possessions. but i do believe that tyndall air force base will be rebuilt, it will be a modern air force base of the future. and the reason it won t be shut down, it is a critical mission right there next to the gulf testing and training range, which is the largest testing range for the u.s. military in the world. were all the u.s. air force aircraft evacuated, flown out in advance? no. and i m not allowed to give you the number that remained. but there will be varying degrees of damage. some of the hangars were severely damaged. we ll have to see about the f-22s, the t-38s and the f-16s that were there. it will be up to the experts to determine how much damage and the repairs. why didn t they fly those planes out?
door conducting searches. local officials say many residents are still unaccounted for, but they believe much of this is due to lack of communications. the storm took out at least one major cellular network and even people with working phones are having trouble keeping them charged because of the wide steady power outagings. widespread power outages. this is especially true in mexico beach which sustained a direct hit. even structures that survived the extreme winds suffered extensive water damage from storm surge. air force officials say nearby tindall air force base suffered widespread, catastrophic damage they re calling it. although they evacuated approximately 50 f-22 fighter jets in advance, some planes had to be left behind in hangars because of maintenance issues m all of the hangars suffered damage, so base officials believe some of the aircraft at least may be damaged as well. tindall air force base remains closed. it is simply not safe enough for our people to return.
vibrant beach town. the houses that survived, shredded to their studs. we re alive. we re okay. reporter: two were rescued in an airy that could only be reached by black hawk. more than a dozen dead and officials fear they ll not gain access to areas unreachable. at tindall air force base, catastrophic damage. rufs ripped off airplane hang hangars, a fighter jet flipped over. all 3,100 safe after evacuating the storm. in panama city the lights are out, convoys roing.
ellis, what more can you tell us from there? reporter: hey, so we have been in this area, mayrion county, a we have spoken to people more inland, about an hour and a half from myrtle beach, whether they are from this area or have come here because they had to evacuate places near the coast like myrtle beach, the thing we keep hearing from people is this storm has not been as treacherous as they were expecting, but here where we are now, this is a spot that clearly took a hit. this is the most structural damage we have seen since we have been out here the past couple of days. this is the marion county airport. you can see damage to a couple of helicopters over here, lying there on the ground. next to it, you can see hangars that have been completely destroyed. if we walk a little bit across this parking lot, you can see some of what the wind did. officials have said this is
rain and flooding rain as well. let s look at the wind gusts. we are looking at the winds gusting up to 58 miles per hour, but we will see these winds move onshore as we head throughout the next few hours. by sundown tonight, that s when we re going to see things picking up. thank you very much. i want to bring in now major general brian mckiernan and acting senior commander of fort bragg, obviously also in the path of this storm. major general, thank you for being with us here. you can hear me okay? good morning, hallie. ky hear you fine, and thank you for having me on. 80 apache helicopters have been moved out of fort bragg. what else is being done to protect our military? talk about how important that is. so thanks for the question, and we did take some precautions with respect to moving aircraft out of the area. i would emphasize also that we retained some capabilities here with our helicopters and put them in hangars that can