Driving through Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico

Just a short drive south of Fajardo on the east coast of Puerto Rico outside the town of Ceiba is the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station. It was the largest naval station by land mass in the world. Roosevelt Roads consists of 31,000 acres: 8,600 acres on the island of Puerto Rico and 22,400 acres on Vieques Island, seven and a half miles Southeast of the main station.

President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the construction of the facility in 1940. It was completed in 1943 and Roosevelt Roads was commissioned as a U.S. Naval Operations Base. It served as both a training facility and base for Navy ships and aircraft during Word War II.

You'll find in Roosevelt Roads an 11,000-foot runway, 9 piers, a water treatment plant, 4 sewage treatment plants, 110 miles of road, 42 miles of oceanfront, and 1,340 buildings.

For several years after the war, Roosevelt Roads languished and was closed down seven different times. Then in 1955, as Cold War tensions increased, Roosevelt Roads became the site for the establishment of the Atlantic Fleet Guided Missile Training Center, and was redesignated as Roosevelt Roads in 1957, consisting of an airfield, Surface Operations and an industrial complex.

Roosevelt Roads once supported over 17,000 people including: 3,000 active duty military, 2,500 family members, 3,850 civilian employees and over 7,990 retired military. It contributed an estimated $250 million per year to the economy of Puerto Rico.

In 1999, David Sanes, a civilian employed as a gate security guard by the US Navy, died from a stray bomb while observing a routine exercise. As a consequence of this and the high rate of cancer among residents of Vieques many Vieques citizens and Puerto Rican activists from other towns began activism against the military presence in Vieques. An agreement between the Clinton Administration and the Government of Puerto Rico agreed to cease all live bombing on Vieques by March 2003. The U.S. Navy closed down the base in 2004 and the station again became inoperative.

Currently, approximately 2,900 acres of the former Naval Station is being marketed to the public by the Los Angeles group of Colliers International, on behalf of the Navy's Base Realignment and Closure Program Management Office, and a public auction is said to commence in the near future. The remaining portion is also in the process of being conveyed to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and other Federal agencies in various stages.

The United States Armed Forces keeps some portions of the former Roosevelt Roads Naval Base for the Reserve Component of the U.S. Army. It consists of the existing Roosevelt Roads U.S. Army Reserve Center and an Armed Forces Reserve Center that can serve 600 personnel on a rotating basis 345 service members per weekend. They also maintain a vehicle maintenance shop, storage building, weapons simulator, learning center, wash bay and parking.

Efforts were made to turn the closed naval base into an international airport and make the town of Ceiba into an economic and tourist center for eastern Puerto Rico. In 2012, the former Roosevelt Roads Naval Station was under consideration as a possible location for the SpaceX private launch site, but was not selected.

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Видео Driving through Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico канала Vic Bilson