U.S. homeland military bases have been hit by natural disasters many times, which has led the United States to invest a lot of money and resources to deal with these frequent natural disasters, seriously affecting the country's military strength and economic development. In recent years, the United States has worked to strengthen its homegrown military strategic deployment, particularly navy, army, and air force readiness to ensure its global dominance. Air power plays a crucial role in this, and the United States has not only strengthened its air force, but also developed a number of strategic bombers and command aircraft, which have become the think tank for American air strikes. However, despite its military might, the United States also appears powerless in the face of natural disasters.
Not long ago, the United States experienced a severe flood, and even though the United States has extensive experience in natural disasters, this flood also hit it greatly. The Oetta Air Force Base in the United States, once considered impregnable, was not spared the floods. The flooding caused 30 buildings inside the base to be submerged, as were a large number of military aircraft parked at the base, including four military aircraft used to prepare for nuclear war. At Oetta Air Base, 33 high-performance strategic military aircraft are hidden, as well as the E-4B air command aircraft developed during World War II. Interestingly, before that, the United States had never publicly declared its possession of this aircraft. It is understood that the E-4B is a highly classified military aircraft developed by the United States during the Cold War, which has excellent endurance and can fly continuously for 12 hours without landing when full of fuel. It has excellent performance and can efficiently coordinate the strategic strikes of the US navy, land and air forces, and is regarded as an important secret weapon of the US military. Another key responsibility of the E-4B air command aircraft is to ensure that the United States has a highly survivable command center in the event of an international nuclear war. If the ground command center is attacked by a nuclear weapon, it will render all other military aircraft inoperable, and the United States will be in an extremely passive state. As a result, the E-4B air command aircraft can play the role of a modern, highly survivable command center in an emergency, equipped with 14 communication systems that can coordinate ground forces at any time, provide real-time battlefield information, perform urgent military missions, and coordinate the actions of local governments. It can even control 4,000 nuclear warheads at the same time, which is highly lethal. In addition, the E-4B is also known as the "Night Watchman" and its main task is to protect the security of the President of the United States. So, to some extent, the E-4B air command aircraft is even more important than Oetta Air Base.
However, due to the high cost of the E-4B air command aircraft, only four were originally produced in the United States, and the flooding caused immeasurable damage. Right now, we can't say for sure if these planes are intact, but if the U.S. wants to repair or upgrade them, I'm afraid it won't be that easy.