Nearly All Damaged Airplanes Now Have Replacements

The storm-weary folks at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University note that their Daytona Beach campus "is making excellent progress in its recovery effort following the Christmas Day tornado."

As ANN documented within minutes of the actual storm, ERAU was subjected to an F2 tornado, which did "extensive damage" to the University's fleet of training airplanes and some of the Daytona Beach campus buildings. Despite the immense assault by Mother Nature upon ERAU, the university says that it is on a revised schedule to begin the spring semester only a few days later than normal... January 16th, with registration on the 14th.

The University emphasizes that this revised start date applies to the Daytona Beach campus only.

There will be some shuffling around of offices as a number of departments and facilities were destroyed in the storm, are having to relocate to other buildings. The most extensive damage and impact to the university was felt in terms of the damage done to Spruance Hall, the main administration building. ERAU explains that "the structure suffered tremendous damage and all offices are being relocated."

Thankfully; classroom facilities suffered much less damage and ERAU expects that the school will suffer no shortages of classroom space.

For those who saw the gut-wrenching Steven Abreu photos provided to Aero-News (as seen again in this story) shortly after the storm, ANN is pleased to report that while nearly 60 aircraft were tumbled and tossed by the storm, some 52 of the needed 57 airplanes (necessary to field a full training fleet) have already been acquired and long-term impact to the training programs would appear to have been averted.

FMI: www.erau.edu