allocation and Replenishment (PAR), transportation and Dan Daniel Distribution Center teams were standing by to help. PAR has already completed two requests from MacDill for additional support.
On Thursday, DDDC was loading a trailer to fulfill a supplemental request for MacDill as well as a trailer for a regular freight delivery. But delivery time was still to be determined because of storm conditions. Additional trailers are available for emergency relief if necessary.
Seven mobile field Exchanges (MFEs) are available for support if requested. One MFE is currently at Fort Eisenhower, where it was sent last week to support the community after Hurricane Helene. Because Eisenhower is in Georgia, the MFE cane be moved to any of the Florida installations on short notice. Another MFE is at the Waco Distribution Center, prepared for short-notice deployment to Florida.
The Disaster Support Group (DSG) is scheduled to meet again Friday morning for updates on how the storm affected the Exchange. The DSG, headed by Vice President/Contingency Plans Roger Neumann, is a team of worldwide Exchange leaders that monitors weather and other world events to help keep every level of the organization prepared for storms and responsive to contingency situations.