WASHINGTON – The Navy’s T-45 trainer jets based at Naval Air Station Kingsville came out of the storm without damage, base spokesman Kevin Clarke said.

Hurricane Harvey came ashore late Friday night as a Category 4 storm. It made a late turn in course, however, and the worst part of the storm made landfall about 60 miles north of the Navy base. 

Both Rockport and the nearby city of Port Aransas, which took direct hits from Harvey, suffered devastating damage to infrastructure.

A day before the storm hit, Kingsville said it had evacuated all of the jets that were airworthy or had a qualified pilot available to fly. Only 28 of the 99 were able to depart, though. The remaining 71 rode out the storm in base hangars.

“The safety of Navy personnel was the priority,” said Cmdr. Jeannie Groeneveld, spokesman for Naval Air Forces. “The aircraft that were left behind and put in the hangar in Kingsville required maintenance to be able to fly; we were not going to put personnel in harm’s way to conduct maintenance on the aircraft.”

Groeneveld said some of the 71 aircraft were also undergoing depot-level maintenance, which is performed on-site at Kingsville.

“None of those aircraft would have been in a position to fly,” Groeneveld said. 

All aircraft are accounted for and are undamaged, Clarke said, and Naval Station Kingsville was on the receiving end of “only very superficial damage,” he said. “We never lost electricity.”

Clarke said the 28 jets that were relocated will be returning once lingering weather associated with the now-downgraded Tropical Storm Harvey, which is dumping up to 50 inches of rain in southeast Texas, dissipates.

Groeneveld said 50 T-6 and T-44 trainer aircraft from nearby Naval Air Station Corpus Christi also ended up riding out the storm in base hangars. 

“It is common to hangar aircraft when weather risks require evacuation or essential personnel only for safety reasons,” Groeneveld said. 

Tara Copp is a Pentagon correspondent for the Associated Press. She was previously Pentagon bureau chief for Sightline Media Group.

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