Video shows alleged Tyndall trespassers after Hurricane Michael

[Ben Holcomb]

4 storm chasers allegedly trespassed on Tyndall Air Force Base during/after Hurricane Michael and were smart enough to post video of the encounter. Now apparently it's caught the attention of the news and the military police.

Video shows alleged Tyndall trespassers after Hurricane Michael

 

[Douglas Kiesling]

My friends in Florida saw this story and sent it to me yesterday. I emailed Dan about this last night to give him a heads up about this when it finally did break and get posted on ST.

Apparently this is a major $#!T storm within the local and Military community around Tyndall and the the feds investigating it now.

 

[Brett Roberts]

I vaguely remember a group of chasers (likely the ones who appear in the video) openly posting about seeking shelter on the base during the landfall last fall, so I'm surprised it's an issue now, if nothing came of it then.

That being said, I think their biggest transgression is posting footage of entering the base via a gate that's clearly unmanned. Without knowing all the circumstances, I don't necessarily fault them much for entering the base to find shelter. But to post that footage publicly is to advertise to the world that security was nonexistent at the base. This was either: 1) a conscious decision on the part of military personnel, who likely assumed no one would be insane enough to put themselves there during those conditions; or 2) a result of someone responsible for security abandoning their post (very unlikely, IMO). Either way, given how serious security is for any military facility, advertising this situation understandably creates big problems.

If the chasers had just done the bare minimum to find adequate shelter (perhaps filming for their own records) and then posted snippets that didn't make the situation on the base so obvious, I doubt it would be a newsworthy issue. Perhaps nothing will come of it anyway, but in my view, after seeing the video, they did just about everything they could to make themselves a target for scrutiny by people whose attention you'd rather not attract. Probably another good reminder for everyone to think seriously in advance about the consequences of sharing footage online that depicts anything sensitive or illegal... it's usually a needless risk if it doesn't directly involve extreme weather.

 

[Tony Laubach]

Of course, you gotta wonder if this is a security issue, cause now footage exists of people easily getting onto a base during/after a natural disaster and someone with really bad intentions can pose as a chaser and waltz onto a base like these guys did cause now it's pretty known via that video how easy such an act would be.